{"id":478,"date":"2023-01-23T14:09:38","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T19:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samiamreadingandreviewing.wordpress.com\/?p=478"},"modified":"2025-06-24T21:03:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:03:01","slug":"snow-white-red-handed-maia-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/?p=478","title":{"rendered":"Snow White Red Handed – Maia Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Interestingly enough, while looking up historical mysteries to read, the Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery series by Maia Chance came up. I don\u2019t normally go for giant twists on legendary events (i.e. murder on the Titanic, etc.) because I can\u2019t reconcile the reality with the story. I don\u2019t mind stories that take place and even participate in legendary events as long as they\u2019re kind of outside the story (think Foyle\u2019s War<\/em>, on this one – Inspector Foyle investigated crimes during WWII, but the results didn\u2019t and wouldn\u2019t have had any direct bearing on the outcome of the war). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Snow White Red Handed<\/em>, Ophelia and her friend Pru are engaged as lady’s maids after being fired from their acting jobs in New York. Their employers are on their way to Germany to a freshly-purchased castle to meet with some professors who are researching a mysterious cottage in the woods that folklore says belonged to Snow White. While they\u2019re taking care of their ladies, the two friends are caught in the middle of a murder investigation when the wealthy husband of one of the ladies is killed – via poisoned apple.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who would be the chief suspects in the murder? Well, the foreign American maids, of course! Pru is soon being kept prisoner in the castle, and Ophelia feels obligated to help her out of it as it was she that suggested acting as maids in the first place. With help from one (handsome) professor, Ophelia looks to clear Pru of the murder before she\u2019s carted off to German prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mystery in this book was cleverly intertwined with fairytale folklore. Artifacts go missing from \u201cSnow White\u2019s Cottage,\u201d dwarves come into play, and a mysterious missing map may help to clear up the mystery of not only the murder but Snow White herself. The academic point of view of the professors is what makes this story. If it was any other attitude, this novel would probably be classified as fantasy rather than a murder mystery. However, chasing down the legend<\/em> of Snow White makes a fair amount of sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I thought that Snow White\u2019s history was a selling point of this novel, I didn\u2019t really enjoy reading the novel itself. It was told from multiple points of view, and while I didn\u2019t mind Ophelia\u2019s and the professor\u2019s, I disliked reading Pru\u2019s view so much that it was kind of off-putting. She was annoying, impetuous, and whiny, which didn\u2019t sit very well with me. I think it would have been better served to include more \u201cresearch\u201d on Snow White\u2019s history rather than Pru\u2019s perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also think that there were a lot of stereotypical characters in this story (mysteriously silent old woman, grumpy servant, etc.), but that was, at least, in keeping with the fairy tale theme. I\u2019m not sure whether I will pursue the second novel or not; this was a leap outside of my comfort zone and I\u2019m just not sure I liked the novel enough to keep up with the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interestingly enough, while looking up historical mysteries to read, the Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery series by Maia Chance came up. I don\u2019t normally go for giant twists on legendary events (i.e. murder on the Titanic, etc.) because I can\u2019t reconcile the reality with the story. I don\u2019t mind stories that take place and even participateContinue reading “Snow White Red Handed – Maia Chance”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[52,129,130,248,283,287,386,387],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-fairy-tale","tag-fairy-tale-mystery","tag-maia-chance","tag-murder-mystery","tag-mystery","tag-snow-white","tag-snow-white-red-handed","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/img_20200717_192616509_hdr-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}