Cinderella

Faerie Tale Collection

By: Jenni James

Narrated by: Jane Oppenheimer

A girl with a secret and a prince on a mission.... When Prince Anthony spies Eleanoria Woodston outside her family home dressed as a servant, he knows something is amiss. Pretending to be John, his cousin's outrider, he decides to take matters into his own hands and figure out why Ella hasn't been seen at court. And, more importantly, why the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in the kingdom dresses like a pauper. Ella has had her own bout of trials, including losing her beloved father and facing the wrath and jealousy of her stepmother and stepsisters. Becoming a servant doesn't seem all that bad until the handsome John comes into her life, now he appears to be upsetting everything. Never before has she been so unsettled. Just his presence is making her dream of a life beyond this one. When John invites Ella to the ball and she grudgingly accepts, he wonders if he's truly losing his mind. How would he ever pull off pretending to be John while obviously hosting the ball as Anthony? Especially when the stubborn girl has made it quite obvious she would never attend a ball with a snobbish prince.

©2014 Jenni James (P)2016 StoneHouse Audio

A perfect Cinderella story that I enjoyed very muc

A very nice book that I enjoyed very much. A great version of the Cinderella story.

great version!

great version of the story. exactly what I was looking for in a Cinderella story.

Captivating

Congratulations to Jennifer James, you took these beloved fairytales and made them even more delightful. Cinderella was beautiful. Thank you! I will enjoy these tales for a long time.

I really wanted to like it

Would you try another book from Jenni James and/or Jane Oppenheimer?

I don't think so. I just couldn't handle the writing style. To me, it sounded as though the author had written it in comfortable, everyday American English, then dug out a British thesaurus and started switching out vocabulary in an attempt to make both the speech and prose sound more formal and "courtly" without any real understanding of how to use the new words in context. There were too many cringe-worthy, mangled phrases for me to enjoy the story, which otherwise I would have done.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Why is the heroine's surname Woodston and her stepsisters' surnames Dashlyn, even though her father was Lord Dashlyn? Even if he had adopted his stepdaughters, it puzzled me... The least interesting was the - literally - incredible incident with one of the sisters, the tea-tray, and the Duke. I know it's a fairy tale, but I found myself thinking, "Uh, really? Let's move on."

What does Jane Oppenheimer bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I think she read it very nicely. She is the reason I got as far as I did.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I liked the embellishments to the traditional Cinderella story. I gave up in the middle of a scene in which Cinderella suddenly starts extolling all the prince's hitherto undemonstrated virtues, but hey - it's a fairy tale! If I hadn't been thrown out of the story by the writing, I would probably have just skipped forward 30 seconds.

Any additional comments?

Other people who reviewed it seemed to enjoy it very much so don't let me put you off!