The Language of Writing: The Princess and the Invisible Apple Tree - Meredith Leigh Burton (Release Day Review!)

“I didn’t mean to kill mother. Truly I didn’t.”

The first line of Meredith’s story pulled me right in. I read the novella in a day, enchanted by this tale built from the lesser-known elements of “Snow White,” as well as elements from fairy tales like “The Wild Swans” and “Rumplestiltskin.”

This is a story about two girls. One, Snowdrop, was born a princess. She is consumed with guilt after she kills her mother, giving her the poisoned tart that was meant for Snowdrop herself. She tries to tell her father about the poisoner, but he doesn’t believe her, dismissing her words.

The other girl, Rachel, is an innkeeper’s daughter who struggles with feelings of inadequacy as well as an eating disorder. After her mother marries the king (one of the less convincing bits of the story…) she meets Snowdrop. Although they have much in common, they find themselves in conflict when Rachel won’t give up an important object—the magic mirror given to her by a mysterious peddler. A peddler who sounds a lot like the one who gave Snowdrop the tart that killed her mother.

High Points

I was impressed by how Meredith addressed the difficult themes in this story while keeping a fantastic fairy tale quality. She manages to bring the girls closer to one another and to God in a very convincing way. She also constructs a complicated plot that includes a lot of moving back and forth through time as well as incidents that seem random but later prove to have been part of a larger logic. Since I can’t do complex plots terribly well, I always admire the authors who can.

Caveats

While the dialogue is warm and convincing, the narration doesn’t always reflect the voices of the POV characters. I also found the climax of the story to be a little confusing. How exactly does the thing with the invisible tree work? I realize that this is a fairy tale and fairy tales don’t usually explain how their magic works, but they get away with this by trading on well-known tropes and processes that the Grimm Brothers’ informants would have understood. So I got a bit lost. I felt that the character beats in the midst of the climax felt rushed (especially Snowdrop’s sudden affection for Rachel).

Bottom Line

I enjoyed this story. While it’s short on dwarves and handsome princes, it has two wonderful heroines and an exciting plot with many twists and turns. If you’re a fan of C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, I think you’ll enjoy Princess as well!

Links

Find Princess on Amazon here.

Add it on Goodreads here.

Find Meredith’s fairy tale collection, Blind Beauty and Other Tales of Redemption, here.

Meredith's Bio

Meredith Leigh Burton is a voracious devourer of fairy tales. She is a motivational speaker, teacher and writer. She attended the Tennessee School for the Blind and Middle Tennessee State University, where she received a degree in English and theater. Meredith hopes to convey through her writing that people with differences can contribute much to the world. "Snow White" has always been her favorite fairy tale. Meredith has written another fairy tale based on "Snow White" entitled Hart Spring, which can be found in her anthology, Blind Beauty and Other Tales of Redemption. She resides in Lynchburg, Tennessee.

Magic Mirrors

Meredith’s story is part of the Magic Mirrors co-release—a group of seven Snow White stories by six different authors, all becoming available the last week of October. Watch this space for more Magic Mirrors reviews! Or navigate over to our organizer Kendra's blog to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway!