Oh, how I loved this wickedly smart, gothic reimagining of Cinderella! In which Ella *IS* the house (or, rather, the house’s ghost), her stepmother is her murderer, and her stepsister is her torturer, and the prince is — well, I won’t spoil it.

I almost — almost — let this one slip through the cracks of my TBR. Reader, that would have been a grave mistake. What an incredible firecracker of a standalone fantasy novel!!

As a fan girl at heart, I love feeling 10x more informed about Tolkien’s lore and hope to pick up more of his supplemental works someday, perhaps starting with the story of Beren and Lúthien.

This is one of those books you can’t examine tooooo closely, but if you just go along for the ride, you’re going to have a really fun time.