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The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker #1

The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker

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Cory is a young tooth fairy in training who wants to be anything but that, except there's no way the Tooth Fairy Guild or her mother will let that happen. After yet another bad night on the job, Cory quits to explore other things—like babysitting an adventurous Humpty Dumpty, helping Suzy organize seashells by the seashore, and attempting to finally rid the spiders that plague Marjorie Muffet. But it isn't until Marjorie asks Cory to help set her up with a boy that Cory taps into a power she never knew she had. As she tries to understand her new-found romantic visions, will Cory finally discover her own true path?

352 pages, Hardcover

First published October 7, 2014

44 people are currently reading
1244 people want to read

About the author

E.D. Baker

40 books1,592 followers
E.D. Baker made her international debut in 2002 with The Frog Princess, which was a Texas Lone Star Reading List Book, A Book Sense Children's Pick, a Florida's Sunshine State Readers List pick & a 2006 Sasquatch Book Award nominee. The Frog Princess inspired the Disney's Princess and the Frog!


E. D. Baker was born in Buffalo, New York and spent most of the next eighteen years in the Town of Tonawanda with her older brother and her parents. She married her husband while in college, and had two children a few years after graduating from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. When her son was four, the family moved to the state of Maryland. With two young children at home, E.D. worked part time in her husband’s business and took writing classes at the local community college. She continued taking writing classes after the birth of her second daughter, but when she and her husband divorced, she went back to school and entered the SIMAT (School Immersion Masters in the Art of Teaching) program at Johns Hopkins University. After graduating, she taught fifth grade until her parents’ health began to fail. Her son had already graduated from college when E.D. and her daughters moved north to be closer to her parents. Having gained a new perspective on what is important in life, E.D. decided that it was time to believe in herself and devoted her time to writing. Her first book, The Frog Princess, was published in 2002. E.D. has written 25 books to date and has no plans to quite writing anytime soon.

Currently E. D. Baker lives on a small farm in Maryland where she and her family breed Appaloosa horses. They also have dogs, cats and goats.

If you have a question or a comment for E. D. Baker regarding her books, you can e-mail her at edbakerbooks@gmail.com and she will try very hard to reply to your e-mails. (Just keep in mind it may take a while before she responds, because she is working on a new book for you to enjoy!) For updates, announcements on upcoming books and daily posts by E.D. Baker be sure to follow her on Facebook.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
Profile Image for Jessica.
Author 26 books5,923 followers
October 16, 2014
This is a very fun look at the life of fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters and their world. Cory is a tooth fairy, but she really hates it. It's the family business, though, so she encounters a great deal of resistance when she tries to find new work. She flits from job to job, looking for one that suits her, and along the way she babysits for the old woman who lives in the shoe, sells seashells by the seashore, and has other whimsical adventures. This is the set up for a new series that is going to be utterly delightful. It also, to me, skews a bit younger than Baker's books like The Wide-Awake Princess.
Profile Image for Becky B.
9,353 reviews184 followers
August 26, 2016
Cory is through being a tooth fairy. After going through the training and giving it a chance, she just knows it isn't the job for her. She wants to do something that really helps people, though she's not sure what. Of course, that answer is nowhere near sufficient for her mother, who is a tooth fairy herself and believes Cory is making a huge mistake in leaving the guild. Unable to stand her mother's constant nagging, Cory moves in with her wise and understanding Uncle Micah. Cory starts looking for odd jobs to tide her over while she tries to figure out what it is she really wants to do. In the process, she meets some very interesting characters, and inadvertently starts getting asked by people to set them up on dates with others. So far, her matchmaking skills have been woefully inadequate, but her little odd jobs have had fun moments. That is until the Tooth Fairy Guild starts making good on their threats to make her sorry for trying to leave. Cory doesn't know what to do. It's going to take something or someone extraordinary to help her out of the mess with the guild and to figure out what occupation best fits her.

Baker has built a very fun fantasy world filled with all sorts of fairy tale, nursery rhyme, and legendary characters. I loved watching Cory babysit for Humpty Dumpty, a precocious child with a penchant for heights, or trying to help her friend Miss Muffet with a serious spider problem. It's a creative and fun world with the serious touches the guild adds. The matchmaker part of the plot is really secondary to watching the fun and hazards of all the little odd jobs Cory does and getting to know her circle of friends. Eventually the Tooth Fairy Guild and her frustration about the matchmaking come up, but they are dealt with much more lightly than could have been. I can see someone else writing this same story but turning it into a nail-biting psychological thriller with the way the guild is after Cory. Baker kept it light enough as to not scare off fantasy readers, but it does add some depth to the world building and plot. The rest of the series promises to be fun, but I might miss Cory doing all the odd jobs. Part of the fun of the book was waiting to see what fairy tale character was going to pop up and ask her to help them next.

