Twisted: The Girl Who Uncovered Rumpelstiltskin’s Name by Bonnie M Hennessy

My Ten Favorite Excerpts from Twisted 

In chronological order 

1. Maeve’s advice to Aoife about a woman’s future: “Aoife, no matter what choice you make – your husband’s house, my house, or the nunnery – you are exchanging control over your body for money. Of that you can be sure.” 


2. After Aoife refuses Ronan’s directive and instead gives orders to his landsman, Ronan says: “A young lady who roams the woods and local brothel of Stanishire unaccompanied and who may possibly be able to manage the affairs of my estate as well as a man. Perhaps I have finally met my match.” 


3. After Aoife has an altercation with the Duke involving an ax, the little man intervenes to protect Aoife and says:
“When I saw you grip that ax I knew…” 
The room fell silent. Aoife leaned forward. 
“You knew what?” 
“I knew that if someone had to kill him, I didn’t want it to be you. I need to know that there is one person in this world who is pure and unsullied.” 


4. While the little man spins gold for Aoife, he casts a spell that puts her to sleep and says: “Sleep tight while this world is bent and turned upside down – or right side up. And when you awaken you will stand amazed and thank the heavens for the miracle that has rescued you. But as the minutes turn to hours and then days, you will dismiss this event as strange and unusual, but ultimately something to put on a shelf while you continue on with your life as if everything that you have known of the world is exactly as you have always thought it was before this nameless little man appeared. Or will you prove yourself able to wake from the nightmare of this existence? Will you see the walls of this world as flimsy, arbitrary and breakable? Will you see behind it to the Truth? Will you have the power to see the real me underneath this broken frame?” 


5. Aoife tries to look past the little man’s physical deformities.
She gently took hold of his hood and lifted it off his head. He turned and hid his face from her. The murky eyes and the sagging flesh looked as 
ghoulish as she remembered, yet less frightening without the element of surprise. She cupped her right hand under his chin and gently turned his face toward her, noting that he was less than a head shorter than she was. He obeyed, but curled his lip. She held his gaze steady. His growl was like a wounded animal, fighting the hand trying to offer healing. She cupped his face with both hands. She felt the thick folds of his flesh and the uneven stubble of hair. His gnarled lips looked more like a protective shield than a threat. And his eyes. Their hazy film and the heavy fog upon them seemed like a painful curse of birth, not a reflection of his soul. 


6. The little man begins to fear that Aoife will betray him and says to her, “I should have let you drown all those years ago. None of this will end well. I feel it.”


7. The little man takes Aoife to his cottage.
Without warning he swung his cape over her body and a current of air blew over her with the force of a March wind, but the temperature of a summer breeze. Darkness shrouded her for a moment before the sparkle of the stars burst forth in the sky all around her. She was riding the night wind high in the atmosphere, the world below her far away, her drama a mere speck on the map. Her arms stretched out wide like the wings of a bird and she felt his arms extended below them, buoying them up and guiding her flight. Her heart and her arms opened wide to the universe with an unparalleled sense of freedom. Up she flew, faster than any creature on earth, until she thought her heart would burst and then down they dove until they reached the edge of the forest. 


8. The little man shows Aoife how he saves memories inside jewels.
He put one hand out with his palm facing upwards like an offering. Closing his eyes he laid his other palm on top and began to move it in slow circles. His hands began to circle faster until a spark of light caught like a candle. As its glow spread and grew into a bright golden light, his hands separated and in a flash of light there stood a brilliant, sapphire colored stone. The room was filled with a momentary burst of light and then the magic of the moment collapsed inward into the stone in his hand. 


9. Aoife looks at herself in the mirror as she gets ready for her wedding she is coerced into. 
The opalescent pearls and the sparkling emerald that hung around the woman’s throat housed more life than her empty eyes and mouth. Her cool, ivory skin looked as frozen and immovable as marble. Aoife thought she looked like a drowned mermaid ripped from the water’s current and 
propped up like a fisherman’s trophy. She stood with arms outstretched on her pedestal for all to admire and gaze upon, the lifelessness of her body an irrelevant and inconsequential footnote.


10. After Aoife receives marital advice from her mother and Maeve, Aoife notes:
How similar was the training of wives and whores. 

I don’t want to give any more, because I’d like to leave some surprises for my readers!