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The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines
The Stepsister Scheme is a novel based on fairy tales.
Shortly after her honeymoon, Danielle - also known as Cinderella - is attacked by one of her stepsisters, who tells her that her Prince Charming is gone. She insist on accompanying Talia (Sleeping Beauty) and Snow (White) to find and rescue him from his kidnappers.
Jim Hines draws on not-Disneyfied versions of the tales, adding his own ideas on top of it. Talia received among other things the fairy gift of grace and dance - and considers fighting a dance. She also is well-informed about goings on in the kingdom, and has more than a bit of criminal energy. Snow is a sorceress adept in mirror magic. Danielle's main contribution to the team seems to be a certain knack for finding ways to twist fairy "contracts", though the whole talking-to-animals bit doesn't hurt, either.
There are only three things that bothered me a bit, but they were rather minor. First, a trend of repeating some words too often in short intervals. Second, the "we don't care about you, we just want the child you're pregnant with" stuff - but then, Danielle didn't exactly play the part of incubator on legs, when she could help it. Third, the strong plot hook left for the sequel - not a real cliffhanger (though I guess it could be if you care more about children than I do), but it's a practise I dislike.
On the plus side we have a nice adventure plot with mystery elements, friendship in a group of women (rather than the usual "dudes plus one token female/love interest"). I particularly likes easygoing, enthusiastic Snow.
The world as such also feels alive, with Snow and Talia's background from different countries, and the politics between the (human) kingdom of Lorindar and the fairies.
It's fun to read and will end up on my bookshelf, and I will probably get the sequel eventually.
Judging by a recent post in Jim Hines' Livejournal, the announced trilogy (second part to be published this year) has already grown to a tetralogy.
"Sleeping Beauty's" background is based on Sun, Moon, and Talia, a pretty disgusting tale with an even more disgusting Aesop tacked on.
I can't think of many other fantasy/adventure books focusing on a group of women, in fact, only the Discworld book featuring the Witches. Anyone got any recommendations?
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Comments
Duology. Trilogy. Can't people write stuff that stands on its own? XD
Thanks, though, I'll look into some of it. :)
The whole obsession with Dani's unborn child also was portrayed as a 'annoying fairy thing' and the trio commented on it. (Besides Snow's mother, I mean.)
Mercedes Lackey has a duology (plus short stories) about a pair of female adventurers -- Oathbound and Oathbreaker. Aside from the fact that the pair starts out with a pair of rape-and-revenge stories*, the books aren't bad (a bit cliche and kind of dated). I seem to recall a few of her 100 Kingdoms books (not so much the first one as the later ones) have a strong emphasis on female-female friendship, but those are fairy-tale-retellings-(heterosexual)-romance-adventure books first. (I've ranted about how the romance usually feels shoehorned in, though.)
* Lackey even admits the 'wronged woman gets revenge' is cliche when she wrote them back in the 80s.
The Freedom trilogy by Naomi Kritzer (first book is Freedon's Gate) is kind of an alternate-historical-fantasy where Alexander's Greece managed to find the magic to summon and bind djinn, leading them to conquer most of the Near East and Central Asia and keep a hold of it. The main character is a half-Greek free woman who is assigned to pose as a slave to find and spy on a group of escaped slaves and who ends up befriending and becoming adoptive-sisters to a local slave before the two escape.
This kind of makes me want to write one for NaNoWriMo.