Notes on content: No language issues. No sexual content beyond a kiss. There are two kidnappings and some vandalism, and a witch puts a spell on two people (who aren't really harmed and totally had it coming). No serious violence.
Profile Image for Lia Marcoux.
913 reviews12 followers
January 13, 2018
This book contrasts simplistic language, strangely grounded conflict about what it means to have a job versus a career, many descriptions of breakfasts, a violent mafioso-style guild system that controls the government through buying the judges and whichever of the police are corrupt instead of incompetent, and dopey fairy-tale puns. So I guess my question would be: whaaat?!
Profile Image for Scottsdale Public Library.
3,532 reviews482 followers
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May 18, 2019
Cory is the daughter of a tooth fairy and is expected to follow in her mother’s footsteps. When she decides she doesn’t want to be a tooth fairy, she finds herself facing disgruntled tooth fairies determined to make her rejoin them, an upset boyfriend, a new, more intriguing boy and a future she never dreamed of.
I love how Cory is a typical young teen, just with magical powers. She is very believable in her reactions as she struggles to juggle all the parts of her life and find her true self. Her short-term jobs as she looks around for her purpose are hilarious and the other fairy tale characters in the book are interesting. It’s a cute and funny book and I was eager to read the sequels. -Lynn H.
Profile Image for Shazzer.
763 reviews23 followers
March 21, 2015
This book was slow going for me. I wasn't very interested in Cory as a character, and the audience was unclear. The writing style is perfect for middle graders, but the subject matter/interest level is more suited for older readers. 6th graders might not be too interested in reading about someone's job search. The last third of the novel did start to pick up steam, and I felt it ended well. Still, not my favorite Baker.
136 reviews
March 18, 2025
1.75⭐️

bruh I literally don’t remember anything from this book. It definitely wasn’t my cup of tea, just very dry and boring. A lot of standing around, doing everyday activities.
Profile Image for Jaina Rose.
522 reviews67 followers
March 16, 2016
This review is also available on my blog, Read Till Dawn.

When I originally saw this coming out, I thought it looked really dumb. I mean, a book about a girl who goes around setting up couples? How dumb would that be? I barely scanned the synopsis before clicking away, and never even gave it a try.

Until a week ago, when I saw it sitting on a library shelf and grabbed it because, well, I might as well because it was there anyway. When I got it home and started reading, I realized that I'd made a mistake: The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker was nothing like what I'd expected to be - and it was much the better for it.

After all, just for starters Cory's world is really fascinating. I read a lot of fairy-tale mashups, but this has to be one of my favorites. I mean, a world where people communicate by basket mail (which is just like texting, but way cooler) and various fairy-tale characters and stereotypes are all mixed together in a magical land that lives next to but is completely separate from the human world.

Another great thing about The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker is that it's realistic (if the word can ever be applied to fairytale mashups) - Cory is an adult trying to find a job that suits her, and she bounces around doing odds and ends in the meantime. There's a beauty in watching the little random things come together in new ways, as by the end of the book Cory's found ways to make almost everyone's life a little bit better by introducing them to other people she's encountered in her wanderings. I like to think that this same sort of falling into place can happen in real life, though I know that's not always the case.

My biggest trouble with the book, honestly, is the ending. Once things get a little darker for Cory and she starts uncovering the hardcore secrets her mother kept from her the book lost some of its appealing rationalism. There's a certain appeal in what happens, though, and I think that it just depends on what sort of mood you're in when you read it. For me it worked, though just barely, and I was interested enough in the turn things took that I immediately went and requested the sequel. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I'll be sure to post a review once I do!
Profile Image for Angie.
3,696 reviews54 followers
October 14, 2014
Cory hates being a tooth fairy. She isn't very good at it and doesn't enjoy it, but her mom is a tooth fairy and convinced her it was the career for her. When she quits her mom is furious as is the Tooth Fairy Guild. Cory just wants to help people and wants to find a career that will let her do that. She starts taking odd jobs like babysitting (for Humpty Dumpty and the old lady who lived in a shoe), mowing yards (for the three little pigs of course) and doing inventory (for the lady selling seashells on the seashore). She also starts setting up her friends on dates trying to find them the perfect match. The Tooth Fairy Guild does not take quitters lightly and starts a campaign of harassment that follows Cory wherever she goes. They send rain and gnats and crabs and the big bad wolf. None of it convinces Cory that she should go back to being a tooth fairy. As the harassment escalates so does her determination to find something truly helpful to do.

