Everyone knows the story of Cinderella, right.  Well ASH is a different kind of Cinderella story.  Much different. Aisling, better known as Ash, losses her mother  at a very young age, and when her father get remarried Ash learns to live with it.  But when her father becomes deeply ill, and dies she is forced to live with her step mother and her two daughters.  Ash is forced to work as a maid around the house to repay her step mother for her fathers debts.  On her free time Ash slips into the forest where she feels closest to her mother, but she soon discovers someone – a man – but soon she discovers that he is not really a man, but a fairy.  His name Sidhean, and he promises to grant Ash anything she desires but at a cost, that he will not tell.  Later in the same Wood Ash meets someone that changes her life, the Kings Huntress, Kaisa, who Ash becomes very close with.  Through the story you watch their blooming friendship turn into a wonderful relationship.

This is a powerful, and different retelling of Cinderella.  I have read many “retellings” of Cinderella, and other fairy tales, but this one is unique and has a special quality to it.  Malinda Lo is a very talented debut writer, a new voice in Young Adult fiction.

Now I have to say this Ash is a ” lesbian retelling of Cinderella”  but I think its more than that, I dont look at it like that, just two people who fall in love.  A beautifully debut novel by Malinda Lo!

Click here to see the full jacket for ASH, published by Little Brown Young readers, September 2009!