Odette by Jessica Duchen

This was a wonderfully modern retelling of the Swan Lake story, set in a modern British University Town (amusingly called Cygnford which gave me an inordinate amount of rather punny pleasure) that is loosely based on Cambridge.  There is a strangely cosy feel to it all, despite the rather bleak references to modern day slavery and homelessness.  This feeling mainly comes from our heroine Mitzi, she is naive and innocent, particularly for a journalist, but not in an aggravating way - it is just the way she is and her ability to see only the best in everyone is refreshing and somehow the author manages to steer her away from becoming cloying.

I was rather annoyed that Mitzi took so long to realise the parallels between Odette and her swan / human cycling with the rise and set of the moon and Swan Lake.  Even after Odette tells Mitzi her origin story and gives up the name Odile Mitzi is clueless - all she knows is that it reminds her of a fairytale she once read.  Seriously, I wanted to slap her - everything you need to join the dots is there on a plate and still you cannot see it?

Odette herself is a joy, her 180+ years of exile have left this delicate soul unsullied by modernity and her almost medieval outlook on the world is masterfully executed.  Her joy in the simplest of things and her wonder at almost everything (especially chicken-tails) made me light up inside, she is almost childlike in her enthusiasms and this nicely juxtaposed with the pace and rush of the modern setting.  Not to say that she is perfect, this Swan Princess has a temper and we get to see this seep on to the page in little flashes before one ghastly event in the University cloisters.

The tale nicely parallels the original Swan Lake story and goes with the "bad" ending where her Prince, fooled by Odile and the evil Rothbart in to betraying Odette takes refuge in the icy lake waters leaving his love to remain a swan forever.  Despite that Odette has not given up and she is still searching for love - love that she hopes to find with Mitzi's charismatic struggling-actor brother Harry.  Odette is looking for the storybook eternal love but Harry only understands the modern-day physical, fleeting and ephemeral love which does not bode well for Odette's hopes and plans.  Whilst Odette only has eyes for Harry, Chris (his musician friend and housemate) is falling in love with Odette and when she shares her passion for music with him he falls irrevocably in to unrequited love.

The showdown with Rothbart is actually shocking and completely took me by surprise.  His new identity in the world was unexpected and, to be honest, quite traumatic in it's execution.  Mitzi though shows her true colours in defence of her friend and she refuses to allow Rothbart to steal Odette away.  With support from Harry and Chris we meander to the end of the tale, whilst not a typical fairytale Happy Ever After it does has a feeling of satisfaction to it and I am NOT going to give it away - except to say that the moral of this fairytale has parallels with Maleficent.

This is a skillfully written book that weaves the supernatural so seamlessly with the mundane that the fact a woman turns in to a swan with the rise of the sun seems entirely plausible.  The only thing that distracted me from the story was an issue of my own making - I noticed throughout that the colours of red and purple were constantly making little cameo appearances (in the colour of clothes, decorations, signage) and it started me wondering what they meant to the story or to the author as they were such a strong presence, almost characters in their own right.  Now, this could be because of the Black/White imagery of Odile and Odette in the traditional ballet retelling of the story making me look for the colour significance or it could be purely accidental and I made another mountain out of a thimble full of earth.

This was an unexpectedly magical book that really did transport me to another world, a world steeped in the misery of the modern day but with the timelessness of Hope.

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE.