A very loose retelling of the Cinderella tale. Lucinda's parents died in a carriage accident when Lucinda was a young child. Since then, her aunt (cruel) and uncle (nice) have raised her in their jewelry shop. Lucinda's life was fairly ho-hum until a mysterious woman known as the Amaranth Witch drops off a gigantic jewel in need of a new setting, a beggar boy steals the jewel, Lucinda's uncle dies, and Lucinda is kicked out of her home after her aunt accuses her of theft. Does that sound like a bit much to believe? Wait, it gets worse. 
 I could swallow all of the above if the characters were good enough to carry the story and the suspension of belief didn't require much more than your average fantasy/fairy tale (or at least made some sense). However, the characters weren't good enough to carry the story. Lucinda was almost the tough and spunky, but not in that annoying way, heroine, but she didn't quite get from character storyboard to endearing and memorable. Beryl was just so sad and desperate it was pathetic, wallowing around instead of either trying to fix her situation or move on with her life. The prince was cut from the same cardboard early Disney princes were cut from, but with a dash of "annoying" thrown in for good measure. There was also zero chemistry between them. Peter had the makings of a good character (and much better love interest), but he never reached his promise and the conclusion of his storyline was over the top silly. The goat named Dog was the best character in the book, and even he was completely random and never explained. 
 And then we get aliens. Yeah, aliens. This brought the book from "Ok, but nothing memorable" and into the realm of "What was the author thinking?" Instead of remembering the book as, "What was that one about again? I think it was ok?" I'll now remember it as, "Oh, isn't that the one with that alien well thing thrown in?" Not the best lasting impression.