This harks from a time when fairy tales were warnings. Like that book, this ain’t no Disney version. Then the blurb reminded me of another 17th century Real Life Fairy Tale retelling, “Bitter Greens,” that I read and enjoyed a few years ago. There is more: a witch hunt, the sorry truth about daydreams, and some truly astonishing revelations, such as the historical facts behind the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, and a perfectly reasonable explanation for the compulsion some young women have to kiss frogs. There she befriends the man who will some day write the world’s most famous fairy tale, Charles Perrault, and tells him her life story.

She joins the baggage train of Louis XIV’s army, and eventually finds her way to Paris. On receiving her sole inheritance-a pair of glass-beaded slippers-she runs away to France in pursuit of an officer on whom she has a big crush. Lucinda, a penniless English orphan, is abused and exploited as a cinder-sweep by her aristocratic relatives. Her life is the inspiration for the world’s most famous story. But is he really a killer? Told in the alternative voices of Ray and Iris, Girl in the Dark is a compulsive, page-turning thriller about lies, murder, and the tenacity of a family determined to stay together even as they are pulled apart at the most vulnerable seams.Jayne B Reviews / Book Reviews 17th-century / doctor hero / dysfunctional family / England / fairy tale retelling / family relationships / France / Historical / Netherlands / painter / Stuart-England / War / Military 1 Comments There is no question that Ray is odd and obsessive, unable to communicate like the rest of us. A man who is devoted to his tropical fish and who loves baking bread. Visiting Ray, she meets a man who looks heartbreakingly like her own son. Her older brother is autistic-and in prison for brutally murdering his neighbor and her daughter.

What she discovers surprises-and horrifies-her. Why did her mother lie to her for her entire life? Why did she hide the existence of Ray Boelens from her? Curious about this sibling she has never known, Iris begins to search for long-buried truths. She also has a brother-shocking news she uncovers by accident. A single mother and lawyer, Iris has a colorful caseload, a young son with behavior issues, and a judgmental mother. An award-winning, internationally bestselling author makes her American debut with this taut, riveting domestic drama with the compulsive intensity of The Good Girl, The Pocket Wife, and The Stranger, about a long-lost brother convicted of a horrifying crime and a sister's fight to clear his name.

Slipper by Hester Velmans