Anna, her maid, wrestles with her heavy hair the way Cook battles with brown bread dough. Mama flicks her hair toward me like a horse’s tail.

Nurse wants to put me to bed, but Mama is going to a ball tonight, and she says I can stay up to watch her get ready. But when Mama brushes hers with slow, smooth strokes, it spills like chocolate over her milk white shoulders. I sit on a velvet stool at Mama’s feet, watching her brush her hair.

Milton, Paradise Lost, iii, 353–361 Prologue With these that never fade the Spirits elect Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,Īnd flowers aloft shading the fount of life,Īnd where the river of bliss through midst of Heaven Praise for the Amaranth Enchantment Amaranthīegan to bloom but soon for man’s offence Everything made much more sense once I realized it was an original. I was very distracted while reading it because I had gotten it into my head somehow that it was a fairy tale retelling as opposed to an original story, but I couldn't make it fit with anything I knew. I hope the above is all correct as I actually read this over a year ago. As Lucinda searches for Peter and the stone, she discovers that not all is precisely as it seems, but can she learn the truth in time or will disaster strike?Īlthough it is an original story, The Amaranth Enchantment has all the hallmarks of the best fairy tales - an orphan, a fairy godmother, a prince, hidden identities, a masked ball, and of course, lots of magic and romance! Lucinda will have to use all her wits to retrieve the stone from Peter, but distractions abound, particularly in the forms of charming Prince Gregor and one stubborn goat named Dog. Then things get worse than Lucinda could have ever imagined - following the death of her uncle, Lucinda's aunt accuses her of the theft of a precious stone left in the shop by Beryl, the Amaranth Witch (Falsely! It was that street scamp Peter!) and kicks Lucinda out onto the streets. That's all gone - Lucinda's parents are dead and she lives working as an unpaid drudge for her kind, goldsmith uncle and the mean greedy wife he doesn't dare to defy. Lucinda had a wonderful life parents who adored her, wealth, privilege, all the fine things of which a girl dreams.

The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry