#17 The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C Hines

344 pages, Fantasy

Did you ever wonder what happened to your favorite Disney princesses after their happily ever afters? Especially if those princesses were kind of frisky and warrior babe-esque? No? Well, you aren't alone. I have no idea what possessed me to pick this book up at the library, but something about it intrigued me.

The Stepsister Scheme is the story of Princess Danielle's (aka Cinderella) quest to find her kidnapped husband, Prince Armand. The prince and princess had been enjoying their life as newlyweds, Cinderella trying to learn as quickly as possible how to be a 'proper' princess when the unthinkable happens. Cinderella's evil stepsisters have ensorcelled her beloved prince and taken him away to the Kingdom of the Fairies. With the assistance of Snow (Snow White, naturally) and Talia (Sleeping Beauty), special helpers/assassins hired by Armand's mother, Danielle vows to find her husband and rescue him from her stepsisters' evil clutches.

The story is complicated by the fact that, although Danielle loves her husband, love is not enough to conquer all and triumph in this fairy tale world. She has no skills to track him, defend herself or discover the kind of magic that has him bound. In fact, she initially seems to be without any useful skills whatsoever. Here is where her cohorts come in handy.

The reader quickly discovers that the skill and grace with which Talia was fairy-blessed makes her a deadly enemy. She initially takes on the brute force protection of the trio, but Danielle eventually impresses upon Talia her desire to learn to defend herself. Snow's gift is for magic. She primarily uses the infamous magic mirrors for a variety of things, but she knows some spells too. Her general knowledge of magic and fairy tale creatures are useful in many ways as well, and the battle to rescue Armand would be lost without Snow's powerful spell casting ability. Finally, initial uselessness aside, Danielle uses her ability to communicate with many types of creatures to gain their aid throughout her ordeal. She also has a cleverness that the other two don't quite match throughout the story.

This story was brain candy at its finest. It was like someone took the Disney version of a few fairy tales, combined that with the Grimm version and created a strange fan-fic sitcom novel. I can't say that it wasn't entertaining. In fact, it made what would have otherwise been a crappy and dull day fairly interesting. The story did, however, lack any kind of substantial character development, and I wondered if that was perhaps because Hines was using characters already created by someone else. The only exception to this rule was with the character of Talia. In the Grimm version of the tale, Sleeping Beauty is NOT awakened by the kiss of her true love. She is instead wrenched from her unending rest by the birth of twin children, 9 months after the prince (already married, by the way) attempts to rouse her. The sleep and the subsequent awakening have left Talia with many scars, which are touched on in The Stepsister Scheme. Notable about this character is her bravado in the face of, what is to her, sheer terror, and her unorthodox romantic interests.

Like any good fairy tale, The Stepsister Scheme ends with a happily ever after for Danielle, her friends and Prince Armand. This was definitely an entertaining read, but I probably won't read any more books in the Princess series for this project. I would rank this one with 2.5 stars - slightly better than 2 stars, but not quite up to 3.