Cinderwild – Book Excerpt

Happy Thursday, friend! International Women’s Day is tomorrow and what perfect timing to share about a fairy tale retelling that celebrates the resilience of women on society’s fringes. I have Coranna Adams with me today and we are chatting about her debut novel, Cinderwild. Let’s welcome Coranna and learn about the book.

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Get to know the author: Coranna Adams

Hi Coranna! Welcome back to Armed with A Book. Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!

I live in Asheville, North Carolina with my two sons and husband–I’m the lone female in my house–even our hamster is a boy, so I often feel like Wendy with the Lost Boys. Because of this, I really nourish and stay connected to the women in my life. This may be why my debut novel focuses so much on a secret support network of women! 

I am a voracious SFF reader and a closet romance reader. My favorite book of the last year was Alix Harrow’s Starling House. I am still integrating the many ways this book touched my heart. To me, story is the primary way that we as humans self-organize and find meaning, so engaging with story in various forms is the most fun, valuable way I can spend my time!

What inspired you to write this book?

I knew I wanted to write from a single protagonist perspective. I was interested in the fairy tale retellings, but I wanted to pick a character who is relatively unseen. Cinderella’s godmother has her moment in the cultural lexicon, which to most of us is that Disney moment with transforming the pumpkin into a carriage, rags into a beautiful gown. But I wanted to explore more about what makes her tick. What I found at the heart of the story was mentorship: an older woman who protects and empowers a younger woman who has been abused and disadvantaged in a variety of ways. 

How long did it take you to write this book, from the first idea to the last edit?

Two years. Six months to draft and the rest of the time I worked it through alpha and then beta readers

What makes your story unique?

A couple of things: Cinderwild is gritty. It doesn’t shy away from showing the dominant cultural norms and practices that feel foreign to our modern way of life, and Marina, my protagonist, is a woman who has lost a lot in small and large ways. Her power comes from persistence.

And most enchanting to me is Marina’s love affair with wild places, which is the source of the witches’ magic and power in the novel.

Who would enjoy reading your book? 

Everyone, but I wrote this book for the many strong women out there. Especially for women on the fringes of society. Those who have suffered and still continue to hold up their friends, families, and communities through small and large acts of resistance. 

Did you bring any of your experiences into this book?

I’m not sure I believe any writer who answers no to this question. If you know an author well enough, be sure that their book traces many personal strengths and fault lines in unique ways. So yes. To start, I believe in magic. I believe in a numinous world, and while those words mean different things to me than they do to Marina, we share a devotion to untamed places. 

And yes, I am a forty-four year old woman. I’ve loved and lost. I have two children (19 and 11), so I am not the center of my world any longer–the next generation inspires and guides my choices. So we share that as well.

What’s something you hope readers would take away from it?

Live deeply. One of my favorite quotes (and I often don’t remember things like quotes) is from Albert Camus: In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer, which I take to mean embrace the paradoxical nature of the deepest mysteries of life. 

Do you have a favourite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?

I love the scene where Cendrillon meets Alasdair for the first time. I love the scenes at the end of the book when Marina offers Cendrillon the godmother test. I love the cave sequence. There’s a theme here. All of these are powerful, magical moments of change for my characters!

What is something you have learned on your author journey so far?

Whew. Keep going. 

What’s the best piece of advice you have received related to writing?

Keep going. 🙂

If you could give a shout out to someone(s) who has helped in your writer journey, please feel free to mention them below!

A couple of resources: I bought Maggie Stiefvater’s online writing course deeply discounted and it really helped me turn around the writing process from a variety of angles. More recently, I am loving the Turning to Story podcast, specifically the Seven Layer Plot Dip episode!

And my writing group, which meets every other week for the last four years. We’re a group of four writers, comprised of a mix of indie and trad pub authors. LM Whitaker, whose Georgia Steele thriller series I love; Stephen Wechselblatt, who writes amazing short stories, crime novels–he can do anything. And Alyssa Nedbal, who is deep into her agented WIP–looking out for this name. She’s gonna be big! 

Where can readers find you on the Internet?

Instagram: @corannaadamsauthor 

X: @corannaadams

Website: www.corannaadams.com

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Book Excerpt from
Cinderwild

“There are three kinds of magic,” I explain to Cendrillon de Boer, as we walk through the woods.  

“The first is cunning magic, spells made from household items, candles and ribbon, salt and wine. We will take time to learn these the longer we are together.”

