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THE TRUE STORY OF CINDERELLA: Meet the woman who inspires the author of the world's most famous story. Lucinda, a penniless English orphan, is abused and exploited as a cinder-sweep by her aristocratic relatives. On receiving her sole inheritance—a pair of glass-beaded slippers—she runs away to France in pursuit of an officer on whom she has a big crush. She joins the baggage train of Louis XIV’s army, survives a horrific massacre, and eventually finds her way to Paris. There she befriends the man who will some day write the world’s best loved fairy tale, Charles Perrault.There is much more: a witch hunt, the sorry truth about daydreams, plus some truly astonishing revelations, such as the historical facts behind the story of the Emperor's new clothes, and a perfectly reasonable explanation for the compulsion some young women have to kiss frogs. This is not the fairy tale you remember.

Hester Velmans is a novelist and award-winning translator of literary fiction. She grew up in Amsterdam, New York, Paris, Geneva and London, and now lives in Western Massachusetts. SLIPPER is her first novel for adults. She is also the author of the children's books (for middle readers) Isabel of the Whales and Jessaloup's Song.