Cinder: Fractured Fairy Tales, #2

By J.E. Taylor

Elle must escape a life of despair to find magic in a Prince's arms.

Elle Seeley's world turns upside down when her mother passes unexpectedly. Her father brings her into his business, teaching her the art of negotiation in the marketplace and how to defend herself against attack.

All his training and grooming comes to a halt when he brings home a new wife and the woman's daughter. Elle's father makes her promise to listen and obey.

The minute her father leaves, her new step-mother transforms into a monster with one goal—to humiliate Elle into submission.

When news of a ball is announced, Elle wants to escape her mentally unstable captor, but she is forbidden to go.

Will Elle find a way to escape a life meant only for despair?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JET-Fueled Fiction
• Release date: Apr 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781386711094

J.E. Taylor

J.E. Taylor is a USA Today bestselling author, a publisher, an editor, a manuscript formatter, a mother, a wife, a business analyst, and a Supernatural fangirl, not necessarily in that order. She first sat down to seriously write in February of 2007 after her daughter asked: “Mom, if you could do anything, what would you do?” From that moment on, she hasn’t looked back. In addition to being co-owner of Novel Concept Publishing, Ms. Taylor also moonlights as a Senior Editor of Allegory E-zine, an online venue for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and co-host of the popular YouTube talk show Spilling Ink. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and during the summer months enjoys her weekends on the shore in southern Maine. Visit her at www.jetaylor75.com to check out her other titles. Sign up for her newsletter at https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/y2z2x6 for early previews of her upcoming books, release announcements, and special opportunities for free swag!

Book preview

CINDER

A FRACTURED FAIRY TALE

A black and white photo of a building with spires Description automatically generated with low confidence

Elle must escape a life of despair to find magic in a Prince’s arms.

Elle Seeley’s world turns upside down when her mother passes unexpectedly. Her father brings her into his business, teaching her the art of negotiation in the marketplace and how to defend herself against attack.

All his training and grooming comes to a halt when he brings home a new wife and the woman’s daughter. Elle’s father makes her promise to listen and obey.

The minute her father leaves, her new step-mother transforms into a monster with one goal—to humiliate Elle into submission.

When news of a ball is announced, Elle wants to escape her mentally unstable captor, but she is forbidden to go.

Will Elle find a way to escape a life meant only for despair?

CINDER Chapter 1

A black and white photo of a building with spires Description automatically generated with low confidence

THE SOFT KISS ON my forehead should have brought forth a warning.

Instead, it was the usual, mundane good night routine I had had with my mother for the last seventeen years. She tucked me into bed and placed that sweet, comforting kiss in the center of my forehead before she took leave to meet up with my father at the latest social event. She was dressed in a golden gown that would put the rest of the city’s women to shame.

I wish I had known that would be the last time I saw her.

Had I known, I would have asked for more.

More hugs, even though it would have wrinkled that beautiful dress.

More stories, even though another one of her tall tales would make her woefully late for the party.

More time for her to stay with me instead of leaving me alone with my grieving father.

Three days after she died, I stared out the window at the fields drenched in the morning sunlight, wishing for my mother once again.

Elle! My father’s voice echoed up the marble staircase.

I turned, pressing the fabric of my mourning dress into place. My eyes stung from the unrelenting cascade of tears. No matter how many times my father told me to stop crying, I could not staunch the fountain. At least I was silent now, without the accompaniment of the wailing loss that had gripped me when I was first given the news.

I climbed down the stairs into the grand entry, avoiding eye contact, but my sniffling caught my father’s attention.

Girl, you need to get yourself together. The entire city is coming out to extend their condolences, and I cannot have you sniffling like some small child.

I nodded and sniffed.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, he muttered and handed me a handkerchief.

I dabbed my nose and folded the fabric in the palm of my hand. I would need it for the funeral and the procession to the pyre, where they would honor my mother by reducing her beautiful form to dust.

