Cinderella is one of the most iconic of the original Disney animations and has become a classic, what a lot of people forget is that the story has been around for a very very long time. What Olga Grushin does here is really very clever, and the way she does it is a little confusing at first, but it's absolutely perfect. There are so many layers and threads that form a beautiful and interesting read, I particularly love the subplot with Nibbles and Brie.
I'm not going to describe the twists but instead recommend that you avoid reading too many reviews that are basically synoptic and to just experience it for yourself.
What I will say is that hopefully it will make you question the origins of fairytales, beyond Disney and Grimm, to when women told stories to their children about being strong, and good and true.

I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed by this book. I was quite looking forwards to a unhappily ever after with Cinderella getting revenge on the Prince for whatever misdemeanour he had committed. At the start that is what it seemed like but it quite quickly seemed to fall apart.
I like dream sequences and flashbacks and was intrigued with how things were going and then....
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Spoiler alert.
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...
It turns out it was a modern day story with a woman who really needed a therapist and a swift dose of reality. The curse and her fairytalesque life were just made up tales to distance herself from her current situation.
As soon as I realised I was hard pressed to finish and had to force myself to get to the end. 
The writing style was strong and the fantasy aspects of the tale were wonderful, especially the way she weaves different fairytales into the narrative but I felt ultimately cheated.
I would rather have had an entire book devoted to the tales of the mice whose lives and exploits were a rich tapestry interweaved with the main book. Those ‘asides’ of the generations of mice and their wars and subsequent evolution were actually quite gripping.

The Charmed Wife is perfect for adult fans of fairytales as it explores life after the happily ever after. Thirteen and a half years later plus two children, and things aren't all that they were cracked up to be. The story finds Cinderella meeting up with the witch in hopes of ending his life as opposed to the love potions most disgruntles housewives go to the witch for. This is definitely a darker twist on the retelling, but it is done in such a fun and lighthearted way. There is a nice layer of humour throughout. We get to revisit other familiar characters such as the mice, fairy godmother, etc. The writing is excellent. I truly cannot recommend The Charmed Wife enough to fans of Cinderella or fairytale retellings in general. Highly recommended!

The Charmed Wife, Olga Grushin
 A beautifully written, powerful re-imagining that picks up thirteen years after Cinderella and Prince Charming said ‘I do”

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: General Fiction ( Adult), Sci-fi and Fantasy, Women's Fiction

Sigh...women's fiction. Again. C'mon guys, its 2020 not 1820, men read books like this, men write books like this, lets get rid of this genre please?

So, having got that off my chest, what did I think of this book? Well, I'm not really sure, that sounds like a cop out but I've some very mixed feelings. 

I enjoyed the idea of “what happened next”, the more in depth look into the fairy tale, and of course the way the story brought in so many other fairy tales, with the original endings, Grimm's grim ones, not the sanitised Disney version. At times though that got just a bit too much, felt a bit overworked,. It reminded me of going to an art class years ago, where the tutor described when he was learning, and saw how a few highlights really brought his work to life. So added more, and more and then in his words “ it looked like Blackpool Lights instead of a gentle evening landscape” sometimes Less is More. 
The mice suffered from this too, they were fun to begin, I really enjoyed them and their part in the tale ( or tail!!), but then it began to drag, getting so in-depth, tied up in yet more stories of right and wrong, and almost feeling like a moral lecture. 
The Witch and the Fairy Godmother had some terrific lines, they really were great. Some of their interactions were the best parts of the book.
The main characters though, Cinderella and the Prince, well, we hardly met the Prince, mostly through secondhand stories and the odd interactions with Cinderella. 
Cinderella herself, well, I wasn't sure what to make of her. Was she always this meek and mild person, content with afternoon tea and telling fairy stories to the children, or did she really want more from life? As we didn't know her before I couldn't tell. And then slowly her discontent comes through, and she takes action, and the twists begin.
 
There are long journeys, a quest almost, and that's where many of the other fairy tales get woven in. Cinderella isn't totally blameless yet as the book says “ we're all heroes in our own story”. That really resonated with me, its so true. How we see things isn't necessarily how they are, and that brings me to another part that I'm uncertain about. The last twenty per cent maybe, everything gets turned on its head, all we've read and believed so far takes a different viewpoint, and though for others it's perfect, it works, I felt kind of cheated. 
I didn't expect that, and for me it explained a lot but I just didn't like it ;-) It reminded me a little of the Dream trope, and that's one I really don't like. 

