Review
The fairy tale "mash-up" genre - in which multiple fairy tale stories, themes, or characters are combined into one new and original tale - can be delightful when it's done well or derivative when it's done carelessly. When it's done playfully and inventively - as it is in Alethea Kontis's novel,
Enchanted - the results can be simply, well, enchanting.
Sunday Woodcutter is the seventh daughter born to her parents - who are each a seventh son and a seventh daughter respectively - and so, as any fairy tale aficionado could tell you, she is destined for great things. However, Sunday - who tends to look at the world through less rosy lenses - sees things differently: "I am doomed to a happy life," she writes in the novel's opening sentence. With six older sisters (Monday through Saturday, of course) whose dramas overshadow her own quiet talents, it's easy for Sunday to...
Beyond the Book
As readers enjoy
Enchanted, they're exposed to dozens of fairy tale-inspired plot points, some of which are instantly recognizable while others are less familiar. For readers who are inspired to go back to the source of these stories, there are few better resources for fairy tales of all sorts than Andrew Lang's famous Fairy Books.
Andrew Lang was a novelist, critic, and anthropologist born in Scotland in 1844 and is now chiefly known for his Fairy Books. Twelve of these books - each of which is known by the color of its jacket - were published between 1889 and 1910,...
