Book Review
of Maven Fairy Godmother
Title: Maven Fairy Godmother: Through
The Veil
Author: Charlotte Henley Babbs
Genre: Humorous Women’s Fiction
File Size: 506 KB
Print Length: 289 pages
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing (March 30, 2012)
ASIN: B007QD2XW2
ISBN: 978-1-77127-000-7
Price: $5.95
Blurb
:
Broke, busted and despairing over the
mess her life has turned out to be, middle-aged Maven Morrigan is offered a job
as a fairy godmother, a one-time-only last chance to make something of herself
and make the world a better place.
Not knowing who to trust: her boss, her slithery familiar, or her own Bump of
Direction, she has to find her personal power by relying on herself, her real
world failures, and her sense of the absurd, to survive in this imaginary
garden with real trolls in it so that her clients get their happily ever after.
About the
Author:
Charlotte Babb
began writing when she could hold a piece of chalk and scribble her
name--although she sometimes mistook "Chocolate" for
"Charlotte" on the sign at the drug store ice cream counter.
When her third-grade teacher allowed her access
to the fiction room at the school library, Charlotte discovered Louisa Alcott
and Robert Heinlein, an odd marriage of the minds. These two authors have had
the most influence on her desire to share her point of view with the world and
to explore how the world might be made better.
In the meantime, Charlotte has fallen prey to
steampunk and the gears are turning...corset, bustle and magic, oh my! She
brings to any project a number of experiences, including work as a technical
writer, gasket inspector, cloth store associate, girl Friday, and telephone
psychic.
She has studied the folk stories of many
cultures and wonders what happened to ours. Where the stories are for people
over 20 who have survived marriage, divorce, child-rearing, education,
bankruptcy, and widowhood? Here.
Charlotte loves Fractured Fairy Tales and writes
them for your enjoyment.
Contacts:
Excerpt:
"Be
careful what you ask for," Maven said, "You just might get it."
The
girl stared at Maven for a moment. She held up her fingers and started
counting. "I just want to have (one) the fabulous, romantic evening with
(two) the beautiful clothes and (three) the lovely music and (four) the elegant
food I didn't have to cook." Wistful hope shone on her face even behind
the calculations of exactly what kinds of fun girls just want to have. She
stuck out her thumb and added, "I was very careful."
"You
asked for it." Maven wondered how a fairy godmother cast her spell. She
hoped the wand would work, but in a dream, what could go wrong? "I will
provide the clothes and the coach and the whole kit, cat and caboodle. If you
like what you see, then go for the prince and make yourself happy. If not, then
come back home and decide what you want. You have until midnight before it all
goes away. At the twelfth bong: busted."
"I'm
ready." The girl closed her eyes, held her breath, and stood very still.
How
to grant a wish? The Bump suggested bopping the girl over the head, preferably
with a broom handle. Maven swished the wand, but nothing happened. There was a
song in the movie, but she couldn't remember how it went. "Boopbetty
Boopbetty Do!"
The
girl opened her eyes again. "What? Do you need something for the
magic...mice? A pumpkin?"
"Bring
them on." The girl ought to wash her face, too. But if Maven had magic for
horses and coaches, a bath should be no sweat. Maven never cast a spell before,
but she'd written affirmations, meditations and invocations. She'd soaked her
head and sunk her bankbook in all flavors of Manifest your Mojo workshops
trying to make some sense of her life. Maybe they'd work if she did them for
someone else.
"I
don't have a pumpkin, and there aren't any mice in the trap," Ashleigh
wailed.
"Quit
wailing," Maven said. "What do you have?"
Ashleigh's
eyes got wider, and her lip trembled. More tears made clean tracks down her
face.
"Just
get something big for a carriage, something to pull it, and something to
drive." Maven held her wand on one hip and scratched her head.
"You're running out of time."
While
the girl went scrounging, Maven visualized a castle, grand courtiers, music,
food, dancing, and flowers: Hollywood prom night on steroids.
The
girl came back carrying a cabbage and something wiggling around in a sack,
which they took outside. Maven waved the wand, drawing circles of sparkles
around the cabbage. She invoked all the major credit cards, those being the
most magical words she knew. With a flash of sparkles like fourth of July
fireworks, the cabbage swelled to the size of an SUV and sprouted platinum
wheels, a tailgate, a coachman's seat and a candle-lit lantern, all done up in
shades of silver and celadon.
Maven
swirled more sparkles around the sack, which opened to reveal two lizards. They
stretched and twisted into two handsome footmen, each gorgeous enough to pose
on the cover of any bodice ripper, dressed in green and white satin.
Maven
grinned. If the job was this easy, she'd be all over it like stink on a hog.
"What
about my horses? The carriage can't pull itself," Ashleigh cried.
"What else can we use?" More welling, trembling and quivering.
Maven
noticed the kitchen was not as clean as the storybooks always implied.
"Let's go back into the kitchen. Open a cabinet door, or pick up something
off the floor."
Obedient
to the end, the Ashleigh gingerly lifted the edge of a rug. Out ran a couple of
cockroaches. Maven zapped them, transforming them into ponies. She whistled,
and the lizard coachmen came to get the ponies and hitch them up.
A
couple of cabinets, a broom closet and a pantry later, four black ponies, like
an ebony mule team complete with white ostrich plumes above their forelocks,
were hitched to the cabbage.
Maven
took another deep breath and flicked her wand over the girl, showering her with
sparks. The ragged clothes disappeared just before they began to smolder—then
the dirt vanished. Like the girl on the half-shell, Ashleigh stood there
shivering and trying to cover herself while the former lizards leered and
grinned.
"You
must be new at this," Ashleigh cried. "Concentrate! I've got to get
to the ball!"
Maven
flicked and swirled, shouted the magic words again. Nothing.
An
image of a sneer from her fourth grade teacher appeared in Maven's brain, her
personal icon of falling short. Maven gritted her teeth, worked her jaw side to
side, and invoked her redneck heritage with all the powers of Chaos.
"Y'all watch this."
She
twirled her wand above her head and snapped it like a whip toward the girl,
stomping the ground in follow through. From a mist of sparkles and smoke, a
goddess emerged, floating in a landscape of shimmering silk, sprinkled with
diamonds like sesame seeds on a bun. Her hair twined around her head like kudzu
with fragrant flower clusters sprouting over one ear. Diamond earrings dripped
from her earlobes. She tottered in four-inch glass stilettos.
Ashleigh
turned once each way to see the flow of the skirt. She wobbled a bit in the
shoes, but tiptoed to Maven. "This is more like it!"
One
of the former lizards bowed to his lady and helped her into the carriage. Then
he leapt to the silver tailgate. The other scurried up to the coachman's seat
without so much as a smirk.
Maven
waved as the cabbage drove away. "Have fun, now, and remember what I
said." As the cabbage disappeared down the street, she grinned. Fairy
godmothering. Who'd have thought to wish for that?
Also Available
Three stories:
- Bubba
and the Beast
- Mavenstiltskin
- Fairy
Frogmother
- File
Size: 157 KB
- Print
Length: 46 pages
- Publisher: Charlotte
Henley Babb; 1 edition (June 13, 2012)
- ASIN: B008BCZXNS
Important Links
Funny book. I love the quirky story and the grown up
fairy tale. I give this story 4.5 out of
5 clouds.
This
product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my
opinions or reviews.
At age twenty-three, Alex has had a hard life. His
parents died when he was quite young, leaving his grandparents to raise him.
Right before his high school graduation, his grandparents passed on too,
leaving him all alone. 
About the
Author:
