Just Finished Reading...Hunter's Moon by Sophie Masson. Sydney: RHA,2015

                                                           

Bianca Dalmatin wants for nothing. As the heir to a department store empire and stepdaughter of the beautiful Lady Belladonna, the only thing Bianca longs for is a friend. It seems that her wish is granted at the Duke's Presentation Ball when she meets the handsome, mysterious Lucian Montresor. 

But after the Mirror newspaper names Bianca as Lepmest's new Fairest Lady, the true nature of her stepmother is revealed. Belladonna tells Bianca the shocking news that Bianca's father is dying – and, when Bianca races to be by his side, Belladonna sends her faithful servant to kill her. 

Who is friend and who is enemy? Plunged into a terrifying world that will turn her from a daughter of privilege to a hunted creature in fear of her life, Bianca must find allies if she is to survive – and if she is to expose Belladonna for who she really is...

This is Sophie Masson's Snow White novel, set in the same universe as her Cinderella novel, Moonlight And Ashes, in the Faustine Empire, in the same Victorian/Edwardian era, with telegrams and steamers. There are also trams, presumably horse drawn. Her Snow White, Bianca, is the daughter of "The King Of Elegance" instead of a regular king. The Mirror is a newspaper instead of an actual mirror, though there is a reference to it in the fashion show at the beginning. There is definitely magic involved as well as technology, there's a Prince of a kind and there's even that glass coffin, though I won't tell you more, because spoilers ...

Like Moonlight And Ashes it starts with the fairytale and continues past that. Unlike Ms Masson's Cinderella, Selena, whom you know will be strong right from the beginning, Bianca starts as an ordinary teenage girl who admires her beautiful and elegant stepmother, Belladonna, right up till the lady tries to have her killed. In the course of the novel, she realises that she needs to be stronger if she is to defeat Belladonna, and does some good investigation of the mystery behind the woman who snared her father. She makes some huge mistakes - mistakes that can get people killed, not only herself but the truly wonderful friends she has made along the way, but somehow her very klutziness results in a better outcome than if she had done the sensible thing. 

Young readers of this may be a little disappointed in some of the romance elements but all I can say is that there were hints early on and it all works out in the end. 

This is my second fairytale adaptation reading of the last week, by another of Australia's top fairytale adapters. I wonder if there's anything new by Juliet Marillier in the fairytale area? Hmm...

MOONLIGHT AND ASHES By Sophie Masson. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2012

Once upon a time there was a girl whose mother died and father remarried. Her stepmother, who had her own daughters, was very cruel and made the girl work in the kitchen. They called her Cinderella because she sat among the ashes in the kitchen...

We all know the beginning of this fairy tale, and, of course, that she goes to the ball, meets a handsome prince and so on. And there are many versions of it across many cultures, including a Native American version. Sophie Masson has used the Brothers Grimm story, Ashputtel, rather than Charles Perrault’s Cendrillon, which is the one most of us know, including the pumpkin coach and fairy godmother. Ashputtel, and Sophie Masson’s heroine, Selena, use a hazel tree connected with her mother’s grave, and a bird. And Selena comments wryly that she has to get to the ball on foot!

This novel includes the cruel stepmother and sisters, the weak father who doesn’t defend his child and the ball at the palace, but this is only a jumping-off place for the main story. In Ashberg, a part of the Empire, magic has been suppressed for all but an organization known as the Mancers, since a rebellion a century before nearly killed the Emperor. Anyone remotely suspected of being magical, whether a werewolf or a “moon-sister”, is collected by the Mancers and never seen again. And Selena’s mother was a secret moon-sister. 

When she arrives at the ball, the Prince is not as wonderful as he is supposed to be and, trying to escape him, she meets his best friend Max, a much nicer young man. When both of them end up in the Mancers’ prison, they find themselves escaping across country with a female werewolf, a Mancer child and a huge young man in whose barge they have hidden. But Max has his own secret and Selena finds herself being forced to do something she doesn’t want to do, in order to save his life...

This isn’t the first fairy tale Sophie Masson has used as the base for one of her enchanting novels. Clementine, for example, set Sleeping Beauty during the French Revolution and a century later. My own favourite, Cold Iron, took the British version of Cinderella, Tattercoats, and set it in Elizabethan England, mixing in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night Dream. This novel is set in an imaginary country, but the era is nineteenth century. There are newspapers and photographs and steam trains. 

And it works. Selena (appropriate name for a young “moon sister”) is not the passive Cinderella of the fairy tales. She stays in that house both because her dying mother made her promise not to leave her father and because, without money, she knows she won’t get far before she’s caught and dragged back. When she is alone and having to plan ahead, she shows intelligence and courage.

It’s interesting, really, how much like Cinderella the current paranormal romance  is. You know - ordinary teenage girl meets gorgeous paranormal guy, falls in love and is rewarded by his return of her love. That, or she saves his life and finds out she is the Chosen One and then he falls in love with her. But Selena is a believably strong heroine and while there’s a hint of Chosen One, she has to put up with an awful lot before things work out for her, and she’s only Chosen because there’s nobody else available at the time.

I finished this in a couple of hours, being caught up in the almost non-stop action and delighted by the beauty of the language. Yet it’s easy, comfortable reading and should appeal to girls from about fourteen up.