I downloaded this book at the beginning of the year when apple books were giving away a lot of free audio-books, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I hadn’t read any blurbs or anything, just that it was a cinderella re-telling.

I was a bit surprised when I realised it was Fae and Vampires, but this was one of my favourite genres about ten years ago, so I was excited to give it a go.

Elle is a human girl, bound to her stepmother as a slave, and there is only one way she can escape. She needs to get enough ‘essence’ to purchase a wish, a top-tier wish, so she can ask the Godmother to free her from her slavery.

Thankfully, Elle has a special talent that her family don’t know about, she’s able to take people’s memories from them. And she has a steady trade of clients that she meets with who would rather forget certain things, and will pay her in essence to make those memories go away.

But one night at a club while she’s doing a job, she finds herself wound up with vampires, and they definitely do not have good intentions for her. When she finds herself kidnapped, her worry is getting back home before midnight so her stepmother doesn’t find out that she’s been out, but she should perhaps have bigger worries.

I was kind of disappointed to realise when the audiobook finished that this is actually part 1 of the City of Wishes novel, and it left the story incredibly unfinished. I’d love to know how this ends (although I think I can probably make a good guess), but I don’t know if I was so enthused about the story that I’d pay to finish reading it (sorry!), especially since each part is only a smidge over 100 pages.

I did enjoy Elle’s character though, and the narration was good too – the air-headed voices of Elle’s stepsisters reminded me of the Paris Hilton impression done by GottMik on Ru Paul’s Drag Race, and that made me smile – I love it when the narrator is so good that you lose yourself in the story.