I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Book Publicist Ellen Whitfield at JKS Communications, asking me if I’d like to review Slipper by Hester Velmans. With rape, a witch hunt, and war, this Historical Fiction novel is not a children’s fairy tale.  📚

Title: Slipper

Author: Hester Velmans

Genre: Historical Fiction, Retelling

Publisher: Van Horton Books

Date published: April 2018

Page Count: 378

“Her life is the inspiration for the world’s most famous story.

Lucinda, a penniless English orphan, is abused and exploited as a cinder-sweep by her aristocratic relatives. On receiving her sole inheritance—a pair of glass-beaded slippers—she runs away to France in pursuit of an officer on whom she has a big crush. She joins the baggage train of Louis XIV’s army, survives a terrible massacre, and eventually finds her way to Paris. There she befriends the man who will some day write the world’s most famous fairy tale, Charles Perrault, and tells him her life story.

There is more: a witch hunt, the sorry truth about daydreams, and some truly astonishing revelations, such as the historical facts behind the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, and a perfectly reasonable explanation for the compulsion some young women have to kiss frogs.

This is not the fairy tale you remember.”

🌟🌟🌟🌟= really liked it

Slipper begins in 17th Century England. Bessie, also known as Goose, is Lucinda’s mother’s midwife. After Lucinda’s mother dies during childbirth, Bessie names the newborn baby Lucinda, and decides to take care of her. Lucinda discovers the true identity of her biological father and receives an inheritance which includes beaded slippers. She travels to France with Bessie, in search of Henry, who she believes is in love with her. She ends up living in a tent in the French-Dutch war zone, waiting for Henry to propose. After the war, Lucinda travels to Amsterdam, then to Paris where she meets Charles Perrault, a French author who wrote many popular fairy tales such as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (The Little Red Riding Hood), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots), and La Belle Au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty).

I enjoyed the blending of real-life people with fictional characters. I didn’t like any of the fictional male characters, including John Prynce. Actually, I didn’t like most of the characters. The story and writing quality kept me intrigued so that it didn’t matter to me if the characters were likeable. Lucinda is a naïve, selfish, stubborn adolescent who becomes a resourceful, intelligent, confident young woman.

I found the book too long. In particular, the middle had many slow, unnecessary parts that bogged-down the plot. However, the pacing picked up during the last quarter, and I blew through the last 100 pages.

Slipper is an ambitious, adventurous, whimsical, heart-breaking story, about rejection, loss, courage, hope, and love. I recommend this one to readers who enjoy Historical Fiction and adult fairy tales.

Check out the book trailer https://youtu.be/ONzmGgO8piE

I received a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest, unbiased opinion. Thank you to Ellen Whitfield, JKS Communications, and Hester Velmans for allowing me to review.

“Hester Velmans was born in the Netherlands, educated in Switzerland and England, and today lives in western Massachusetts. She is a translator specializing in contemporary Dutch and French literature. Her translation of Renate Dorrestein’s A Heart of Stone won the 2001 Vondel Prize; in 2014 she was awarded a U.S. National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship to translate the neglected novelist Herman Franke. She is the author of the popular children’s books Isabel of the Whales and Jessaloup’s Song. Look out for her new novel, Slipper.” For more info visit her website: https://hestervelmans.com/

www.JKSCommunications.com