Ash by Malinda Lo

 "'Please,' Ash said, 'I must do this alone. You do not need to concern yourself with me - I know you have more important things to attend to.'
 Sadness washed over the huntress's face. 'Ash,' she said,'I would do what ever I could to help you. How can I make you understand that?'
 'But why?' she could not help but ask. 'I am no one - a servant in a poor household. What could I give you?'
 Kaisa seemed taken aback. 'You don't need to give me anything,' she said. 'I offer because I care for you. I thought you felt the same way.'
 'I do,' Ash said, and as she said it she knew that it was true. It frightened her more than the dress did, more than the bargain she had struck with Sidhean. It made her skin flush and her hands feel cold, and she had to look away from the huntress, whose eyes were so green at that moment it was like looking at leaves on a tree. Below the balcony, in the ballroom. the dancers whirled in their dresses that had been spun from ordinary human-made looms." [p. 238]

Set in a medieval-like world where the old ways of greenwitches and tales of fairies are being replaced by the rational ways of the philosophers Ash by Malinda Lo is a retelling of Cinderella with a twist. Aisling, or Ash, looses her mother to illness when she's only 12. Her father soon remarries bringing home to Ash a stepmother and two stepsisters. When rather soon also her father dies, Ash is left living with people who never really liked her. Her stepmother makes Ash pay for her fathers financial losses and Ash is made to work as a servant in her stepmother's household. Life looks very grim and even though years pass Ash doesn't really get over losing her mother. Then she meets the mysterious Sidhean in the large woods near her stepmother's house and also befriends the king's huntress, Kaisa.

This is a world where the leader of the hunters has always been a woman. This is a world where different sexualities are perfectly normal. This is a world where fairies, even if the King has renounced the old ways, do in fact exist. And fairies can grant wishes, only they always want something in return. Ash makes a deal with Sidhean the fairy, but will it keep her from her true love?

And just like in Cinderella there will be a ball for the prince to find a bride, only Ash is not interested in the prince. It's someone else's eyes green as leaves that make her heart flutter and her cheeks flush.

I loved this book. I loved to learn about the world Lo had created and I especially loved the book's fairytale feel and its fresh take on an old story. And the love story was so sweet. Aww! :)