This HaBO is from Kathi, who is looking for a retelling:
I’m looking for a fairytale retelling (I really love this subgenre!), that I read last winter. It’s not old, so maybe someone knows it.
The fairytale it’s based on it ‘the goose girl’, the one with the talking horse head (Fallada).
Anyway, in the version I’m looking for, the wind plays an important role. The main character doesn’t speak the language at first, but learns from the other servants in the stables: one older woman, one who is her age, and three(?) brothers. The girl about her age is assaulted later on and I believe the lack of justice for people who can’t pay for the law plays a role?
The prince – of course there is a prince 😉 – suspects that there is something wrong with the woman who took the role of princess and keeps on contacting the real princess. In one scene she is in a cave or something like this and nearly freezes until the prince finds her. And the imposter forces her to write letters home, because she can’t imitate her writing.
That’s about all I remember, I hope it’s enough to find this book.
I’m unfamiliar with the Goose Girl story, but this sounds rather interesting!
This is The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale! There’s a whole series!
I’m not certain about the letters home but this might be Shannon Hale’s Goose Girl.
The protagonist learns how to speak to/manipulate the wind via Fallada’s name/horse head and later uses that ability to fix things.
I can check the other details when I’m home since I open a copy.
It’s YA though so if you were looking for an adult novel, then I’m wrong.
woohoo, my HaBO is featured! 😀
I’m afraid that it’s not Shannon Hale’s novel 🙁 but I liked that one as well 😉
T. Kingfisher, aka Ursula Vernon, does lovely fairy tale retellings, but I don’t think she’s done goose girl yet.
Intisar Khanani did a retelling of Goose Girl called Thorn. I read it a few years ago, so unfortunately I can’t recall if all the details match up. It looks like it’s not currently available as an ebook, but will get re-released in the spring.
Yes, it sounds like Khanani’s Thorn.
I feel like it’s not Heart’s Blood by Jeffe Kennedy in the Twelve Kingdoms series. (Just in case it’s a case of figuring out which goose girl retelling it’s not!)
I don’t remember that one having much in the way of the Wind playing a role or the language thing, although I think there is a scene where the heroine almost freezes and the princes rescues her. I also don’t remember much about justice – and I wish there had been since I would have liked a more satisfying “justice is SERVED, bitch!” ending for the antagonist 😛
I’m sure it’s Thorn by Intisar Khanani. I love this book, and I love the way Ms. Khanani writes. The others in the stable are brothers, their sister and their aunt.
The one I was thinking of was the one by Jeffe Kennedy as well.
Such a fucked up faity tale…
I thought at first it might be one of Lila DiPasqua’s Fiery Tales, but I looked at them, and The Goose Girl is not among the fairly tales her series is based upon.
Agreed with all the above, it’s Thorn.
It sounds an awful lot like Shannon Hale’s Goose Girl, but there are parts that don’t quite fit. The wind is actually a character in Shannon Hale’s retelling, but I don’t know about the cave part.
Yes, it’s thorn. *reading-binge-activate*
‘Thank you’ to all of you and sorry that it took some time to get back to you.