I had high hopes for this book as I really enjoy fractured fairy tales, but this book was a bit of a disappointment. I liked the fact that we got to see such a nice mixture of fairy tale characters, but I wanted more of a story. The story itself seems very disjointed with Cory moving from one odd job with a fairy tale character to another. The only truly cohesive thing seems to be the harassment by the TFG, but even that seems a bit extreme. I liked the ending and how Cory's matchmaking desires finally makes sense but I also thought it was a bit rushed. There was a lot of story about Cory babysitting and such but very little about what happens when she finds her true calling.
Profile Image for Kenley.
6 reviews
March 4, 2016
I am a huge fan of E.D. Baker's books, and have been for a very long time. "Twisted" fairy tales also happens to be one of my favorite genres, so when I saw that E.D. Baker was releasing a new book, I was very excited. However, The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker did not quite meet my expectations. Whereas Serafina (the heroine in A Question of Magic) was very realistic, Cory is a slightly two-dimensional protagonist. I really, really liked the premise of the story, but the actual book did not carry through for me. I did love the background story and the fairy-tale characters like Miss Muffet and Humpty Dumpty sprinkled throughout, which is why this book is getting 3 stars. I would definitely recommend E.D. Baker's stories to any other fairy-tale enthusiast, just not this particular story.
Profile Image for Elevetha .
1,931 reviews196 followers
January 4, 2015
1.5 stars. (Purely for a stunning lack of interest)

The long (and the short) of it is that I honestly didn't care about Cory or her life or her clients or her friends or her mum or anyone or anything. Okay, I slightly cared about...Blue. Was that his name? Well, it was something like that. Obviously not very much though, as you can tell. This whole book was just so dull and pointless. Never again.


"The wind died down as soon as it could no longer blow her around."


