Betsy Cornwell

I adore fairy tale retellings, and I especially like it when the story takes a brand new twist on the familiar tale. Cornwell's Mechanica may be one of the most refreshing Cinderella retelling I've come across since Cinder. The world-building is fascinating. The story takes place in a kingdom in which Faerie magic has been banned because a Fey assassin killed the heir to the throne.

Nicolette’s mother had been a skilled inventor, creating mechanical trinkets and devices that had built the show more family's wealth. On her sixteenth birthday, Nicolette found her mother's workshop and began to use her own ingenuity and engineering talent to plan for a future in which she could earn enough money to buy back her family's home from her stepmother. I loved that this story was not about going to the ball to marry the prince. Instead, Nicolette's goal was to attend the Cultural Exposition Gala where she could show off her inventions and gain a sponsor for her work.

It just so happens that the plot neatly dovetails with the original story and Nicolette also gets a marriage proposal. And I was especially appreciative that she turned it down because she valued herself as more than just a political pawn or story.

This is the feminist Cinderella I've been waiting for. As much as I love the Cinderella story, my constant complaint is just how damn spineless the main character is in the original story. She meekly accepts her lot in life, accepts the abuse from her father (who was not dead in the Brothers Grimm version) and step-family, and doesn't even speak up for herself in the end while her step-sisters are getting their feet mutilated. And Disney has perpetuated that and reinforced that Cinderella's most important trait was her innate goodness and kindness -- and to add injury to insult, backslid even further with the 2015 movie by having her sit quietly in the attic after getting locked in. Oh, that movie made me SO MAD I practically had cartoon smoke coming out of my ears.

(Give me Danielle from Ever After any day of the week over Disney's doormat of a character. She grabbed a sword and freed herself, dammit!)

So, Mechanica was a breath of fresh air because HELL YES Nicolette saves herself. And not only does she save herself, she uses her intelligence to do so. AND she doesn't take the easy way out and marry the prince, which would have meant she's had lived in the lap of luxury for the rest of her life. No, she turned him down because she would not settle for a marriage that neither of them really wanted.

I'm so looking forward to a sequel because there's so many hints of what's coming next. (Like WAR! With Faerie!) And I'm so utterly in love with the worldbuilding and the characters, I want more. show less

This has to be my favourite telling of the Cinderella story so far. It's never really been my favourite fairy tale because Cinderella is so passive and helpless and she marries a guy she's only danced with for a few hours. But this book had an interesting font on its spine so I pulled it out and saw that it was steampunkish. The little summary on the back sounded interesting (from what I could gather over the loud chatter and singing of small children at storytime a few feet away) so I show more checked it out without even realizing it was going to be Cinderella.
I was a little disappointed when I realized what the story was, but then it was so interesting, I didn't want to stop reading. I wanted the world of this book to be real--a world in which one can make a living horse out of blown glass and metal gears and a spooky mysterious substance known only as Ashes. I loved that the heroine was more interested in her career as an inventor than in her chances to become a princess, and that she was even her own fairy godmother! The ending will anger and disappoint some, but I think it is an appropriate ending to this book.
I do wish that everything had been wrapped up at the end, as I really didn't feel that a sequel had to be necessary at all, but the author had bigger plans in mind so I will have to wait until the next book or the next if there is one to find out the whole secret behind Nicolette's creations and the future of the Fae.
Despite that, reading this book was such a fun, magical experience, and the heroine was such an uncommonly positive role model (I have a little girl--I have to think of these things!) that I just have to give it 5 stars. And of course now I'll have to find the next one. show less

I'm not fond of revenge literature or movies, but when it's women getting revenge I'm a complete sucker. In Reader I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell we get Victorian England's answer to Lisbeth Salander. You know all the jokes about what bad taste in men the Bronte sisters had? Cornwell agrees with them and writes a sequel to Jane Eyre told from the perspective of Adele, Rochester's ward. It's just delicious. I have to admit, due to some complicated events in my life these days, I'm enjoying show more more simplistic fare, and Cornwell is simply - well, what? I don't want to say thrilling, it's not that powerful, but it's a little thrilling, a little titillating, a little like eating a perfect brownie. Just yum. show less

fiction - Adele Varens, raised in a brothel with her dancer/prostitute mother in Paris (Le Moulin), is adopted by Mr. Rochester (who may or may not be her actual birth father) and taken to live at Thornfield at age 9 when her mother dies of consumption. She likes her governess-turned-step-mother Jane Eyre, but she was also secretly friends with Bertha before the fire. Now a student at an esteemed London finishing school, she vows first to help her friends find suitable husbands, and then show more decides they need protecting from unsuitable husbands even more, while she grows ever more attracted to one cross-dressing female pickpocket she meets one night.

this is not your usual Jane Eyre retelling, but a feminist overhauling where all of the men (except for the trans King of the underworld) turn out to be at least a little bit icky (which is not, after all, so much a stretch for Rochester, who has always been shiftier than Jane deserves).
This was a fun read with adventure-filled pacing, and Adele's astute and compassionate character is a thrill to meet. show less