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Cover of The Fairy Godmother

The Fairy Godmother

core novel 2004 Five Hundred Kingdoms

Record

First published2004
Original language EN
Work typenovel
Canon statuscore
Reader rating4.00 (19,594 ratings, collected 2026-09-12)
First-edition ISBN9780373802456
Internal chronology1

Synopsis

In the Five Hundred Kingdoms, an ineffable magical force known as the Tradition constantly pushes people toward reenacting familiar fairy-tale roles, whether or not those roles serve them well. Nineteen-year-old Elena Klovis seems fated to live out a Cinderella-like existence under the thumb of her wicked stepmother and stepsisters, expected to eventually be rescued by a prince and married off according to the Tradition's script. When Elena instead flees her stepmother's house rather than wait for rescue, the Tradition's pull redirects her toward becoming the reluctant apprentice of Bella, an aging Fairy Godmother, thrusting Elena into the unfamiliar and demanding work of managing other people's fated stories rather than living out her own.

Where it sits

Notes

  • From the series record (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms): A completed 7-book sequence of standalone fairy-tale-retelling novels sharing one meta-fictional secondary world ("The Tradition", a narrative-causality force that pushes real lives toward familiar fairy-tale shapes), published 2004-2012 by Luna/Harlequin.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.

  • Reading order, within the series Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms: position 1 of 7: next One Good Knight (2006)

Sources

← Five Hundred Kingdoms dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.