Cinders (Fairest of Them All #1)

I have sooo many ARCs due right now; so naturally, I'm avoiding them. Here is Harper B Cole, Trisha Linde, and Colbie Dunbar's "Cinders." It's the first novel in their Fairest of Them All series (a spin-off-ish series/in the same universe as the Once Upon an MM Romance series). It's a Cinderella retelling. 

["One night. One lie. One chance at love.

Tiago is just your regular joe omega. He’s still living at his stepfather's home, buried under mounds of student debt, and he finds himself without a shovel to dig his way out. He’s beyond exhausted working his minimum-wage job under the pretense that he’ll work his way up the corporate ladder, except—the company belongs to his stepfather. Somehow this means Tiago is the company gofer. When nobody else wants to travel to the middle of nowhere for a business deal, Tiago gets saddled with it. He should hate it… he should dread it… but instead, it might just be his first taste of freedom. He hopes it won’t be the last.

A wolf named Hemingway? Sounds like the punchline of a joke, which is exactly what Hem feels like some days. He’s too alpha to be submissive, too young to be taken seriously, and all of the elders keep pushing him to mate, hoping it’ll help calm his restless spirit. But no matter how much they push, Hem can’t bring himself to settle down. He can’t help but feel like… there’s someone special out there, just waiting to be found. But after one blisteringly hot encounter with the omega of his dreams, he has to face the cold reality that he never thought to consider—what if his mate doesn’t want to be found?"]

A little Cinderella-y but nothing match or match or overly cliched. The evil steps were there and the basically an indentured servant thing was there and the karma biting the steps in the ass was there. The one night of magic and falling in love was there. But there wasn’t a missing shoe or fairy godmother (Tiago saved himself, damnit) or little mice. 

There was just love and friendship and found family and Hem’s wolf going a little feral and a new community to embrace. These two were just soooo cute. I loved them and this open communication and cuddliness and how they jumped into their relationship with two feet. I’m a suuucker for fated mates, too, which helped. 

Trigger Warnings: death of a parent, financial abuse, and more. 

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