Fairest of Heart (Texas Ever After series) by Karen Witemeyer - A Review

 



        Fairest of Heart is the first installment in Karen Witemeyer's new series, Texas Ever After, and is a reimagined telling of the Snow White fairytale. Witemeyer retells the well-known fairytale, setting it in 1892 Texas. Penelope Snow, a beautiful young woman with both a complexion and heart as pure as snow, travels through Texas with an acting troupe, serving as a personal maid for a famous actress, who could give any evil Queen a run for her money. Her beauty has been nothing but a curse to poor Penelope, who turns to dressing in shapeless dresses and making herself as invisible as possible, but alas, she still ends up attracting the wrong attention, leaving her life in tatters and her mistress plotting her demise. Texas Ranger Titus Kingsley has learned to expect the worst from women after his brother loses his life due to the schemes of a beautiful woman. So when a Miss Penelope Snow shows up under suspicious circumstances takes up residence with the seven drovers living at his grandfather's ranch, Titus decides to keep an eye on her, especially after being assigned to investigate a robbery case tied to Penelope's troupe and all the evidence points to her... 

        I have to say that as a general rule, I don't usually enjoy the subgenre of re-imagined fairytales. For whatever reason they just aren't in my wheelhouse and don't usually interest me. That changed when one of my favorite authors announced that her next book would be a reimagined Snow White. Karen Witemeyer has never let me down with her books, so I trusted her to deliver this time around, even though I was a bit leery about the subject. I have to admit, Snow White reimagined in a western setting was an interesting move, one that ultimately paid off. I found the whole approach rather refreshing. Witemeyer kept the familiar components of a Snow White in the form of Penelope Snow, a Prince in the form of Titus Kingsley (a nod at the royal angle using KINGsley), an evil Queen in the form of a villainous mistress, and of course, we have our seven dwarves in the form of seven elderly drovers (cowboys), all the while giving it a good twist to make it all her own. 

    I have to say, what I most enjoyed about the story was the contrast between Penelope Snow's beauty and that of the villain Narcissa's. Penelope's beauty comes from her pure heart and sweet disposition (and yes, also a beautiful appearance), whereas Narcissa's is strictly a physical beauty, it goes no deeper than her skin. The contrast also lies in how each woman uses their beauty. Penelope simply doesn't use her physical beauty, instead relying on her heart and good nature. Narcissa uses her physical beauty in order to take advantage of men and do harm. There are a couple of passages that portray Narcissa using her beauty to lure men, as well as two scenes where it is implied in the most dignified way that Narcissa took these men to bed. Now, this is a clean and Christian novel, so there's absolutely nothing explicit in the book. The scenes that deal with Narcissa's exploits and evil conduct are handled with discretion and subtlety, yet still gets the point across. I appreciate the fact that Witemeyer creates realistic characters, we may not like all of them or what some do, but they are realistic. The kind of exploits that Narcissa is involved in does happen in real life, anyone offended by those being included in the book must be consistently offended going through every day life. We see far worse on TV, in the news, etc. Just because we are Christians, doesn't mean we should just pretend that sort of stuff doesn't happen. That is one of the things I appreciated most about this book, Witemeyer gave us realistic characters and handled realistic situations with grace and subtlety. 

    I was correct in placing my trust in Karen Witemeyer, I was not disappointed, in fact, I'll definitely give future fairytale re-imaginings a fair chance. I look forward to the other re-imaginings that Witemeyer has in the making. 

        

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