“The second is elemental magic, taken from the Leap. Only the most powerful witches can work elemental magic from birth, but with time, all may be trained how to use it.”

“So I’m powerful?” Cendrillon’s voice tells me that she already knows the answer to this question. 

“Yes, you’re one of the most naturally powerful witches I’ve ever met,” I admit. It’s probably the only reason the girl survives her stepmother’s abuse. She carries the proven knowledge of her own value inside herself, a shield against her stepmother’s meanness. “And tonight we will learn more about the elements with which you share the closest bond.”

“And the third magic?” Cendrillon asks.

“The third magic is born from need and desire. It comes from the Stillness, which is hidden from all. Dangerous and wild, the third magic takes what it will and offers a witch only the chance to know the mystery.”

“Teach me that!” Cendrillon nods. “Teach me to do the third magic.”

“No one can teach the third magic,” I answer. “We listen for it. Dance with it in some way, maybe, if we’re lucky.” I trip over a root and nearly fall flat on my face.

“Are you powerful?” Cendrillon’s voice doubts my skill. 

“Powerful enough,” I snap, standing and looking around me. Yes, the burbling stream flows nearby, and I count the trees in the clearing. Yes, we are surrounded by at least six rooted sisters here. 

“Come close, girl. Remember my words: in the beginning, there was the Stillness and the Leap. The Stillness was known to no one, but the Leap spoke to us in the language of form.” I snap my fingers and flames burst into life.

“The Leap is made of five elements: earth, air, fire, water, and the hidden one, aether, the one most akin to the Stillness. Tonight, at least one of the elements must be present to witness your passage, for if you’re to become a witch, we must know which of these are your sisters, to come when you call, to feed your bond to the magic when you need.”

“I have no family,” Cendrillon snaps. “No sisters.” The abandoned child is back. Her teeth bare white and sharp, even in the dark, as if she’s cousin to the wolf. 

I growl at Cendrillon until she looks down and away. 

“It’s no strength to name yourself lonely,” I scoff. “And the tests help us determine your powers.”

“You already saw my power,” she said.

“Not strength,” I sniff, although calling a flame is no easy thing to manage for some. Not in a time when our magic grows so weak. “Everything is not always about strength. We seek your affinities.”

“Look, let me be clear. You do have power, and you even have some skill. But the witch’s way is already a lonely and dangerous path, girl. Lonelier still now that every priest from here to Rome makes our craft a crime against God. I will not blame you if you slip back into the shadows and fly home right now.”

Cendrillon says nothing, but after a moment I see her shake her head. “No,” she says. “I will stay. I…want to stay.” She smiles a true smile this time.

I draw out her decision. “If you take the tests and you pass, we learn where you must go to keep your connection to your magic. A water witch must live near the sea or deep, still water or even a raging river. Many witches of the air, of whom there are few, live on the highest peaks.”

“And if the Stillness accepts you as her own, then you travel along this path with the aid of others at your back. Other women like me. Me, maybe.” I touch my chest. “At least for a time.”

“In kindness?” Cendrillon asks, tipping her face up to glance at me with shadowed green eyes. 

“I try” I nod, truthfully. 

“That’s enough.” 

“So your first task: find me the flower, shaped like a pitcher, that grows in the most secret part of the forest. Fill it from the forest’s hidden spring.” 

“That’s it?” she asks.

I nod and find the trunk of a healthy oak on which to lean. My head aches, and a nap would do me much good. 

After a moment, Cendrillon ambles off into the forest, making very little noise, and I draw my cloak around me and drift off to sleep.

An hour later I perk up at the sound of branches breaking, most of my aches and pains gone, and the feeling of magic fizzing in the marrow of my bones.

Cendrillon carries the right flower delicately in her left hand, her face dirty again. She’s near tears at the fact that it shrivels, becoming more seed than anything else. 

“I got lost,” she says. “I could hear the water, but I never found it. Does this mean that I…that I…”

I smile. “It’s ok, child. The task is two-fold. You found the seed, but water does not wet your walk, as we say. We must keep going—we have four more elements to go.”

“Now take the seed and plant it in the earth at your feet.”

Cendrillon digs a small hole and lays the shredded flower and the small seed within, covering it up roughly with her dirty hands.

We wait for only a minute before a green vine rises to curl into the air and twine up Cendrillon’s leg, wreathing its way to her waist and twining delicately down her arms.

She laughs and strokes the vine as if it were an animal.

