Cinders of Glass by Celeste Baxendell
Fairytale. 722 Pages. 4 Stars
Synopsis:
Traitors don’t fall in love with princes, and they don’t live happily ever after.
Liora doesn’t have much left in life, but someone has to run the stall in the market that sells her stepfamily’s enchanted matches. Liora is willing to do anything for family; it’s not very exciting—until the royal family visits the market and everything changes.
Liora is just grateful that Prince Cynrik doesn’t remember her. The best thing for her and her stepfamily is to stay far away from the royals. But when Prince Cynrik asks for her help, how can she say no? But if she fails to keep her identity hidden, how far will the royal family go this time?
Prince Cynrik has a carefully crafted reputation, and it has never once failed him… up until it causes his brother to threaten him with an arranged marriage. The only way out of it is to prove he’s capable of doing something useful; the catch is he has to do it alone.
When a freak accident seems to be not-so-accidental, getting help can’t hurt as long as his brother doesn’t find out about it. Besides, who would imagine that a prince would need the help of a girl who sold matches to solve a conspiracy? And… just how deep does it go?
My Review:
The cover for this is so pretty, but even more than that what drew me to this book was that it was a mashup of Cinderella and The Little Match Girl. I loved the unique twist on our beloved Cinderella with one of the lesser-known fairytales. It kept me guessing and wondering how heavily she’d draw from either story—cause if y’all don’t know, Little Match Girl is tragic!
Baxendell drew elements from each of the fairytales and balanced the two really well, in my opinion. I loved the origin of the slippers in this one! It was so sweet and felt more meaningful to me than many other versions. The matches played a really strategic role in the story, too, and it was neat to see those fleshed out and woven into the story. (I also really liked that her stepsister was an enchantress, that was super cool!) She also drew heavily on the idea of invisibility from the Little Match Girl story, which was an interesting element to Liora’s (love her name!!) character and created a cool dynamic in the classic Cinderella role. I like how Baxendell chose the elements that served her story, but didn’t box herself in trying to add every little thing from the originals. It was a faithful retelling, while still feeling like something fresh and different.
In terms of the plot, my favorite parts were those connected to the mystery that Cynrik and Liora worked to solve. The intrigue behind the attacks was what made the plot strong. I was totally in the characters, even in spite of some of the issues I had with the book. I’ve not read anything from the author previously, but I’m definitely curious to dig more into her other books, especially in this world.
I did have a difficult time defining the some of the relationship dynamics, which pulled me out of the story and made it a little hard to follow in some places. For example, it was hard to grasp the dynamic between Liora and her family when they were first introduced. I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to believe they were good or suspect they were bad and more importantly I was confused by Liora’s reaction to them. I didn’t really understand her. I mean, I get the whole ‘family is everything’ rhetoric (it was clearly stated several times throughout the story), but I didn’t understand Liora’s processing the first time we saw her family and that made it hard to understand her throughout the first half of the story. She was terrified in her bodily reactions, but mentally she said they were so loving and made excuses. Some of this, I can understand from an abused perspective is just that she isn’t aware, but I wish there had been a clearer understanding of what we were supposed to believe and what Liora herself thought in those specific situations.
Another example lays between Cynrik and his family. Like with Liora’s family, I wasn’t really sure how I was supposed to feel about them or how I did truly feel about them because I spent so much time trying to puzzle the relationship dynamics out. Even by the end I had just wished it had been clearer from the beginning so I could decide if I was right or wrong about them. I didn’t love Liora’s stepfamily, but Marlena was so sweet. I’m not really happy about the way her line resolved and I’d wished for something better there, but I imagine the author is setting something else up. I’m also guessing Vesma will pop up again in the future, but I just have to say I hated how she said “dear girl” from the beginning. It grated on my nerves so much! Maybe it was because it was used so frequently, but it was so cringy and not once gave me the illusion of genuineness. As for Cynrik’s family. Man, they were pretty messed up. Like a lot. I’m curious how they’re portrayed in other books or if this is just Cynrik’s pov, but they were harsh. I didn’t love them.
Dione was fun and I wanted to see more of her story. It would be cool to go from her perspective and see Ailos in a different light, too I think. Liliana was so chipper that she kind of got on my nerves a little, but I guess since I was told multiple times she was the family favorite that she was okay? She didn’t really seem to have a lot of compassion for Cynrik. None of the family did. It was like they tried to act like a family but didn’t quite know how. It was odd. I guessed enough of Cynrik’s past to figure out he wasn’t an angel, but there was some strange dysfunction in those dynamics regardless.
But even through this point, I still really enjoyed the book.
My biggest issues with the book were actually issues I believe could really be resolved with another editing pass. I think the story could really be tightened up, more concise, and more poignant—and therefore shine brighter and be more impactful. This story has a lot of potential.
Let me be clear, it wasn’t poorly written by any means, but there are things that could be improved that did make the book a little less awesome than it could be. There was some repetition in the writing and redundancy in a few areas. The pacing was a little askew, but I think that was likely mostly due to the repetitive areas. There was some convoluted back and forth with the manipulation and trust and deceit that got a little more complicated than necessary, and a few slower plot sections that drug on a bit. And there were a few things thematically and internally that I thought could have been shown better. We were told a lot of beliefs over and over that got a little old.
Thematically, the book is a little confusing, but I liked the light and darkness and how Baxendell parsed through the idea of perfect people, self-worth, love, sacrifice, etc. There were points where things felt a little convoluted and maybe like she tried to focus on too many areas instead of honing in on one. The story talked about family but it also talked about being alive and about being lovable and instalove vs. developing and working at love and being walked over and being manipulative and selfish and right and wrong and… a few other things. So, we covered a lot of ground and it created some of that redundancy as well as that confusion.
But, again, I did really like the characters—despite feeling a little beat over the head with thematic statements repeatedly—and I was 100% bought in. I wanted to know what happened and how things ended. I wanted to unravel the mystery. They were a lil dramatic every now and then, but for the most part, I really enjoyed watching their relationship unfold. I liked how it grew over time and felt more realistic because of that.
Overall, I was thoroughly invested—ask my friends—I disappeared for a day or two to chug through this beast of a book. It’s longer than it needs to be, but even still I think it was worth the read. And I hope to see the author continue to grow her craft in future books.
Content: no swearing, and for the most part, nongraphic violence. A little aggression here or there a few assassination attempts, a few wounds, quite a few insults, some emotional abuse and lots of manipulation. Quite a bit of self-loathing. There’s a lot in there thematically to look at. And there are a few romantic touches and implications since Cynrik is a bit of a flirt, but nothing explicit or vulgar. It’s not squeaky clean, but it’s not particularly inappropriate either. I’d probably recommend 16+
More:
The first book in the Bewitching Fairy Tales series is Stalks of Gold
Book 2 is Mirrors of Ice
Book 3 is Beasts of Beauty
I haven’t read any of the other books by the author, but you can click the links above to learn more on Goodreads! It is my understanding that these can be read as standalones, but there are crossover characters.