Marissa Meyer Bluebeard Retelling

I cannot believe that almost two years ago, I did a Q&A with New York Times Bestselling Author Marissa Meyer whose works include The Lunar Chronicles, Heartless & The Gilded Duology which you can read by clicking this link here https://booknotions.com/qa-with-marissa-meyer/ . This week news broke that Marissa has a new book coming out on November 4^th of this year titled The House Saphir. The House Saphir is Marissa’s retelling of the French fairytale Bluebeard. While I know Bluebeard is not as popular as Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Snow White, Hansel & Gretel, Red Ridinghood & The Little Mermaid, it’s worth reading. This newsletter will be a bit different as I’m going to give a description of The House Saphir, then I’m going to talk about the original fairytale & how I read it!

The House Saphir

While Mallory Fontaine is a fraud, the only power she possesses from a long line of witches is the power to see spirits. Mallory and her sisters made a living selling bogus spells to gullible buyers and show tours of the infamous mansion where Count Bastien Saphir, also known as Monsieur LeBleu, brutally murdered his wives more than a century ago. Mallory never expected to meet LeBleu’s handsome great grandson and heir Armond. Armond believes Mallory can rid the manor of LeBleu’s evil spirit and offers her a handsome sum of money to do so. Free vacation at a manor along with cash? Who could say no to that? But when murder happens once again at the House Saphir, Mallory is at the center of the investigation and she’s certain the murderer is very alive. Can Mallory solve a murder, banish an evil spirit and trust her heart? What if Armond is the killer?

Bluebeard

There was a wealthy man that had large town and country homes and lots of silver & gold. The man’s furniture, & coaches were all embroidered and covered in gold. You would think a wealthy man would have women throwing themselves at him, right? The only thing keeping women at bay was his hideous blue beard hence his name Bluebeard. One day Bluebeard met a woman with her two daughters. Not surprisingly the two daughters were repulsed by Bluebeard. Honestly, I don’t blame them, it would give me a nasty case of the icks. Anway back to the story.

Bluebeard in his unconventional way invited the woman, her daughters and some companions of theirs to a party at one of his mansions. They danced, ate, drank, and fished the typical things you did at parties. There wasn’t much if any sleeping at night so one wondered if there was any sex and orgies going on. The youngest sister began to reconsider her original thoughts about Bluebeard. After all the partying she felt Bluebeard was a gentleman and his beard wasn’t as blue and hideous as she thought. Shortly after this they get married but… this isn’t the end of the story only the beginning…

A month after they marry, Bluebeard tells his wife he must go on a country journey for six weeks. He gives his wife the keys, so she has access to everything he has. Bluebeard has forbidden her from going into the great hall on the ground floor. Bluebeard warned his wife, he would be angry with her if she disobeyed him by going into that room. Obviously, the wife’s curiosity won.  

Turning the key into the lock, she was not expecting what she would see inside. The blood was clotted and there lay the bodies of Bluebeards missing wives. After composing herself after the shock, she locks the door. She tried cleaning the blood off the key to that room, but it would either not come off or when it did it would reappear on the key. What made this worse was the same evening Bluebeard had returned. She played the part of a wife happy to see her husband return.

The next morning after asking for the keys she tried to delay the inevitable, but it was too late, he suspected and guessed right that she had been in the forbidden room. Bluebeard told her, now she must die for what she did. She begged him to let her pray. She called for her older sister Anne to tell her brothers to come rescue her. Bluebeard kept calling her and she tried and tried to delay her fate. With a huge sword Bluebeard was about to behead her and the brothers came in time and ended him.

Since Bluebeard did not have any children thank goodness, she became a wealthy widow arranging a great match for Anne to a gentleman who had loved her for some time. She bought captains commissions for her brothers and eventually did marry a man who was a better man than Bluebeard.

How I came across Bluebeard

There was a class in college I took it was an English Literature class, and the theme was Fairytales, and we read both well known fairytales as well as lesser-known ones. One of the ones I’ve ever read was Bluebeard. If there’s one thing college gets right, it’s the literature classes where you read books that you didn’t get a chance to read in high school.

Overall

From the description of House of Saphir, it seems she is sticking to the original fairytale while also adding in things that would make it her own story. I like the fact that the woman is a psychic named Mallory and there’s a murder mystery and a ghost story mixed in. I have faith this will be a great fairytale retelling without it being the same story and while also sticking to the original story’s roots!