Publisher's Synopsis
It is a fact universally acknowledged that a girl, in possession of stepmother and stepsisters, must be in want of a fairy godmother to come whisk her away to some ball, where she might fall in love with a prince and live happily ever after...
Lizzy hated facts universally acknowledged.
But now the Gardener has taken the Mistress's throne, her motives unknown, and three royal balls have thrown Lizzy into the path of the most irritating king in the land. Meanwhile, can her beloved stepsister ever find a man willing to look past her farmer father? It's a complicated mess and Lizzy only wants out.
Too bad the Forest doesn't care what she wants. This is the second book of The Austen Fairy Tales, a series of Austen retellings, each one mixed with a beloved fairy tale. They are pseudo-medieval high fantasy in a shared world and are best read in publication order, though each story does stand alone.