Read for the Once Upon a Time VIII Reading Challenge.
Susanne Whitestone had lived all her life in her father’s Yorkshire manor house. And while she had a happy childhood, it did not involve her father. Susanne’s mother had died in childbirth, and Richard Whitestone had withdrawn into his second floor rooms in grief. Raised instead by the servants, Susanne had never actually seen her father.
Meanwhile, Richard’s grief has turned dark. When Susanne is almost twenty one, he catches a glimpse of her outside the window, and sees the spitting image of his dead wife. Richard had been an Earth master, but his grief has twisted him, and he hatches a plan to bring Rebecca’s spirit into Susanne’s body using the dark powers of necromancy.
This book is based on the tale ‘Donkeyskin’, where a king wishes to marry his daughter because she’s the only woman like his dead wife. In this case though, it’s set against the backdrop of World War I, and with the world of Lackey’s Elemental Masters series. The necromancy aspect was definitely a good twist to the story. I’ve long been a fan of these books, and this series has continued with the good form shown before.
This sounds interesting and creepy. I like the fact that the retelling is a more modern setting, one of great interest on its own.
This entire series is good that way – they're all fairy tale retellings, starting in the late Victorian period, going up toward WWI.