Cinder House by Freya Marske
Ella was dead, to begin with.
Murdered at the young age of 16, she is now a ghost that haunts her once family home. Her father died shortly after her, but his spirit did not linger. However, his second wife and her two wicked daughters do. Worse, when they learned of Ella, they put her to work even to the extreme of marring the house so hurt her as Ella and the house have been woven together.
Ella learns of her abilities and her restrictions bit by bit. When she ultimately finds a way to leave the estate's grounds for a time, she strikes a bargain with a fairy. In exchange for procuring particular items, the fairy grants Ella three days of corporeality--just in time to attend the season's most lush balls.
But when Ella makes a connection with a cursed prince and his magical bride-to-be, danger begins to close in on the three. They must all act and think quickly to save each other and, perhaps, find a way to intertwine their lives--such that they are.
I went into Cinder House by Freya Marske expecting a relatively campy retelling of Cinderella with a touch of tender sadness and romance.
Cinder House is far more.
With deft yet visceral descriptions accompanied by poignant and tragically lovely prose, Marske easily whisks readers into Ella's world as she understands it. While magic and ghosts are known throughout the land, there are still mysteries that they all have to unravel. Some of these are the supernatural rules that govern their lives, but there is also the humanness of figuring out how to find happiness when life--or death--is not how you planned.
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