Cinder House by Freya Marske

Unlike Doug, I knew that this would be a variation on Cinderella from the very first page, steeped as I am in my love for all fairy tale and mythological retellings. But like him I was immediately hooked by the premise that Ella, our heroine, essentially shuffles off her mortal coil on that very same page, only to be hijacked after a fashion by a sentient house still mourning the death of its previous owner, her father.

Bound to the house — in an elegant take on the term house-bound — Ella tries to claw out an afterlife for herself that isn’t simply fetching and carrying for her stepmother and stepsisters. It’s only by accident that she learns that she can roam the city, with a strict limitation of being instantaneously returned to the house at midnight. This restriction is explained to her by the figure who essentially becomes her fairy godmother. So when the prince of her kingdom announces a ball… well, the classic fairy tale is adhered to, tho in a feisty, feminist, fantasy way that acknowledges not only the challenges faced by the chronically ill and disabled but also by people in unconventional relationships.

And let’s be clear, this book is Horny with a capital H. I personally think it’s terrific representation for people whose physical circumstances, like Ella’s, leave them starved for touch and intimacy. While I don’t usually like to allude to reviews on other sites when writing my own, I do find it baffling that some people think that the kink depicted is non-consensual, when consent is clearly laid out beforehand. Hopefully, people will learn more about kink and consent through this book? I thought Cinder House was a great exploration of desire that balanced its descriptions of both raw emotion and joyful smut (and if this is what all Freya Marske’s books are like, then I’m in for a treat when I finally have time to dive into them!)

But more than just the positive depiction of horniness, I really enjoyed how Ms Marske dissected all the aspects of the traditional Cinderella tale. Instead of lumping together Ella’s stepfamily as one grotesquerie, she gives them layers, from older sister Danica’s decision to avert her eyes from Ella’s torment, to stepmother Patrice’s pragmatic need to protect her own, to younger sister Greta’s active and increasing cruelty. I do wish we’d learned more about Ella’s parents tho, particularly her mother. Like, what was the point of the locket otherwise?

In addition to having the prince fleshed out as a person who is interesting in his own right, I especially loved the addition of Ella’s mysterious friend, as one cannot live on lust and romance alone! To say more would be to spoil the many surprises of this romantic tale, but I really liked it and am glad it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella, as I likely wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. The marketing material makes it feel slight. It’s anything but, and is currently my favorite of the novella nominees.

Cinder House by Freya Marske was published October 7 2025 by tordotcom and is available from all good booksellers, including