Cinder House

by Freya Marske

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4/5 ducklings

tl;dr can a dead girl become a house? Can a house feel rage? Can a house fall in love? Can a house have a voyeurism kink? Apparently yes.

Freya Marske has quickly become one of my favorite authors. I’ve enjoyed everything she’s published so far, and Cinder House was no exception. It’s witty, a little sharp, and a perspective on chronic illness we don’t usually see.

When Ella is murdered by her wicked stepmother, she becomes a haunting. No, not just a haunting, she becomes the house. It is not natural for a girl to become a house, but slowly, Ella learns to see and feel and hear with eaves and rafters and floorboards. Her stepmother and stepsisters, Greta and Danica, the only people who can see or hear her, put Ella to work, cleaning, cooking, repairing the house. But Greta. Greta learns to hurt Ella by spilling lentils that embed in her floorboards, tearing the plaster, breaking windows, not just with her hands, but with magic.

Lonely, Ella eventually learns to leave the bounds of the house, though she is pulled back at midnight every night. She makes friends with a fairy named Quaint, who, while tricky, helps Ella understand her ghost life, though Ella knows better than to make a bargain with her. She attends university courses and the ballet, silent and invisible. She begins a correspondence with one of the foremost authorities on ghosts and magic, and watches the lonely, hungry, eager boy who devours the music and dancers as if he were starving.

Then the King and Queen announce a ball at which the prince will choose a bride. Ella, desperate to go, finally makes a deal with Quaint to be corporeal for the three days of celebrations. What Ella does not expect is to see the boy from the ballet and that that boy would be the crown prince, Jule. Nor does she expect the electric connection with Nadya, the princess from a far away kingdom the prince is set to marry.

Jule tells Ella his secret: he was gifted a fairy blessing when he was born. All those who saw him dance would fall in love with him. It’s more curse than blessing, and Jule hasn’t danced for an audience in years because the last time someone died. Elle tells Jule her secret: she’s a ghost, bound to haunt her house forever, and only the magic of the mirrored shoes Quaint made her make her real.

Ella asked Jule to dance for her, she’s already dead, so the curse can’t hurt her. He does and it’s love for both of them, but Nadya catches them doing a little more than dancing and Ella flees.

On the last day of festivities, Ella saves Jule from an attack orchestrated by Greta, and she is real enough to bleed before the house pulls her back to protect its haunting.

It is only now Greta realizes that Ella has been attending the celebrations, and has ruined her imagined chance at marrying the Prince. So Greta takes revenge the best way she can, by destroying the house.

When Jule and Nadya show up with the mirrored shoes, and Nadya confesses that she is the scholar Ella has been corresponding with, Greta snaps and sets the house afire, a slow, painful death for Ella. Nadya, a magician herself, finds a way to move Ella’s haunting to the palace, so that all three of them can be together.

It's not the life any of them expected, Ella will never be solid, Jule will never dance for an audience, Nadya had to leave her home and family. But they find joy where they can; while Jule knows he will never dance for an audience, Ella, with the creative use of some silk ropes, helps Nadya resist the curse so she can watch him. Nadya can't go home, but she is free to practice magic as she pleases. Ella will never be solid, but when the dancing turns to something else, Ella can watch while the other two describe the sensations for her.

This was somehow sweet and harsh at the same time. Sweet because it’s cozy, I knew the story would turn out alright and that nothing permanently bad would happen to any of the characters I cared about. Harsh because it confronted some hard truths about being an adult and the expectations you have for your life.

The blooming romance between Ella and Jule and the deep intellectual bond Ella makes with Nadya are so lovely. It’s a delightful exploration about how you need different people to meet different needs in your life. One person, not even a romantic partner, can be everything all the time always. You can love someone and it can be a happy, healthy relationship, even if they cannot meet every single one of your needs. Honestly, I’d love to see more relationships like this in fiction.

The ending was not what I expected and I am so here for it. It’s not often I’m surprised by an ending, and much less often that I like it when I am. Both Marske’s The Last Contract series and Swordcrossed both had categorically happy endings, the good guys got everything they wanted for now, the bad guys were duly recognized as bad guys, most of the threads tied up in nice little bows. So I was very surprised at this bittersweet ending.

