The Fairy Godmother

I went through a Mercedes Lackey phase a few years back, spurred on by the "Arrows" novels. Somewhere around the "Gryphon" books I lost enthusiasm, but this story has rekindled my interest. The often exasperating situations that Elena, the fairy godmother in question, finds herself dealing with are laced with humor and a snide poking at the sillyness of many fairytale cliches.

A fun fluffy read, hopefully the rest of the series will be just as good!

ever read and liked fairy tales? Not the Disneyfied limited versions but the real ones? where the characters really suffered before the happy ending (if they had one). What happens if Cinderella's prince is a 10 year old boy or doesn't exist? Why does the fairy god mother not intervene until the end? This book answers your questions with a wonderful twist and brings up fairy tales that haven't been popularized yet.

Just finished re-reading this inaugural tale of the 500 Kingdoms, and I remember now what I like so much about the series.

I enjoy it when an author grabs a bunch of well-worn genre tropes, mixes them up, pours them on ice, adds a little umbrella and serves it on a hot day. That's what Lackey did with this book. It's not deep -- although you can see the fine, fine threads of a long tradition going back to the 18th and 19th century Gothic taies. The story itself is concerned with and has as a major portion of the plot the understanding and reversing, shaping, or overthrowing of all those romantic fantasy tropes. That's where the humor is, and it isn't a mean humor, but a gentle, friendly one.

I didn't intent to reread this book right now, show more as I have an elbow high pile already waiting, some that must go back to the library shortly. Yet I did. I stayed up late reading it. I read it while eating breakfast. I enjoyed it and giggled at it and insisted that my husband one day read it (while it has all the earmarks of a sticky sweet "chick lit" read, it's a hair or two better than that.) I happened to open the cover while rearranging shelves, read the first page, and fell right in.

It's hard to resist a story where a failed Cinderella gets the chance to take over her fairy tale and bring about, not only her own happy ending, but happy endings (or, occasionally, less-than-tragic ones) for others.

Honestly, I'd have never read this book in the first place if I had not attended a convention where Ms. Lackey read a chapter aloud. I had to have the book before the week was over. That was nearly 6 years ago, and I still remember the story clearly and recommend it to others. I don't tend to read romance, as I find much of what makes a romance "romantic" (at least in modern genre terms) unbearably cloying, brainless, farfetched, infuriating, and likely to make me throw things. That Lackey doesn't go there with this book is one of the better things about it.

A word of warning -- I haven't found the other books in this series nearly as charming or fun, but none of them have been horrible. There are two more I have not read and I keep hoping for a return to the particular magic and freshness of this one. Hey, it could happen. show less

As I enjoy retold Fairy Tales, particular those with a twist, this seemed like just my sort of story. And for the most part, it was. I enjoyed Lackey's world building, the idea of The Tradition, and the way it shapes the 500 Kingdoms. Elena is a pleasing main character - strong, smart, and feminine without being whiny or bitchy. She was clever and wise in how she handled the issues she confronted. I very much enjoyed the progress of the Prince, and what she did to him. And the love story was well-done, the magic seemed to make sense, and the secondary characters had depth and humor. It did have some flaws - some events were drawn out too long while other things were just glossed over. It left the story feeling slightly lopsided. And the show more sex scenes took me by surprise - way more graphic that I was anticipating and they added very little to the story. Despite these minor things, over all, this was a fun read and an excellent addition to my fairy tale collection. show less

Every time I read this series, it gets richer - I didn't much like Fairy Godmother the first time, but this reading is a lot more interesting than the last, which was better than the first. I find a lot of the concepts very neat - I like the Tradition and how people need to work with or around it. Makes more sense of a lot of fairy tales, if they're not actually the same stories, only the same Traditions...

The Fairy Godmother is set in a place where a powerful magical force called “the Tradition” shoves fairy tale lives down people’s throats. And the fairy tales aren’t your disney-fied versions either, but the original Brothers Grimm type of tales. Basically anyone whose circumstances resemble that of an already existing fairy tale is screwed into having to live the fairy tale. For some that’s good because they get their happily ever after, for others it dooms them to certain death. The Tradition is like Russian roulette and I love it.

