Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love (Fabletown) by Chris Roberson
When supernatural artifacts from the Homelands begin surfacing in the modern world, it falls to Cinderella, Fabletown’s best kept (and best dressed) secret agent to stop the illegal trafficking. But can Cindy foil the dark plot before Fabletown and its hidden, exiled inhabitants are exposed once and for all? And how does her long lost Fairy Godmother factor into the equation?
Whether she’s soaring through clouds, deep-sea diving, or cracking jaws, Cindy travels from Manhattan to Dubai and hooks up with a handsome, familiar accomplice who may be harboring secret motives of his own. Meanwhile, trouble brews back home in Fabletown when Cindy’s overworked, underappreciated assistant decides to seize control of The Glass Slipper, Cindy’s exclusive shoe boutique.
Paperback, 144 pages Published August 10th 2010 by Vertigo ISBN 1401227503 (ISBN13: 9781401227500)
I loved getting a closer look at Cinderella in this edition of Fables. Cindy is a spy who loves her job. She 
also owns a shoe store back in Fabletown called The Glass Slipper, which recently she has neglected because of her other duties. Fortunately, she has one employee who runs the store when she is gone. Just as she gets home again, she is called back before time and has to do a quick visit to her magic supplier before heading off to Dubai.
Her magic suplier has given her a charm bracelet that alerts her backup when called from anywhere on the globe. So she makes a quick stop off to see Puss N Boots, Jenny Wren and Dickory Mouse, her animal friends that are willing to give her the back up she needs when she calls for them. She also gets a magic ring that gets warm when magic is around and hotter as she gets closer to it.
As she boards the plane to Dubai to locate the black market of the magic trade, her disgruntled employee back home has taken the business into his own hands. He has decided to start selling magical shoes. Although the elves that make the shoes advise him against such business they eventually come to an agreement and he begins to sell the shoes to the public.
When we go back to see what Cindy is doing as she lands in Dubai, she can already feel the ring getting hotter. She flashes back to fill the reader in a little on her history. Her divorce and then eventual hiring as a spy for Sheriff Wolf. She runs into Aladdin who is fronting as a concierge in the hotel she is staying at and they find out they are after the same thing and decide to work together. They arrive just in time to attend the party in which the magical item will be sold.
The hostess of the party and seller of the magical items recognizes them at the party and sets ghouls on them. But with Aladdin’s magic carpet, they find their way to safety. Cindy calls upon Jenny Wren to follow the hostess as she escapes so they can find her wherever she ends up. Aladdin and Cindy soon follow and find themselves in danger and out numbered.
What I have come to really enjoy about the Fables stories is the connection to those childhood characters who I have grown to love become more appealing to my adult side. They are well rounded characters and through flashbacks like Cindy’s, we are able to get a peek at what went wrong with their fairytale. They have
grown up beyond the idea of a happy ending and become powerful and what women of today like to see in a rolemodel.
As each character is introduced we get their background and how they came to be in their current position in the more mundane world. I think
this is the key that gets the reader fully engaged into these stories as more than just a comic strip. You really do get great in-depth, well-rounded characters and plots that are entertaining. There is always a focus on one main story in each book, but there are interweaving sub-plots and stories that cross each other as well.
With each of these volumes that I pick up, I get more into the world of the Fables and have fast become a huge fan. I loved the ending and the imaginative way that these characters stories interweave in today’s settings.
