June 2023 MBR The Folktale/Fairytale Shelf

The Folktale/Fairytale Shelf

The Regal Pink
Jenny Knipfer
Independently Published
https://jennyknipfer.com/the-regal-pink
9781737957522, $2.99 Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Regal-Pink-Retold-Fairy-Tales-ebook/dp/B0BV46KRVS

The Regal Pink is the first book in a series of retold fairy tales, and tackles a Grimm classic in a story that will especially appeal to females, from young adults through adults. The opening prologue comes from Diana, who expresses the pain of being a fairy "betwixt and between" human and fae worlds. Charged with being human for a period of time, Diana feels trapped. The first chapter opens in 1451 with Daniel, who has just had a terrible dream about Diana (the magical friend he loves) killing him. Is it a premonition of the future? He has created Diana from his dreams and his power, so why would she hurt him?

As time passes, Daniel and Diana grow up to adulthood, but retain their powers and their mysteries. Daniel's biggest wish is to move into a different life. Be careful what you wish for - especially when your power is to grant wishes for others. Daniel learns this when the future introduces more transformations that lie beyond his control: "Daniel discerned a change coming and with it freedom from the slavery of wishing." Jenny Knipfer crafts a compelling story of lives undone and redone in The Regal Pink. It is a story with a lesson, much like the Grimm's original 'The Pink' (upon which it is based); but it also brings with it the magic of evolving relationships, transformative processes, and the currents of friendships and love that drive its characters to make extraordinary decisions, diverging from lives that already reside a touch beyond the commonplace.

It's unusual to note that God does appear in what seems to be a fairy tale retold, but is represented as The Light. This makes the story accessible to a broader audience than myth-seekers alone. A host of characters entwine in Diana and Daniel's world, from spies who breach castle walls to Roderick, whose father teaches him that "...the power of the natural realm, along with the spiritual, was The Light's to command and that mankind were mere stewards of that power." And yet, he and his wife Rosalind are assured of a child and an heir through magical dreams and heavenly processes that he accepts on some level and rejects on others.

The story shifts between the first-person perspective of Diana and the third-person narration of events that entangle the lives of Diana, Daniel, Roderick, Marcus, and others in the kingdom. The result is a heady blend of magical realism, myth, and references to God's force in the world that involves readers in a complex, appealing new version of Grimm's original 'The Pink'. The Regal Pink is recommended as a stand-alone choice for fantasy readers, but, ideally, it will be read in conjunction with the original tale and utilized in creative writing courses interesting in highlighting various techniques for recrafting traditional fairy tales in new ways. This audience, as well as libraries looking for revised fairy stories, will find Jenny Knipfer's first book in a projected series to be thoroughly engrossing, stretching the hallmarks and boundaries of the fairy tale in new and satisfyingly unexpected ways.

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