“You have the power of the earth, and this next one I already know. Stand still and make your hands into the shape of a bowl,” I order, and I call a flame to my palm. I reach out to touch her cupped palms, and in barely a second, flames race up her arms and circle her head in a wreath. 

No surprise after my vision. The cinder girl burns bright with green and gold.

“Call the wind to blow out your crown.” 

Cendrillon squints and pushes her lower lip out, but nothing happens. “I’m trying,” she admits.

“Once more. Relax. Take a breath.”

We stand quietly, Cendrillon crowned in fire and vines. 

I wait to see if the aether will show us the final test, the hidden one, but the fifth element stays silent.

Cendrillon partners to fire and earth, a unique pairing that doesn’t match any other witch I know. Powerful, indeed.

I note the place of the moon in the sky and the time of night. This last part will be hardest, as the forest makes her ruling. I go to each of the trees and make a circle around its base. Entering within the circles, I rap sharply on the tree trunks, trying to awaken them. 

“Listening is the first lesson, daughter,” I say, as it was once said to me long ago. “It’s the way women determine the true path forward.” 

The owl calls again, irritated with my talking, but he acts as harbinger for what comes next. The wind moves. The leaves rustle and gossip, and then the trees come alive.

Cendrillon gasps.

I bow, and as a group, the spirits bow back to me, oak, rowan, Scots pine, dogwood, and yellow beech.

I don’t know why the spirits of the trees are female. Maybe it’s because they come to women in a form we trust. Wide-hipped, the tree spirits circle the girl and whisper among themselves, the sound of whipping leaves unintelligible to our human tongue. Oak is tall and straight-backed. She purses her green lips and circles Cendrillon with a commanding glare. The rowan turns her beautiful, lined face toward the moon as if soaking light into her berry red skin. Then she grabs Cendrillon’s hand and holds her arm out, as if to measure her, running thin branch-like hands along the girl’s limbs. 

“What’s happening?” Cendrillon whispers.

“You’re being judged.” I answer truthfully. There’s no other way between a godmother and her charge, although there’s truth and then the whole truth, and I plan to parse my way between the two very carefully, as my mind is not yet made up. “Be still.”

Cendrillon straightens. 

The Scots pine seems reluctant to come close, but she finally relents and cups the girl’s face for a closer look, nodding approvingly after a few moments. 

The magic coming off the dogwood spirit intoxicates; her skin looks like mist and smells earthy and clean. The beech shakes and shimmers around both Cendrillon and me, touching the edges of the clearing first. She wears a girdle of shimmering leaves that embellish her yellow breasts and hips, round and happily fat.

The whispering intensifies, as if an argument breaks out. Then finally, each one in turn moves to bow before Cendrillon, disappearing into the earth at her feet. Cendrillon bows back in turn.

When the beech finally disappears, Cendrillon looks at me, pale and withdrawn.

“See what they leave.” I make myself stay rooted. It will be no kindness to pretend if this hasn’t come out right. The girl, for all her power, is nothing and no one alone, bereft of a community. This is the second wisdom of women, the unspoken one, that can only be learned through the living of it.

Cendrillon drops to her ankles. Her fingers brush along the dirt, and she stands, holding something in her palm.

I stride over to her. “Let me see.” 

She opens it. There is an acorn, a dogwood blossom, and a rowan berry. Three of the five measured the girl and found her worthy of their gifts. A victory! 

“Good,” I say. “Very good. You’ve made a true start of it now.” 

Cendrillon allows herself a tiny half-bow.

The wind rises, almost imperceptibly at first. There’s a low moan, and then a whisper of air, a voice I recognize, a voice far from the sea from whence it came. The hairs on my neck rise with the gooseflesh along my arms. “Beeeeeee-waaaaaaarrreee.”

That’s when I hear them. Men. They walk in the wood, slinking through the still dark of early morning. These men hunt, so even when they move soundlessly, the animals feel the killing echo of their feet on the land. 

“We should go,” I say. I’ve never seen the trials interrupted. I worry that it’s a bad sign, an omen of evil to come.

Cendrillon bundles herself up. I can practically hear her berating herself for washing clean. She wants to be covered in chimney soot again, invisible to all. 

Is it the same for the caterpillar when they are born again with wings?

“Let’s go,” I say. “Now. Before they find us.” 

We flee.

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Interested?

Find Cinderwild on Goodreads and Amazon. Thanks for taking the time to join us for this interview! I look forward to bringing you my review of this book.

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