The Fairest of Them All
A Novel
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
What if Rapunzel was Snow White’s evil stepmother? Classic fairy tales collide in this imaginative retelling about the endurance of first love, the resentment of being left behind, and the impossibility of reliving the past.
In this kingdom, only one fairy tale can end with happily ever after.
In an enchanted forest, the maiden Rapunzel’s beautiful voice captivates a young prince hunting nearby. Overcome, he climbs her long golden hair to her tower and they spend an afternoon of passion together, but by nightfall, the prince must return to his kingdom…and his betrothed.
After the prince becomes king, he weds his intended and the kingdom rejoices when a daughter named Snow White is born. Beyond the castle walls, Rapunzel waits in her crumbling tower, gathering news of her beloved from those who come to her seeking wisdom. She tries to mend her broken heart, but her love lingers, pulsing in the magic tendrils of her hair.
The king, too, is haunted by his memories, and after his queen’s mysterious death, he is finally able to follow his heart into the darkness of the forest. But can Rapunzel trade the shadows of the forest for the bright light of the castle—and behave as the innocent beauty he remembers?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Turgeon's mash-up of "Rapunzel" and "Snow White," the longhaired maiden isn't quite so fair and innocent as in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. After a few hours of passion with the prince from the nearby kingdom in her bedroom tower, Rapunzel finds that she's pregnant with his child. The only problem? The prince is engaged to another. The witch Mathena, determined to prevent her adopted daughter from becoming a mistress to the most powerful man in the land, casts a spell to keep the prince from finding Rapunzel again. Seven years later, when his wife dies under questionable circumstances, the prince, now king, finds Rapunzel and makes her his new queen. But his legitimate daughter, the beautiful Snow White along with the rest of the kingdom is weary of a witch's daughter assuming the throne. And not without good reason. For, when Rapunzel learns from her magic mirror that she's no longer the fairest of them all that, in fact, Snow White is "a thousand times more fair" she turns downright ugly. Turgeon (The Next Full Moon) imaginatively combines murder, revenge, sex, magic, and other genre tropes into a dark and twisted fairy tale.
