Wake Me Most Wickedly, the second in Felicia Grossman’s gender-flipped fairy tale retelling, but make it a Jewish histrom series, is a darker story than the first, Marry Me by Midnight, which was a gender-flipped Cinderella. It makes sense, Cinderella was forced into a life of servitude by her step mother, but Snow White’s step-mother* tried to kill her repeatedly. Between the repeated attacks on Solomon’s life and Hannah’s life lived on the edge of danger, this was a tense read. I liked it.
Solomon Weiss is one of Isabelle Lira’s rejected suitors, but his consolation prizes are a job with Lira and Berab Securities, the friendship of Isabelle and Aaron Ellenberg, and the role of Disney Princess in his own romance. Solomon’s romantic interest is Hannah Moses who is the opposite of everything he ought to be looking for in a wife – criminal record, shady business, poor, and a woman with a bad reputation in the Jewish and gentile communities of London.
They first meet when Hannah saves Solomon from a robbery and beating. And then again at synagogue. When he finally learns her name, he is promptly warned against her. The barely tolerated Jewish community in London of 1836 wants nothing to do with a young woman who seems to confirm the negative stereotypes of Jews. Despite the frequent warnings, his older brother’s desire to assimilate with the gentiles, and Hannah’s own desire to provide a better life for her younger sister, Solomon and Hannah can’t stay away from each other. The external barriers to their happily ever after seem insurmountable, and I was very anxious about how they were going to survive, much less together. Still Solomon and Hannah were delightfully stubborn and determined.
Tangent: Sometimes I end up reading very different books with a similar element at the same time. While I was reading Wake Me Most Wickedly, I was also reading a contemporary Black romance, Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham. Both books explicitly explore the idea of assimilation into a dominant white Christian culture. Both books, in their own way look at the external pressure to assimilate and the price paid in erasure of culture and history.
*No step-mothers were wicked in these books. No promises for the not yet released third book, but frankly I would be surprised to see a wicked step-mother there. Justice for step-mothers!
I received this as an advance reader copy from Forever Grand Publishing and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.