Erm, pardon me, but isn't the wind not being to blow Cory around an effect rather than a cause for the wind dying down?
Profile Image for Lori.
924 reviews645 followers
November 18, 2015
This book ended up being very cute. If you can get past the very rough beginning, you might actually enjoy it. The fairy tale characters that show up along the way are fun and I liked the arc of the main character and the lessons she learned along the way. Especially because I did not like her at all in the beginning of the story. But she went from whiny and spoiled and very annoying to someone who actually wanted to help people and made a very good friend. This wasn't the best middle grade book I've ever read but I do think it's one that kids will enjoy.
\
Profile Image for Maddie.
9 reviews
October 24, 2014
I think the book should've been a little longer. I liked it but E.D Baker needed to keep on writing. I loved the characters but, as I said, it wasn't long enough to tell the whole story and make me LOVE it.
Profile Image for Lucee.
1,409 reviews44 followers
October 4, 2014
I liked this book. I thought it was a fun, light read, the was funny at parts and sad at parts. E.D. Baker is one of my favorite authors, and I will definitely be read this sequel.
Profile Image for Rachel.
134 reviews
August 22, 2016
This was a cute story with a ton of fairy tale references in it. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the rest of the series.
Profile Image for Sarah.
50 reviews
August 14, 2022
4.5 stars!
Cory is a tooth fairy in the middle of a midlife crisis. She hates her job collecting teeth so she quits to find something that she truly enjoys. Now, Cory has to deal with the Tooth Fairy Guild trying to recruit her back as a fairy, while taking an assortment of odd jobs to try and find something she truly enjoys. Meanwhile, Cory attempts to figure out potential matches for her friends.
I loved being in this fey world. Fairies are my favorite mythological creature and I love seeing different takes on fairy worlds. I especially loved Baker's worldbuilding. From the mushroom stools to the peddle buses, to wood beaver pets, and tabloids of Santa Clause. It was endearing to see her take on the nursery rhyme characters and the types of jobs fey creatures have. I liked FLEA the Fey Law Enforcement Agency and the flower fairies.
Cory was by far the best part of this novel. She is highly motivated to find something she truly enjoys doing, instead of just working for a living. She cares deeply about people, always wanting to help out, even if it tends to go haywire sometimes. Once Cory has her mind on something, she does it. When she made the decision to quit her tooth fairy job, she quit. Even after Cory receives threats for leaving her job, she sticks with what she truly wants to do. She experiments with odd temporary jobs to find out what she truly enjoys. I loved that spirit and found her highly relatable. When she came home to complain about her job to Daisy I found myself laughing. It really did remind me of working in food service that made me want to poke out my eyes.
I liked the drama with the Tooth Fairy Guild and Johnny Blue coming over every now and then to investigate.
While I deeply enjoyed the novel, I felt like there should have been more scenes with Cory struggling with her matchmaking. It felt so much like a subplot when the book markets itself as more of a romance. Really the book is about Cory finding what she really wants in life. This is a fine and entertaining plot in itself. Baker could have done a lot more in incorporating the Cupid storyline. However, I enjoyed myself immensely otherwise and it didn't take that much enjoyment out of the book for me.
My favorite thing about this book is that I relate towards the character strongly. As a recent post-grad it would be hard not to relate to the big question on what I want to do with my life. I highly respected the choice Cory made to leave a job she hated to take a lot of temporary lower paying jobs to find out what she truly wanted to do. She put herself out there to meet new people and help in any way she can. Unfortunately for Baker, this book is marketed toward middle graders. While I loved and related toward Corey, I wonder if someone in middle school would relate to that quality as strongly as I did. This didn't affect my rating, just something to think about if you're a parent looking for books for your kids to read.
This book was perfect for me. I wanted a light clean read and I highly related toward Cory. :)
Profile Image for Cognatious  Thunk.
539 reviews30 followers
December 18, 2023
Personally, I found the themes of this book to be quite muddled. At the beginning of the novel, the underlying message seemed to be that individuals should pursue their own passions, rather than following their parents' established career pathways. Later, when Cory discovers her innate ability to This completely demolished most of the author's previous arguments that people should seek out jobs they are good at and enjoy, since Cory had not yet experienced any success Another instance of this mixed messaging took place around the different species in the novel. After Cory thought about how wonderful it was to live in fairy with so many different types of magical creatures, rather than in the mortal realm with just humans, she Later, after again extoling the virtues of living in a neighborhood of diversity, Cory's Perhaps this hierarchy of species is later used to justify why but I felt that these conflicting themes really detracted from the tale. However, I may not have liked this book regardless of its themes, due to it straddling the uncomfortable area between chick and children's lit, but if the underlying messaging had been more cohesive the cute twists on classic fairy tales may have won me over.
543 reviews1 follower
June 2, 2020
I can see how this book might appeal to preteens because it has fairies and romance. But... I just couldn't wait for it to get started! Cory didn't like being a tooth fairy so she was searching for different jobs. Some of them were entertaining because they linked to fairy tales we know like The Three Little Pigs or rhymes like Humpty Dumpty. But others seemed randomly thrown in like Santa and the woman who lived by the seaside. At last she found her calling and her grandfather. Okay, the story can start, but, wait. That's the end of this book. You have to read the next one. No, thanks. There were so many characters. Too many to keep track of properly. I couldn't even remember what her love interest looked like by the end. Again, maybe I'm too old to truly appreciate this book. But having said that, I don't think my fifth and sixth graders will be interested in it and it's too hard and long for my average third and fourth graders... The first in the series has been checked out 27 times in five years, but the second one only twice in four years. Not great statistics.
Profile Image for Kate Wise.
36 reviews
September 30, 2022
Oh my gosh. I remember reading this back in like 4th grade and it was my ABSOLUTE favorite book for the longest time!!! At that point, I was just finally realizing how much of a romantic person I truly am and so this story gave me hope and daydreams of romantic fantasies that I want to have happen. I read it 2 or 3 times back in the day but now that I've stumbled back upon it I'll probably read it again just to relive memories. You also have no clue how many days I pretended that I was a matchmaker just like this main character (I totally forgot her name cause it's been yearsssss) and I'm pretty sure THIS BOOK is the reason why I am the way I am now 🤩🤣

To all of my friends: blame this book for giving me all of my flirtatious qualities, my confidence, and boy troubles

(I also read all of the other books in the series and they were seriously my entire life for years. So basically copy and paste this review to the other ones)
Profile Image for Marlee.
2,017 reviews
March 7, 2018
I read this book aloud to my children, and we all enjoyed it. I was surprised by how much the guilds or "government" I suppose were able to be vicious, threatening, and cruel. I would say that some fans of the frog princess series may be too young for some of the ideas in this book. My daughter is 10 and I think that is about the youngest that may be able to read this and try to understand the ideas, without being horrified or frightened. Contrarily, my son who is 13 may be about the oldest child that would not find it too ridiculous to stick it out. If one is open to silliness, willing to accept horrible ideas, and also ready to enjoy some fun and adventure, this can be a great book to read. Despite how crazy and contrary everything was at times, it was a really interesting story to follow and had a lot of fun characters.
3 reviews
January 13, 2019
This book is about Cory, a tooth fairy who doesn’t enjoy being one.