Such was the way of the elite. Only royalty had their bodies bound and stored in crypts under the castles. I never understood the fascination of being put in a marble casket with my likeness carved in the elaborate stone, and my essence trapped in the same dark space.

The funeral pyre cleansed and reduced the human body to ash, which traveled on the wind, partnering with nature once again.

My thoughts kept turning these two disparate forms of internments over until I stood in the front row of the great chapel next to my father. He remained stoic, and I continued my silent sobbing throughout the service.

I was unsure how my legs held my weight from the church to the pyre built on the hill in our backyard overlooking the king’s valley. As the flames engulfed my mother, my knees weakened, but my father caught me, steadying me. I glanced sideways with a nod of thanks.

He clenched his jaw and remained standing tall despite the stench of burning wood mingled with charred flesh that hung on the air. A single tear crested and slid down his cheek like a drop of molasses first tapped from a tree trunk.

The king’s emissaries rode up the hill, stopping a distance away to pay their respects. My father crossed his left arm across his chest and bowed, showing his allegiance to the crown even in this difficult time.

I wasn’t as diplomatic as my father and couldn’t have given a rat’s ass that the king’s people were here. All I wanted was my mother.

My father cleared his throat. I curtsied as best as my shaking knees would allow, given the circumstances. They didn’t seem to mind my obvious lack of attention, but I knew I would get a stern talking to later that evening from my father.

ELLE, YOU MUST REMEMBER your manners, especially at such trying times as these. It is what differentiates us from the beasts.

I stared at Father. I knew he was right. I also knew my mother would have been sadly disappointed with my behavior, but my father had the decency not to bring my mother’s expectations into his berating.

The prince was with the king’s guard, he said.

I blinked and shrugged. What would you have had me do? It was my mother’s funeral, and honestly, I wouldn’t have cared if the king himself had shown up.

My father’s lips pressed together, and his cheeks flushed. He turned and walked out of the room without another word.

OVER THE NEXT FEW months, Father and I found a comfortable rhythm. Between my daily chores, he showed me how to maintain the property books and where all our finances were held. He taught me how to barter with the local shop owners and how to defend myself if I ever found the need.

All his attention helped fill the emptiness in my chest every time I picked up one of Mother’s knickknacks. When her loss overwhelmed me, I wandered into her closet to touch her silk dresses. The soft fabric brought back more happy memories, and I felt closer to her when I shared the quiet of her dressing room.

When the holiday season started, I climbed up into our attic and started going through the trunks, looking for the decorations Mother used to hang. I had already pillaged through a half dozen chests filled with linens and other mundane household items without luck.

I crossed to the opposite side of the attic. The third trunk had what I was looking for, but as I gathered the decorations, a breeze tickled my ankles. I turned. In the far corner sat a dust-laden trunk. Drawn to the ancient sigils on the side, I placed my armful of ornaments down on the holiday trunk and traversed threw the boxes to the old one hidden away in the corner.

Standing over the ornately carved wood, vibrations filled me. I reached for the lock.

Do not touch that trunk!

I jumped at my father’s stern voice, spinning towards him with my heart thumping in my throat like I had done something terribly wrong.

His wide eyes gave me more of a start than his reprimanding tone. They were eyes of a man filled with fear.

I blinked and stepped away from the trunk, even though every fiber in my body craved to open it. It called to me in a way nothing ever had, but I obeyed my father.

I was just looking for the holiday decorations. I pointed to the pile I had put down before I got sidetracked with the ancient chest behind me.

Well, get what you came up here for and come back downstairs. His features smoothed out, but his tone remained clipped.

I grabbed the pile and headed

Reviews for Cinder

[Nicole · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A good quick read... maybe a little too quick...
You don’t really get a chance to emotionally connect to the characters.
The bones of the story are good but there’s very little in the way of body.
There were a lot of missed opportunities to fill in details and get the reader more emotionally involved.
Good for a lazy Sunday afternoon reading though.