Ella and Jule can’t marry, he has a duty to his kingdom and any marriage will be in the service to it. Nadya and Jule do not love each other, they are political pawns, arranged to marry as part of an alliance. What’s more, Jule chose Nadya specifically because she is a powerful magician and might be able to help him break his curse. By marrying Jule, Nadya will be allowed to practice magic, something outlawed in her homeland. Also, she caught Jule and Ella getting it on beneath a tree.

Ella died long before her time, her childhood ripped from her, forced to serve people who hate her, unable to touch another person. And at the end of the story, there isn’t a convenient way to fix that problem. She is still dead, she is still incorporeal, but people can see her now.

The end of this story is about making the best out of what you have, finding joy in where you are now. It’s about knowing that this may not be the life you envisioned for yourself, but it is good, it’s happy, it’s enough.

To be clear, it is not be grateful for what you have instead dwelling on what could have been. I often find that dismissive and demeaning, it so often feels like being told to settle for less. But Cinder House never tells its character not to wish for more, in fact, I think its the opposite, it tells them to find joy in the here and now and the people they care about and not let perfect be the enemy of good, and also to never stop wishing for more happiness.

The other major theme in this book, per Marske’s own words, is the difficulty in living with a chronic disability. I didn’t get it at first, but after reading Marske’s author’s note, I understand and I may have cried. Ella can’t touch anyone, she can only be out and about for a limited amount of time, she feels pain in a way that is different and incomprehensible to anyone else.

Jule can’t dance anymore. It’s an interesting inversion of the theme, he was blessed (cursed?) with the ability to dance so well, it made anyone who saw fall desperately in love with him, driving them to dangerous, sometimes deadly, action. He takes precautions, but it’s not enough, and so he stops dancing altogether.

A little real life talk: I’ve had issues with my knees for years, as a result of an injury that was misdiagnosed. I couldn’t bend my right knee all the way, I had to wear a brace, and I would have unpredictable bouts of extreme pain. It was difficult to kneel and if you know anyone who’s Catholic, you’ll understand why that was a problem. Did it stop me doing my hobbies? No. Did I do permanent damage because I didn’t stop? Almost definitely. I eventually had surgery, and things are mostly fine now, but I still have to be careful what shoes I wear and I can always tell you when it's going to rain.

In recent years, I’ve developed chronic pain in my shoulders and neck, which exacerbate the headaches I’ve had since I was young. Most days its manageable, or at least manageable enough to push through, some days it hurts to hold my head up.

All this impacts who I interact with the world, it keeps me from doing things I love, from seeing my friends, from being present with my family. There is a very specific kind of pain that comes from not being able to do something you love and that you were once good at. I’m biased, but I think this is especially true for people for whom movement is their medium. It feels like all that time and effort and practice were a waste, it’s feeling homesick for your own body. It’s sadness for the things you used to be able to do, it’s grief at the people you used to do them with, it’s mourning the person you were before. It’s frustration at your stupid limitations, it’s rage at the universe for letting this happen to you.

There is a scene where Ella is asking Jule how he feels about not being able to dance and he says something like “it's fine, I’ve lived with it long enough that it doesn’t really bother me anymore. It’s fine. I’m not mad about it. No, really, it’s fine.” Ella calls him on his bullshit and he finally lets himself have a moment of rage and admit that he’s angry and he hates that he can’t dance, hates the limitations.

It was so refreshing to read this! So often, characters with disabilities are written to be happy and fine with their situation, having completely accepted their disability with nothing but grace and aplomb. But, like, sometimes this shit sucks. We smile and laugh and go to work and act like professionals because we have to get through life somehow, but sometimes not being able to do the things I used to do makes me so angry that the only solution is to have a toddler tantrum in my kitchen when no one can see. I loved seeing that represented in a book.

And at the same time, Jule and Ella are more than just their disabilities, they are fully fleshed out characters who have wants and dreams and pet peeves and duties. They’re real people who just happen to have a disability. Who’d have thought?

Anyway, all of this is a long way to say that I really enjoyed this book. Yes, it’s cozy, but it’s not precious about its characters, they hurt, they have a roller coaster of emotion, bad things happen to them. Spoiler alert: Ella literally dies. Twice! But I knew from the start that everything would turn out for the better. And that’s my favorite kind of cozy book, there are still stakes, there is still tension, but the world isn't at stake and the expectation is that everyone lives through it all and gets a sliver of happiness at the end. (yeah, ok, there are exceptions to every rule, but hey, this is my space, I can break my rules if I want to).

So go read Cinder House! I loved it and I will now devour everything Freya Marske writes.

Originally published October 7, 2025