Another Kind of Cinderella

by Angela Huth

In this collection of stories, the ghost of a doomed romance haunts an Oxford undergraduate's summer affair, elderly ladies live out extraordinary fantasy lives, and betrayed wives wreak subtle revenge. Angela Huth brings to this exquisite collection all the wry delicacy, subversive wit, and keen eye for the drama in the quietest of lives that characterize her acclaimed novels.

Genres: Fiction

236 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

Daughter of actor Harold Huth, english novelist Angela Huth married journalist and travel writer Quentin Crewe in the 1960s and with him had a daughter. She presented programmes on the BBC, including How It Is and Why and Man Alive.

She also writes plays for radio, television and stage, and is a well-known freelance journalist, critic and broadcaster. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

She has been married to a don, James Howard-Johnston, since 1978. They live in Warwickshire and have one daughter, Eugenie Teasley.

Reviews

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another kind of Cinderella is a collection of stories that give an insight to people in a quite a sarcastic way (the way I see it)- but the humor, lessons and real life experiences are what makes them stories entertaining.

[JenniferB]

Collection of short stories. Good Authress but stories a bit dark.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I liked the collection. There were some good stories indeed. A couple of clunkers at least for me. In part because those stories were relevant to the mid-1990s when this book was published, but not all that relevant/meaningful (again, at least to me) currently. I’ll layout the story names, what my ratings were, and if the story had been previously published elsewhere. Then I will give a synopsis taken from the back of the Abacus re-issue that I read from. I must say I had never heard of Angela Huth until I came upon one of her short stories “(Men Friends) Stories for the Summer and Days by the Pool” (published in 2024 by British Library Women Writers series), and liked that story so much I wanted to read more of her oeuvre. And I still feel that way… She has two more collections of short stories and several novels.

Stories in the order they appeared in the book:
1. Another Kind of Cinderella – 4.5 stars; prev. published in Winter’s Tales
2. Dressing Up – 3.5 stars; prev. published in the Daily Telegraph
3. The Day of the QE2 – 2 stars; prev. published in BBC Morning Story
4. Mothers and Fathers – 3.5 stars
5. Laughter in the Willows – 3 stars
6. To Re-Arrange a Room – 3 stars; prev. published in Marie Claire
7. Alternative Behaviour – 2.5 stars; prev. published in The New Yorker
8. The Wife Trap – 3 stars; prev. published in Recounteur
9. Squirrels – 3.5 stars; prev. published in Winter Tales
10. Mistral – 4 stars; prev. published in The New Yorker
11. Men Friends – 4.5 stars; prev. published in BBC Morning Story

Synopsis:
• The ghost of a doomed romance haunts an Oxford undergraduate’s idyllic summer affair; a tragedy of hopeless love and murderous frustration is played out against the backdrop of a provincial repertory company; passion and hatred flower side by side in suburban back gardens. Angela Huth peoples her stories with elderly ladies living out extraordinary fantasy lives and betrayed wives wreaking subtle revenge, drawing out their secret disappointments and their dreams of glamour; she brings to this exquisite collection all the wry delicacy, subversive wit and keen eye for the drama of the quietest lives that characterize her acclaimed novels.

Reviews
• None that I could find….another British female author forgotten…. 😕😕😕