Stars: Three, I enjoyed parts, its well told, but for me personally it had too many issues, things I dislike but that others won't necessarily, and I found it hard to really enjoy.

ARC supplied by Netgalley and publishers

The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin was an absolute treat. What happens when the prince finds his princess and marries her but they don't live happily ever after ? In this wonderfully magical book the author describes just such a sad tale in a modern way that still harkens back to the familiar tales we learned as children, while keeping the darker edge of the original fables. 
Cinderella has had enough, after thirteen mostly unhappy years of marriage she has decided she wants to be rid of her philandering and cruel husband, no longer seeing his charm. To aid her in this quest she seeks out a witch and together they begin to perform a rite that will rid Cinderella of the man for good. 
There is a strange thread of realism woven throughout the fantasy of the book, so that we have both talking mice and divorce lawyers, fairy god mothers and therapists and I can only compliment how well the author managed to layer these into the story so that at times it felt like I was reading about a contemporary unhappy marriage rather than a fairy tale. The interludes with the mice, and the little histories of the successive versions of Brie and Nibbles added a touch of whimsy that lightened the often dark tone of the book , and I particularly enjoyed those passages.  The journey that CInderella's character went on over the course of the book moved me, from wide eyed Princess to happy Newly Wed , doting mother and then increasingly frustrated and desperate spouse, before taking her life into her own hands and building a future with the promise of happiness, I found myself rooting for her every step of the way. 
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

This is a book that some people will absolutely love and others will sit on the fence. I’m very much that person perched on a railing wobbling from side-to-side.

And here we go. TL;DR:
✨ 13 years after those wee glass loving, pumpkin riding scamps say ‘I do’
✨ Cinders but make it extra depressing
✨ An alternative world where Prince Charming is a proper asshole
✨ A ~murder~ plot

Normally I wouldn’t feel the need to introduce the two main characters in a very well known Disney film but, you know, consistency and all that.

Ya’ll know Cinderella. Escaped her previous life and living it up in her castle surrounded by those mice (I’ll come onto those later) with two wee kiddy winks in tow. HOWEVER [insert dramatic noise here] – all is not as it seems and things very quickly fall apart.

Enter Prince Charming. The one who was supposed to be her true love except he’s a massive gaslighting asshole who’s probably had sex with the entire household staff. Poor Cinders never stood a chance.

Let’s start on the bits I was a massive fan of:

｡ Cinderella. I grew up with Disney films so this grabbed me instantly. It’s actually kinda refreshing to see the story from a different side. The side where they didn’t live happily ever after.
｡ The concept. This book’s twist is excellent and I didn’t see it coming or I just wasn’t paying attention. Yet it tackles depression and the impact that divorce has on someone’s mental wellbeing head-on.
｡ The banter between the Fairy Godmother and the Witch was perfect. Those little moments were a bloody delight.

And now the bits that just weren’t for me:

｡ It was hard to keep up with. I found myself rereading bits and literally losing the plot.
｡ With that in mind I just, uh, lost interest in the middle. I tried – I really did – but I just got a little bored.
｡ I just didn’t love the characters. Cinderella’s portrayal was the only one I could really connect with whilst the rest of them just sat on the sidelines for me. And then there are the bloody mice. These little cretins just seemed to be there for the sake of it and I most definitely struggled to take in their story. I get it – they’re a main character in the fairytale but they ain’t no Gus Gus now are they?

The book isn’t for me, but it has some wonderful poignant parts that’ll stick with me and some will absolutely fall in love with 💕

This is the tale of what happened after the happily ever after........perhaps not!

I love Cinderella and am always up for a retelling or a story that explores the story after the original ones has ended.

I never spoil in my reviews, so i certainly won't here, but this book was a lot of fun, it just goes to show that sometimes the grass is not greener on the other side.

If you are into re tellings, then this is a good choice to explore.

The only gripe i have, and it is an aesthetic one, the cover is awful, could have been so much more!

