City of Wishes: The Complete Cinderella Story

City of Wishes 1: The Memory Thief City of Wishes 1: The Memory Thief is an urban fantasy twist on Cinderella and it introduces us to a whole new reality of fae, humans, vampires, and shifters. In this world, however, humans are considered second-class citizens and lots of them are even enslaved to the other races. Our heroine Elle is a slave to her evil fae stepmother and stepsisters. At least in this retelling one of the stepsisters is a decent being and helps make Elle’s existence a little more bearable. Our Cinderella is not just an ordinary human girl though; she has the power to remove memories from people’s minds. She uses her gift in exchange for fae Essence, the currency she needs to purchase a Wish and finally gain her freedom. During one of her clandestine nighttime excursions, she meets dashing fae Dex and that’s where the story starts to get even more interesting. Rachel Morgan has done it again: the first City of Wishes installment is a great introduction to a thrilling new fantasy world! The characters and the pacing are great! City of Wishes 2: The Vampire Trap In the second installment of the City of Wishes story, The Vampire Trap, the plot of the Cinderella retelling thickens. In this part of the story, as the title suggests, we see Elle, Dex, and his friends trying to trap one of the vampires by using Elle as bait. We find out a little bit more about the mysterious fae prince, as well as the social hierarchy of this new world created by Rachel Morgan. We also meet more vampires, a shifter and the infamous Godmother. I have to say that the stepmother in this story is the most hateful I’ve experienced in any Cinderella story I’ve ever read or watched (and I’ve read/watched a lot of them!). She not only keeps Elle as a literal slave (through a spell) but also makes her use her memory stealing power on people in order to pull off elaborate cons to support the family’s lifestyle. What I like most about this story are the interactions between Elle & Dex and Elle & Sienna (the good stepsister). City of Wishes 3: The Moonlight Masquerade In the third installment of the City of Wishes story, The Moonlight Masquerade, Elle finds herself faced with a terrible dilemma… The Godmother is willing to grant Elle her freedom from her abusive stepmother but in return, she demands that Elle kill Prince Chevalier at the royal ball. She works her magic so Elle can go to the ball and lots of shenanigans ensue. Elle finally finds out (and the reader gets confirmation) that Dex is the prince. We find out more about the Allegiant Vampires’ to overthrow the Fae Royal Family and rule the realm. There are a few very cute moments between Elle and Dex at the end, but they get cut short by a massive cliffhanger! City of Wishes 4: The Eternal Night The fourth installment of City of Wishes, The Eternal Night, takes part mostly in a so-called Eternal Night, a secret vampire safe heaven in which Elle has found sanctuary from her evil stepmother, as well as from the Godmother. In this part of the story we finally find out what is wrong with Dex and his family and Elle finally tells Dex about her memory-stealing powers. The Godmother reenters the picture and practically everything she does makes me despise her more and more… Elle and Dex are as cute as always, I love them together! City of Wishes 5: The Starlight Quest The fifth installment of City of Wishes, The Starlight Quest, finds Elle and her friends going on a mysterious and dangerous quest to fulfill the terms of the wish made to the Godmother to save Dex’s life. This story is so interesting in that it hardly ever goes where I think will go, so it keeps me on my toes! I’m really sad that the next part will be the last one, but I honestly have no idea how the author is going to pack all that’s still supposed to happen in a single part. City of Wishes 6: The Everafter Wish The sixth installment of City of Wishes, The Everafter Wish, finds Elle, Dex, and their friends returned from the quest that granted Elle magic and served as payment for the wish granted by the Godmother. Next, it is time to confront the King with the fact that humans can also have magic and should be treated equally to the other High Races. That doesn’t go exactly as planned but I don’t want to spoil it by going into detail. Elle and Dex are still the cutest, the Godmother is still the worst… But the plot still came with plenty of twists and turns! I have to say that the ending of the main storyline was tied up much more neatly than what I’ve come to expect from Rachel Morgan and I honestly don’t know how I feel about that… Apart from that, the author left plenty of storylines unfinished when it comes to secondary characters, so I suspect this isn’t the last of her stories we’ve seen in this universe.