The Godmother

By Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough’s Godmother puts a new twist in contemporary fantasy with the assertion that fairy godmothers exist here and now, and they have magical power that allows them to intervene in real-world problems.

What if someone wished for a fairy godmother would help the entire city of Seattle? An overworked, overstressed social worker named Rose Samson does just that when she makes an idle wish on a mustard seed. Felicity Fortune of Godmothers Anonymous shows up to help. Rose Samson is neither fashion model beautiful nor a twit, and she happily joins forces with Felicity Fortune, a “Godmother” who demonstrates that Grimm’s fairy tales are still relevant in our humdrum modern world.

Fairy godmothers are on a magical budget, so every possible way they can get human beings or animals to assist one another, they will try, rather than using up their magical means.

Felicity encounters many strangely familiar situations: a pretty stablehand named Cindy Ellis is mistreated by her cruel stepsisters. A rock star’s daughter, scared of the supermodel she married, runs away from home and encounters seven Vietnam veterans at an encounter session and retreat. One of them might be a big bad wolf, who knows?
 In all their encounters, Rose and Felicity try to blend their magical aid with realistic human initiative and social responsibility. Scarborough’s fully realized settings and the humor built into the mix of magical solutions and grim reality make this work an entertaining and compelling read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480497177

Reviews for The Godmother

[tacmyers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a nice new take on fairy tales, set in the present

[stewartry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This felt a little like Charles de Lint in its exploration of extreme misery and child abuse overlaid with magical assistance. One thing I will say for de Lint, though, is that at least he never rubbed my face in a toddler's point-of-view scene of child rape. Thank you for that. I'm not marking that as a spoiler, because a) it was almost inevitable and b) everyone should know about that going in. I wish I had. I probably wouldn't have read it if I'd known. There unfortunately is no such actual thing as brain bleach. Godmothers, originally fairy and now mostly humans with benefits, respond to wishes and selflessness and get involved with the unfortunate. Not all the unfortunate, of course, or even one percent. And sometimes the assistance backfires. Or is completely inept. There are elements to probably a dozen or more fairy tales and folk tales – Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Bluebeard, and so on, with one venture into Vietnamese mythology – and they are, mostly, well integrated and nicely used; the Snow White storyline didn't make me roll my eyes once, although the Cinderella thread ended with more of a whimper than a bang. I could admire the weaving in of the stories … except for the bloody talking cat. I could not reconcile a talking cat, inherently comical, with the tone and message of the book. In the end, the book adopts an appropriately fairy tale pretty-darn-near-happily-ever-after stance… but that, in truth, makes it a terribly sad ending. Very few of the problems are fixed – the child who was molested, for one, will never be what she might have been, and neither will her brother, and that could have and should have been prevented; the Cinderella stand-in is worse off than she was in the beginning, and the plotline did her horse no favors at all. And, on a larger scale, the dismal plot devices of poverty and violence and drugs and abuse and murder are all too real – they are present in every city (or any other gathering of human beings). There are no fairy godmothers – or if they do exist they have rigorously avoided me all my life. And while most bureaucracies are not – I don't think – quite as bad as the one depicted here as far as ill intent, they're anything but perfect, and always overwhelmed. And there isn't anyone to swan in on a cloud of rainbows and glitter to try, even ineptly, to make it any better. The final pages in particular are larded with the sort of humor heard in morgues and police stations, and … sorry, I'm not a cop or a coroner, and not so dulled to the horrors that the humor seems in any way appropriate. A child was raped; another was almost murdered three times; another was homeless and fighting for his life. Don't expect me to giggle a few pages later over a pissed-off toad. It's one of those books that I read willingly while it was in my hand, but did not pick up eagerly; I thought about tracking down the sequels, but it's also one of those books that do not improve with being looked back on: the more thought I give it the more it irritates me and the less I want to continue in this world. So … while the writing was technically good, and the idea was … interesting, I can't say this was a successful book. It's urban fantasy, certainly, and fits best under that description, but while the representation of urban Washington State/Puget Sound area was vivid, I've seen many better urban fantasies. Despite many of the trappings, it can't qualify as escapist fantasy; there is no escape to be found here. But it's also hard to swallow as a message book (in part due to that damn cat). I'm not sure what, in the end, the point of the book was, if there was one; the moral of the story is, I suppose, to be kind to each other and not wait for magic to step in. Problem is, no one is really listening.

[calmclam_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was not wonderfully well written, and it's quite dated (early nineties technology!), but props for realistic characters, an older protagonist (and plus-sized!), no glorification of stalking, and romance as a D plot at best. I think my favorite thing was that this--unlike a lot of current urban fantasy--has no "get out of reality free" card; there are very few princes to sweep people off their feet; and stalkers and abusers are clearly called out as such.

[sunnysd_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When Rose, an overworked, overstressed, and underpaid social worker makes an unselfish wish on a mustard seed necklace, she gets more help than she bargained for in the shape of Felicity Fortune, replacement godmother to the city of Seattle. Scarborough intertwines classic themes of good and evil straight out of Grimm's fairy tales, in which only the names have been changed -- not necessarily to protect the innocent. Overall it's a creative, enjoyable read with enough scary bits to make it suitable for adults or mature teens. Scarborough doesn't shy away from grim (no pun intended) details, making the book much closer to the roots of the Grimm brothers' stories than the highly sanitized versions we read to children today.

[cornerdemon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoy this book. While its sometimes gets clunky and confused, it's a great retelling of fairy tales in modern-day Seattle and the fairy godmother that comes to aid them. It has wonderful characters, who are more than mere shades of their fairy tale selves, and the story precedes quickly and without a lot to bog it down. The few problems I have with it was the lack of parallels for "Rose" (who is clearly supposed to be Sleeping Beauty) and the massive coincidences that take place in the book (while coincidence and luck have a lot to do with fairy tales, it really seems a little forced here). The story goes that social worker Rose is having a bad day and wishes for a fairy godmother for all of Seattle. Enter Felicity Fortune, who begins to show the parallels in Rose's cases to their fairy tale origins. Armed with this knowledge, they begin to find missing children, aid the helpless, and try to put some good into the world. During their adventure, they encounter wicked stepmothers, enchanted toads, talking cats, and corrupt politicians.I would definitely suggest that those with a love for fairy tales pick this up (you may have to get it from a library, as I had to buy a used copy - new ones don't seem to be available) and enjoy. If it catches your interest, there are two more in the series, though they pale in comparison.