The Charmed wife by Olga Grushin is adult retelling of the time after Cinderella got her man the prince and lived happily after. 
After 13 and a half years of marriage to the Prince and two children later Cinderella is had enough of the marriage. The Prince and herself live separate lives and live-in different side of the castle.  He never sees his children and they do not talk to each other. She wants more to her life. She wants the prince dead but when she meets a witch but, thing don’t always go to plan. 
The story starts the same fairy-tale style, with snippets of other tales thrown in. It is beautifully written book but then for the second half of the story it gets too modern with talk of divorce and custody which I wasn’t expecting at all. I also found this book hard to get into. It wasn’t the magical tale that we all know and love and this is definitely NOT for children.

I recieved a free digital copy of the book from Hodder & Stoughton via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The guys at Hodder offered me this arc outright and i was so happy, it sounds amazing and i love a good fairytale. And this takes place 13.5 years after the original Cinderella tale ends, at the marriage of Cinderella and the Prince.

I made it 18% through this before giving up, honestly i really didn't like Cinderella but tbh we didn't actually get to realy know her as a princess, so far we saw a secret meeting with the witch and then the fiary god mother turns up to stop her finishing  a spell...

We've seen at least two flashbacks and a ton of useless (in my opinion) info about the mice. I didn't need to know this information, it didn't enrich the story in any way that i coukd see, but it was pages worth of a mouses pov, whoch just confuses me.

And mostly we've seen Cinderella complaining about how her kids aren't kind and that she wants her chesting husband dead - cheating seen through the last flashback/memory - and I don't want that... I liked Prince Charming, i don't want to see him cheating on his wofe 😔

Structurally this didn’t really work for me. The concept is interesting – what happens after happily ever after? But I have seen this done in a YA book – Just Ella by Margaret Petersen Haddix – and I think it was done better there. That said, this does have some delightful touches such as looking at what other characters are up to – including the mice. A subversive, literary take on Disney’s reimagining that almost pays off.

Cinderella and the Prince Charning lived happily ever after......or did they?! 

Warning - if your looking for Disney you might not want to read this!!!! 

I was so up for this but after I read I felt like someone had royally burst my bubble of the idea I had in my head of what could've happened to Cinderella and her HEA!!!!  This could've been a lot of womens story but I found I couldn't seperate! 

Saying this the writing was so good, there was plenty of dark stuff, a confused switch from a fairytale world to modern day NYC which I am still puzzling over and fun stuff like the mice and their now family from the original fairytale (special mention to Queen Gertrude!!!) 

It was actually a good story and totally different to what I normally read. Was nice to get out my comfort zone!

This wasn't my thing. Although the plot definitely had potential, it was poorly executed. I had a hard time getting acquainted with the writing style, and therefore couldn't get into it at all.

This is the fairytale of Cinderella but not as you know it, she’s been married to Prince Roland for thirteen and a half years and happily ever after?? Maybe, maybe not. 

This is a clever story as subversive as any of the original fairytales but Disney sanitised fluff (not that I don’t enjoy that!) this most certainly is not. It’s extremely well written, the style and descriptions are lively, colourful and engaging. It’s funny in places with plenty of modern day references that really stand out. There are fun elements like the stories of Brie and Nibbles, Cinderella’s mice and their descendants and I especially like Queen Gertrude the leader of the Valkyrie mice! There’s talking, rushing teapots with an endless supply of tea, there’s a fairy godmother and magic mirrors. However, there’s a very dark side too. The prince is ... well, not very princely in his behaviour, in fact he’s a cad and a bounder! There’s lie built upon lie in an empty cardboard life and sex, drugs and rock n’roll. Ok, I lied about the rock n’roll. There’s dark magic aplenty, right paths, wrong paths, reality versus fantasy, enchantment, curses and wicked deviousness. What, you expected a happy ending? As it reaches its conclusion that’s where the story reveals its particular, twisty cleverness as the truth of two worlds colliding reveals itself to one and all and the ‘princess’ makes some realisations and sees things how they really are. 

Overall, an enjoyable and different read which transports you to some magic in a land not too far away and allows you to shut of the reality of right now for a few entertaining hours. Great fun with a good message too! Recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the arc for an honest review.

Started to read this and wasn't sure whether it was my type of book but got to the end and quite enjoyed it. The story starts 13 years after the wedding of Cinderella and Prince Charming and all might not be what it seems. Lots of fairy tale references and very creative the story goes back and forward through time and place.
Some parts of the tale are quite dark and the book is quite magical. A modern day fairytale about the realities of marriage and romance.

