Fairy Tale Inheritance 1

The Fairy Tale Inheritance series is one that sat in my Amazon cart for ages but I finally decided to try them out and don't regret it. 

The first two books are about Cinderella's inheritance and then there's a prequel novella that goes along with them. Then there are another four books, one each for Snow White, Beauty, Sleeping Beauty and the Little Mermaid. 

The books are set in different historical periods and have different storylines. The original Cinderella was a Polish girl and her stepsisters married men from a rival family, causing a neverending battle over the possession of Cinderella's treasures. A trusted maid was sent away with her own amber necklace plus Cinderella's three dresses and the shoes. I'm guessing anyway. The three dresses are in the first book and the second is about trying to find the shoes. 

Main character Kate is 15 at the start of the book, living in New York City in 1944. Her art historian father is away in Italy, working to protect the antiquities and art treasures from the Nazis. Her older brother joins up to be a pilot. So it's mostly just Kate and her mother, who wants her to be a model/actress. Kate prefers working behind the scenes and wants to be a window designer for the big NYC department stores. 

Everyone is surprised when an old Polish couple arrives on their doorstep. They fled the war and finally made it to New York, the last known address of the woman's sister, who was Kate's grandmother. 

The story is slowly revealed to Kate, who the old woman, Elsie, says will be the next Keeper. You see, the family of the original maid passed down the job of keeping the dresses safe. Kate's amber necklace from her grandmother, once the original maid's, is the symbol of the keeper. But Kate struggles to learn everything as Elsie slowly succumbs to dementia. 

There's a chapter of letters that jump the time forward at least two years. I found that a bit odd. Kate's father goes missing and her brother goes to Italy to try to find him, which comes to nothing except he too joins the monuments men. Kate's mother finally stops pushing her and lets her do window designy things, while her best friend works in fashion design. Kate's slow-budding romance with the department store owner's son has ups and downs. 

Kate's bad decision to use the dresses in the store window displays brings the action to a head finally, with some of the stepsisters' descendants coming after the dresses, but everything winds up pretty neatly. 

It's a good bit of historical fiction, though I didn't care for the letter-writing time jump much. The story of Cinderella was believable, though there is still magic involved. The ballgown in particular has powers. But the magic definitely took a far backseat to the rest of the story. I enjoyed it and I'll be continuing with the second book shortly.