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Swept Away: A Fairwilde Reflection Regency Fairy Tale
by Vanessa Riley - This was described as a Regency retelling of the Cinderella story with a twist, and had quite a few positive reviews, so I took a chance on it. It started out with a fair bit of promise, but as I got further along the problems began to annoy me more. More about that in a moment - first, a quick summary of the plot.
Charlotte Downing is the Duchess of Charming, and she is determined to have the beautiful fairy slippers on display at Ella's Establishment for her presentation to the queen. Edwin Cinder is the handsome merchant that owns Ella's, and despite his attraction to Charlotte, he has no intention of giving up those shoes, and he knows that he hasn't got the pedigree to win the hand of a duchess. Circumstances throw the two together at a ball held in the home of Edwin's stepfather, when disaster strikes and the building begins to collapse. Edwin will risk everything to save Charlotte's life, but isn't sure he can risk his heart by declaring his feelings for her.
As you can see, this story reverses the roles of Cinderella and her prince in some ways. Edwin does have stepbrothers that are quite undesirable, but has a very good relationship with his stepfather. Charlotte starts out spoiled and defensive, proudly determined to be completely independent and never allow a man to control her. In short, not very likable, and it was rather unclear why Edwin was attracted to her - except that she's beautiful. Edwin is very honorable and wealthy, but because he is not heir to a title, he feels unworthy to pursue Charlotte. His reluctance on that basis is understandable, but in some ways is inconsistent with the rest of his character.
The book would have been better presented as a novella, because it is rather short. In fact, it shows as having thirteen chapters, but only the first eight tell the story. Chapter Nine is an author's note, which mentions some of the research into the time period. It seemed to me that it was the author's justification for using an epic storm as the device to collapse the building where Charlotte and Edwin were. I found the event and the description of their efforts to escape difficult to believe, even if she could point to a hurricane-like storm that was recorded in England during her story's time-frame. Chapter Ten is a Glossary, with less than twenty terms, and the definitions were quite unnecessary. Chapters Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen are excerpts from the author's other books. I was less than impressed with the book I had just finished, and not at all inclined to read anything else she had written.
Unfortunately, the quality of the writing seemed to diminish as I got further into the book. It appeared as though the author was trying much too hard to write creative descriptions, and much of the narrative was overdone and awkward at best. reminding me of a young child trying to use big words that they don't completely understand. Some descriptions didn't even make sense, such as a "spark surging through" someone - it isn't the nature of a spark to "surge" in my experience. I almost stopped reading completely when I came to a sentence that was apparently trying to describe the sound Charlotte's gown made as she walked - "the bleating of her beaded gown". What??? I don't even know what word she was looking for! Bleating is the sound sheep make and I can't imagine that a beaded gown would sound anything like that under any conditions. Several incorrect word usages were present as well, such as "fair" when "fare" would clearly be the correct word.
Perhaps this is Riley's first published novel, and if so, I hope that her style has improved. The story she presented had a lot of promise and was indeed a very interesting twist on the Cinderella tale. It's unfortunate that careless editing and awkward writing spoiled my enjoyment of this light romance.
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