I love when authors asks what if questions when referring to fairytales, I can just imagine what if Cinderella can’t bear children? What if the prince doesn’t treat her the way the fairytale makes you believe he would? What if the castle is full of ghosts? What if Cinderella stopped loving her Prince and hated the dream that isn’t all happily ever after?

The Charmed Wife asks a simple question: what happens when the magic goes out of Cinderella's marriage? Feeling unloved and let down by the false dream she has been sold, our main character seeks out a witch to cast a spell to kill her fairytale prince. Just as they are about to cast it however, the fairy godmother shows up and urges her to look back on her relationship and whether things are as bad as they seem.

I really liked the social conversations that the author was able to bring about, by discussing the ideas about how women are ‘supposed’ to find their happiness in their families, the importance of social hierarchies and marrying up. About feeling unimportant in our own lives, and questioning whether those who claim to love us, do so because of who we are, or because of who they think we are.

I did find some of the writing a little weird, and found myself having to go back and reread paragraphs, as the story did jump around a little. I am not sure if certain part or characters brought anything necessary to the story. 
Originality is probably a bit over-rated. This is not the first revisit to Cinderella out there, and won't be the last. But it’s always fun to see an author put their own spin on old classics and make them something new a fresh which is what was done with this book.

I was offered this book to review and loved the premise which is essentially what happens after the words "and they all lived happily ever after". Olga Grushin certainly didn't disappoint. This novel is an easy read that is written very much in the fairy tale tradition. Don't expect everything to be smooth sailing though, this novel is far more intriguing. Saying more will spoil the plot so grab a copy and enjoy a different take on "happily ever after".

I would first like to thank Hodder & Stoughton for sending me an ARC of this fantastic book.

We all know the stories and some of us have based our life on living that ‘happily ever after’. Granted were not all princesses but we all hope to find that one person we can sail off into the sunset with and who loves us unconditionally, but have you ever wondered what happens to the princess after? Well sit back and let Olga Grushin take you on a dark and twisted tale of her own.

I definitely did not expect the story to plan out how it did even after reading the synopsis. Obviously I knew it wouldn’t be all fairies and unicorns, the sunshine happiness we’ve come to receive from fairy tales but Grushin delivers a story that is unusual, strange and unlike any retelling I’ve ever read. This is Grimm’s turned up 1000 notches!

I enjoyed the beginning when Cinderella was surrounded by the witch and her Fairy God Mother, explaining her life and what events had taken place since she said I do. I felt that both magical beings played the devil and the angel, advising and trying to convince Cinderella what she should do for the best. In particular I thought the witches part in the story was fascinating, I loved the different ways she appeared and her back story was compelling.

What I found clever and a great addition were the links to the other fairy tales. None of the characters were what they seemed, villains were portrayed in better lights and heroes clearly had their dark side. It made me realise there’s a little darkness inside everyone, even a princess.

I will admit that I got a little lost when the modern world started to emerge. I felt like Cinderella trying to work my way through the fog so it brought the pace of the book down a little. Luckily all was explained when the two worlds clashed together. This left me questioning what was reality and what was fantasy, which I would like to think was Grushin’s entire plan? It was a very cunning way to round it all off.

This was a great retelling and I would love to see more from Grushin, hopefully she will explore some of the other stories she gave a nod to in this. After all happily ever after isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning….

The charmed wife is a twist on the fairytale Cinderella. It’s set 13 years or so after she and the handsome Prince got married and lived happily ever after...or not quite.
An interesting idea that’s was fun to read and a nice change.
A twist on the classic fairytale

Wow... I did not like this book at all. Not even a little. It's supposed to be a Cinderella retelling but it ended up being a weird mix of fairytale storytelling combined with modern day stuff. It confused me most of the time and the way things were being described was way too over the top for my liking. Not to mention the dull, one dimensional characters. Nope.

I have just finished this book and I am feeling a little stunned if I am honest!  I love a twist on an original fairytale so the premise of 13.5 years later really intrigued me.

Once I started I found the story a little slow going but once the author started to explore the marriage history from the eyes of Cinderella I was fascinated and couldn't put the book down.

I really loved the parallels with our modern world and the twist towards the end where fairytale and real life meet.  I especially enjoyed how the author explored how hopes and dreams can swiftly become nightmares!

There were sone wonderful nods to other fairy stories and also how some of those turned out in later years too.

I thoroughly recommend this story to all die-hard fairytale fans I think its the little dose of reality we all sometimes need!