One night, Cory finally decides to give up her life as a tooth fairy, so she sends a message to the Tooth Fairy Guild saying she quit. Her mom, Delphinium, is furious at Cory, so Cory moves in with her uncle Micas.

Cory instantly starts looking for odd jobs to pass the time. She helps many different people but the Tooth Fairy Guild keeps causing trouble for her and Uncle Micas, hoping to bring her back into the tooth fairy world.

I like this book because Cory has a strong personality and doesn’t care if her mother wants her to do something she doesn’t enjoy. I recommend this book to people who likes adventure and romance in the storyline. Make sure you read the other books in the Fairy Tale Matchmaker series, they are filled with surprises and challenges for Cory to solve!

-Maia (8 years old)
Profile Image for Rebecca .
2,059 reviews7 followers
August 29, 2018
OK for Middle Grades but the book was not very well done.
The main character Cory leaves the Tooth Fairy Guild because she didn't like the job. She gets in a fight with her mom and then moves into her Uncles house. There was a lot of eating breakfast and random odd jobs, but the world building was incomplete and the jobs were random. I wanted much more from the story, and the ending was wrapped up in 10 pages or less. Not for me or a savvy MG reader . I also found some editing errors too.
Profile Image for Rebecca.
1,435 reviews5 followers
March 12, 2025
Overall, this is decent. I was sucked into the fairy-tale world this book created, and the main character is very relatable, especially her problems with her mother. However, there is a very large pacing issue with this book.

I understand that this is the first book in a series, meant to set up the world, but I read it as a standalone. So I thought the first two thirds of the book were really slow and boring. The real meat is in the third act, when the main character does the most interesting stuff. The rest of the characters are also a bit too flat for me.
Profile Image for Sarah.
10 reviews3 followers
April 30, 2019
How cool--a daughter breaks away from tradition to pursue her dreams! Mother was wrong in deciding her child's career. In many cases that relates to real life. But the problem with this book was that our heroine was meant to make certain people fall in love because they won't know what's best for them. They need to trust Cupid's visions of who they should be with. (I guess that relates to real life as well.) This book is a very ironic and unethical read.
Profile Image for Iris.
133 reviews
June 28, 2024
Meet Cory Feathering, she's just your average fairy. Cory is unsatisfied with her job as a tooth fairy (read: she's having a midlife crisis in her 20s). Then, she has a brain wave: she doesn't have to live an unhappy life in an unfulfilling job! So she quits. This decision has its pros and cons, but Cory's mom/housemate is Not Happy. So Cory quits house and becomes homeless and jobless in the span of 5 minutes. Thank heaven she lives in Fairy Tale Land and not NYC. But luckily, she doesn't need to pay rent, because she can bunny hop over to her uncle's house. And this is lucky indeed, because the odd jobs she picks up afterwards would possibly pay for the porch steps of a small house. But then things start looking up: she finds out she comes from a long line of cupids, and now she has found her passion: helping people find true love. Of course, her paycheck is literally nonexistent, but that's ok, because her formerly-cupid grandfather is rich, and she doesn't need to earn money anymore (despite her grandfather not earning any money being cupid either). And on top of all this, she's being attacked by major corporations for quitting her job, and the police refuse to help, because going against the major players will cause Big Problems (likely the only realistic moment in the book). Other then that, everything's great. Fairy tale indeed.
Profile Image for Ellie.
1 review14 followers
August 16, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. It is very touching and a nice fantasy. I really hope that E.D. Baker continues writing these books. I like how she describes the fey world and grows Cory's personality. All together it is a great book.
108 reviews7 followers
April 12, 2019
This was catalogued as a children's book, but the content is pretty grown up. Not anything I wouldn't want a child to read, just all about work and romance. I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone under 15. A clever world though.
Profile Image for Vanessa.
425 reviews4 followers
July 6, 2019
I enjoy ED Baker’s books, but I just felt like this one had too much details at times. When it would talk about the songs they would sing or some of the details of her odd jobs, I thought it could have left out some of the details.
21 reviews1 follower
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February 23, 2021
i loved this book so much! i have read it multiple times but i just finished re-reading the entire series. it was amazing. i just chose this book for a book club that i am in and they all love it so far!
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