The Fairest of Them All

In Turgeon’s mash-up of “Rapunzel” and “Snow White,” the longhaired maiden isn’t quite so fair and innocent as in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. After a few hours of passion with the prince from the nearby kingdom in her bedroom tower, Rapunzel finds that she’s pregnant with his child. The only problem? The prince is engaged to another. The witch Mathena, determined to prevent her adopted daughter from becoming a mistress to the most powerful man in the land, casts a spell to keep the prince from finding Rapunzel again. Seven years later, when his wife dies under questionable circumstances, the prince, now king, finds Rapunzel and makes her his new queen. But his legitimate daughter, the beautiful Snow White—along with the rest of the kingdom—is weary of a witch’s daughter assuming the throne. And not without good reason. For, when Rapunzel learns from her magic mirror that she’s no longer the fairest of them all—that, in fact, Snow White is “a thousand times more fair”—she turns downright ugly. Turgeon (The Next Full Moon) imaginatively combines murder, revenge, sex, magic, and other genre tropes into a dark and twisted fairy tale. Agent: Elaine Markson, Markson Thoma. (Aug.)