Valia Lind spins a beautiful retelling of the classic Cinderella story with a delightful Russian twist in her stand alone novel “The Golden Slipper.”
Miraslava’s homelife is far from perfect, what with her stepmother and all, but she has no intention of her situation being permanent. With the help of her best friend and her family, she is earning what she needs to strike out on her own. However, there is this nuisance of a boy popping up everywhere, who seems far too happy and kind to be genuine and is making it hard to want to leave.
Reading level: Young Adult
Spiciness: 🔥
Relationships: 💗💗💗💗
Language: 🚫
Plot: 📖📖📖📖
Character Development: 🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
Spoilers!
Typically, Cinderella stories are more or less the same. Girl has a poor homelife, meets Boy, they fall for each other and Boy has no clue who she is. It is a classic plot line. However, most of the time it tends to feel stale. Valia Lind’s more Russian retelling is a breath of fresh air for this well known stereotype.
She has made the damsel in distress a competent, capable young woman with a good head on her shoulders and a low tolerance for foolishness. Yet she is still a feminine, kind soul for all her solid dependableness.
She then took the Prince Charming stereotype, with the personality of a saltine cracker, and gave him a life of his own with feelings and ambitions all without sacrificing his masculinity.
The romance is also well written. When a writer focuses on the plot, the relationships between characters are often a bit stunted. Lind does an excellent job of writing a novel with a beautifully written romance that focuses on the relationship between the characters and not on their sexual compatibility. This, along with the almost non existent cuss words can be a welcome change for some fantasy readers.
Her pairing is a classic grumpy and sunshine story with enough plot to keep the reader engaged and invested in the outcome. Lind’s use of Russian folklore adds a whole new dimension to the story as the main romantic plot is skillfully interwoven with the world's plot. Well known figures from Russian folklore, such as Baba-Yaga, Leshy, and Kot-Bayun are among the characters populating the magical world of Skazka, with the goal of helping or hindering Miraslava.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐
I am a huge fantasy and folklore nerd and was thrilled to stumble across this in my recommended list on Kindle. I have since read other books by her and my favorites are definitely those set in her "Skazka Fairy Tales" series. The Golden Slipper however, seems to be staying at the top of my favorites list.
The aspect of her writing that I find so appealing is the fact that her heroines are strong and capable, yet they do not lose their femininity. They can deal with whatever is thrown at them, but they are not above a good cry and there is none of the stereotypical hatred of dresses and feminine things.
The same is true for her male characters. They are sensitive and smart, but they are not mindless drones who only exist to be a love interest. They are just as well developed as their female counterparts and are still masculine. Which is sadly a growing anomaly in more modern fiction.
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