Rating: 3 stars

In The Uncertain Places, fairy tales and real life collide. Centuries ago, the Feierabend family made a deal with the magical realm of once upon a time: in return for eternal luck and success, one daughter from every Feierabend family will sleep for seven years while serving as a Bondmaid.

When Berkeley students and best-friends, Will and Ben begin dating the Feierabend sisters, Maddie and Livvy, the boys can tell something is a little off, but they just can’t put their finger on it.

Maddy and Livvy live with their mother and younger sister, Rose, in a Napa Valley farmhouse located on the family’s burgeoning winery. The house, a collective mish-mash of tudor, Victorian and craftsman bungalow, contains its own hidden secrets and ghost—including “Those People” who clean in the middle of the night and little furry, green-tinged leprechaun-ish people who “help them out”.

With a sense of entitlement to good fortune and no concern for even the smallest inconvenience, the Feierabend girls seem to have it all with little to no effort. However, after Maddie unceremoniously dumps Ben to be a star in Hollywood, Will is left to sort it out all on his own.

Will begins hearing and seeing strange things while at the farmhouse and even while on school campus. Despite Livvy’s denial that anything is amiss, things finally come to a head when she falls into a deep, magical sleep and little by little Will and Ben find out the truth behind the Feierabend’s success.

Based on a (fictional) fairy tale long lost by the Brothers Grimm, The Bondmaid curse has an authentic plausibility. Ms. Goldstein adds a bit of whismy to the mischief as the fantasy of the fairy tale realm bleeds into every day life.

Lisa Goldstein’s magical prose brings the reader into another world and keeps them entranced to the very end.
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Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Tachyon Publications (June 15, 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-1616960148