Anyway, when the Tradition saw Elena Klovis with her wicked stepmother and step sisters treating her like slave its little fairy tale radar decided that she’d be her kingdoms Cinderella. Except show more the Tradition doesn’t always check to make sure everything is in place for the fairy tales to work, because Elena’s prince charming is an 11 year old. Thus, she is screwed.

I loved Elena. She’s smart, witty, and knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t sit around and bemoan her bad luck when things go wrong in her life. Instead she sets out to actually change what’s wrong. So, when her step mother decides to head off to greener pastures where she and her daughters are neck deep in debts, Elena sees it as her chance to finally escape, because she, of course, is being left behind to guard the house. The minute Elena gets the chance she books it out of there with the plan of becoming a paid servant in someone’s house. Unfortunately, the Tradition is still working on her and being a paid servant in someone’s house does not go with the Cinderella life style it has picked out for her. Just when Elena’s almost given up hope a crazy old lady shows up on a cart pulled by a hump backed donkey wearing a straw hat. After having a spot of tea, the old lady reveals herself to be Elena’s fairy godmother who, after explaining where the hell she’s been all of Elena’s life, offers Elena a chance to take over as fairy godmother. Elena doesn’t want to go back to her old life, so accepts almost point blank.

So Elena starts getting good and comfy with her new role as fairy godmother and one day she signs up to test three princes. The first one fails miserably by completely ignoring the ugly old beggar woman, so she banishes him to being trapped in the forest until he learns a lesson. The second prince, Alexander, fails just as miserably except even more so cause he manages to piss off Elena. So after Alexander almost runs the old beggar woman over Elena decides that since he’s already an ass by personality he might as well look like one too. So she turns him into a donkey. Anyway the last prince is nice and gets the prize of a bunch of cheat codes for how to get to and save the princess. So Elena’s happy because the tests went well and she’s totally multi-tasking, because she needed a new donkey anyway and at the same time she’s also doing her godmotherly duties by teaching Alexander a lesson.

Alexander is a huge jerk at the beginning of this, but he evolves and it was nice to see that and it was done in a way that it was convincing too. Anyway, I was expecting a show down of some kind involving the Tradition near the end, but that never really happened. It felt like everything was resolved a bit too easily in this story, but that’s really my only complaint, because the rest of this book was great. Lackey does some amazing world building in this and how she applies the different fairy tales and magical creatures into this book is fantastic. I will defiantly be checking out the next book in the series. show less

Someone recommended Mercedes Lackey so I picked up The Fairy Godmother because it seemed to be a romance, and is a standalone novel. I got a discarded library copy (it’s about 20 years old) which made me expect it to be stuffy and dull, but I was pleasantly surprised!

It starts with a huge amount of world-building—nine chapters to be exact. But it’s kind of necessary because the magic works in a unique way, so we see examples of it at work before the main story starts. The heroine, Elena, is a Cinderella-like character who lives in a kingdom where the prince is a child—so she never gets a chance at her happily ever after. She’s also aware that her situation fits a certain story and isn’t working out, and she grows more and show more more frustrated.

Her fairy godmother shows up and offers her a position as her apprentice. For a few chapters, it was just delightful watching Elena be fed and treated kindly. She learns about the magic, which abides by something called The Tradition that is constantly trying to push people into certain story lines. There’s a network of godmothers, sorceresses, witches, and wizards who help people succeed on their quests and reach their happy endings, and who also stop certain storylines (like Rapunzel, where a baby is taken from its mother). The manipulate the magic to have outcomes that satisfy The Tradition.

Ultimately, Elena becomes the new Godmother after her mentor deems her ready and disappears. Then a witch asks Elena to cover for her and pose as the “old lady at the crossroads” as three princes come through on a quest. Elena expects the first two to be rude and the third to be kind; but the second one is so rude that she loses her temper and turns him into a donkey. So she takes him home, but of course he has to be in human form once a week, and you can guess where that goes. The story was unexpectedly steamy!

The book uses some “quaint” language like referring to Elena’s “secret parts between her legs.” It also has some unfortunate bits, like mean comments on a character’s weight. But otherwise, it’s a cozy romance with minimal fighting, and some interesting ideas about magic that often seem vaguely related to the real world. show less