Cinder House
by Freya Marske
People like to ask: Why doesn’t Cinderella just leave? (As if that would be easy for a penniless orphan.) In Marske’s retelling, CINDER HOUSE (Tordotcom, 136 pp., $24.99), escaping is even more difficult. Ella is not just a prisoner, but a ghost bound to the house where her stepmother murdered her. This is a fairy tale by way of Shirley Jackson: Cinderella, not sane.
Eventually, Ella manages to slip out. She befriends a fairy selling charms in the night market, and pines for a boy she sees watching the ballet. The reader anticipates the fairy-tale beats as though watching the early scenes of a horror film: A ball is announced; the prince will choose a bride. But like Ella, everyone here is hiding something, from the crown prince to the sorcerous foreign princess who instantly recognizes what Ella is. When the happy ending comes — as it must, at great cost — it’s dark and appropriately haunting.
Ghost Business
by Jen DeLuca
In DeLuca’s GHOST BUSINESS (Berkley, 335 pp., paperback, $19), we find ourselves in Boneyard Key, the most haunted place in Florida. Tristan has come to set up a ghost tour, as he’s done across the country. He’s surprised to find Boneyard Key already has one — run by Sophie, who was raised here by her great-aunt — but he’s not deterred by a little competition. He has better marketing, better showmanship and better financing.
But Sophie has an advantage Tristan doesn’t suspect: The ghosts of Boneyard Key are real. And they like her stories more than his.
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