Book Review: The Fairy Godmother's Tale
The Fairy Godmother’s Tale by Robert B. Marks
"How do you know when you’ve punished yourself enough?"
Summary
Elisa’s island home is a microcosm of religious tension and human suffering, where faith and isolation collide with dire consequences. Her newfound gift—the ability to grant others’ deepest wishes—sets her on a path fraught with questions of morality and unintended consequences. What does it mean to act selflessly when even good intentions can lead to disaster?
Synopsis
Elisa is a young woman living on an island that has chosen isolation from the mainland to avoid being drawn into the ongoing conflict between Catholics, of which Elisa is one, and Protestants, whom the islanders regard with disdain. But this isolation comes at a steep price. The island is slowly starving itself, and most of its people are deeply unhappy. Elisa dreams of venturing to the mainland with the few merchants allowed to trade there, but her family insists she’s too young.
One day, Elisa discovers she has a miraculous gift: the ability to see others’ deepest wishes and make them come true. After a few small, seemingly successful experiments, she decides to grant everyone’s wishes all at once, hoping to restore the island’s happiness and health. A moment’s thought will show this is a terrible idea. In her desperation to fix what is broken, Elisa’s well-meaning but impulsive choices result in devastating consequences. Her story reminds us how even the best intentions can lead to ruin when wielded without wisdom or self-awareness—a dilemma that resonates far beyond the realm of fantasy. The outcome is catastrophic: her wish destroys the island and wipes out everyone Elisa loves, leaving her alone to escape by boat.
Since this is all her fault, what can a good Catholic do but penance?
Review
So begins Elisa’s story—but there is so much more to it than that. Over the course of The Fairy Godmother’s Tale, readers follow Elisa through centuries as she gains and loses friends to the ravages of time. Immortality becomes both her blessing and her curse. As time stretches beyond her grasp, she loses track of the years—at one point, believing just a couple of years have passed, she discovers it’s been over forty.
Elisa’s penance takes her through the German lands, where she becomes the unseen force behind several familiar fairy tales: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and others. Always, she asks to be left out of the stories, preferring to remain anonymous and humble. But word has a way of slipping out. The facts, though twisted by time and retelling, linger.
Someone else knows the truth, however, and uses it for far less charitable purposes. Clever Gretel, Elisa’s nemesis, complicates the lives of those around Elisa for her own amusement. Unlike Elisa, who can only grant others’ wishes, Gretel has the power to grant her own—and none of them are good. Over time, Elisa learns to work around this limitation by shaping others’ wishes to suit her ends, but it’s a poor match for Gretel’s unchecked power.
Beyond the fairy tales and rivalries, Marks weaves a narrative rich with questions of faith, belief, and forgiveness. Elisa is never certain what God wants from her—or if He wants anything at all. Her quest for penance becomes a meditation on guilt and the nature of redemption. Is forgiveness something we earn, or is it granted in ways we can never fully understand? Elisa’s immortality sharpens these questions, forcing her to grapple with the isolation and disconnection of a life unmoored from time but tethered to her mistakes.
In the latter half of the novel, Elisa encounters love, loss, and war. She befriends the devil and meets the Wandering Jew of legend. These interactions expand the novel’s thematic scope, exploring the intersections of belief, legend, and philosophy. What shapes our destiny: faith, cunning, or human resilience?
Admittedly, the novel’s weakest portions involve the extended time Elisa spends marching across battlegrounds, camping, and moving on. These passages can feel meandering. However, they reflect Elisa’s inner turmoil: a soul wandering in search of purpose as myths fade and the world turns to pragmatic concerns. As the novel progresses, Elisa finds herself less relevant in a world that no longer believes in fairy tales. The same fate begins to befall Gretel. These shifts create a poignant echo of the challenges we all face when beliefs and ideals clash with harsh realities.
Conclusion
Overall, The Fairy Godmother’s Tale is an engaging and thought-provoking novel that delves far deeper than its whimsical premise might suggest. Marks uses Elisa's journey to grapple with profound questions of faith, forgiveness, and the elusive nature of redemption. Against a backdrop that transitions from fairy-tale wonder to the harsh realities of history, the story challenges readers to confront their own struggles with morality, belief, and the consequences of their choices.
This is a book that doesn’t just entertain—it pushes us to examine what it means to atone, to believe, and to strive for grace in an imperfect world. Elisa’s uncertainty mirrors our own, making her fantastical story deeply relatable.