Ella: An Amish Retelling of Cinderella

Sarah Price is writing fairy tales set in Amish Communities and using the morals of the story to show how it would play out in real life in the Amish world. In this book, Ella is the orphaned step-daughter whose step-mother has moved in with her daughters and taken over Ella's home, her life, and they try to break her spirit. 

Ella is responsible for keeping the house clean, fixing the meals, sewing for her step-sisters, weeding the garden and putting up the produce, and working in the family store when the step-sisters don't want to. 

When Henry Clemens comes to town, with the hope of buying of the general store, Ella's step-mother starts wrangling for him to court one of  her two daughters and tries to hide Ella from him. He meets Ella accidentally and wants to know more about her.

The more Henry gets to know Ella, the more he sees how she's treated by her family and gets his uncle and aunt involved in the situation--they are deacon and his wife.  Her step-mother's actions came to light after the community's fund raiser pie auction.

This is a great retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale that reminds me of one of my favorite movies--Ever After.  In that movie Cinderella pleads for her step-family's lives but with one condition, that they be treated with the same respect they treated her with. 

This is a five star, hard to put down book, two thumbs up, and an apple crisp pie for dessert.

My thanks go to Kensington Books for allowing me to read and review this book.