Cinderella Had Two Sisters

by Jan Tempest

Esmeralda and Jacobina have a younger sister Cindy. Alda is plain, but a musician with good taste. Jac is fat, placid, and quite insecure. But Cindy is pretty, blonde, blue-eyed, and popular. Alda is, in truth, the real Cinderella of the story. Besides being the focal point of the narrative, she does the kitchen work and generally looks after the others.

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Irene Maude Mossop Swatridge
aka
Irene Mossop, Jan Tempest, Fay Chandos, Theresa Charles, Leslie Lance and Virginia Storm

Irene Maude Mossop was born on 6 December 1904 in Woking, Surrey, England, UK, she was the elder child of Maude Binford Eyre and Robert Mossop, a solicitor, later she had one bothers. She was educated privately.

She started writing very young, and after her father death, she started to publishing as Irene Mossop Girl School's novels. In 1934, she married the recently widowed and ex-RAF officer Charles John Swatridge (1896–1964), they moved to a Devon farm, which her husband ran in a gentlemanly fashion and she continued writing. After her marriage, she started to wrote gothic and romance novels, first as Jan Tempest and later as Fay Chandos. In collaboration with her husband, she published as Theresa Charles, and years later as Leslie Lance, after his husband's death in 1964 she continued using the pseudonyms. In 1950s, she had serious discussions with Alan Boon of Mills & Boon about her novel Without A Honeymoon when she introduced the idea of an illegitimate child, that he felt she would encounter difficulties with the Irish audience. Irene Mossop died on 26 October 1988.

Reviews

[Melinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book blurb: Esmeralda and Jacobina have a younger sister Cindy. Alda is plain, but a musician with good taste. Jac is fat, placid, and quite insecure. But Cindy is pretty, blonde, blue-eyed, and popular. Alda is, in truth, the real Cinderella of the story. Besides being the focal point of the narrative, she does the kitchen work and generally looks after the others.

Jacobina is about a size 24 with a red florid face and a penchant for frilly clothes which do not suit her. Alda is described as square face with very strong features, a too long nose and a too wide mouth, and non-nondescript hair. She also has a square body with decent looking legs. Cindy of course is chocolate box pretty. Our heroine, Alda, falls in love with a good looking man who plays piano in a local cafe. This story is about how Alda wins the love of her "prince charming". The descriptions of the characters, especially the "ugly sisters" put me off to the point where I believe I was prejudiced against this book at the onset. Anyway I did not enjoy it. Read this on openlibrary.com

[Mounir Aouaj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic