When I was growing up, my mother read us classic fairy tales over and over again: CINDERELLA, SNOW WHITE, SLEEPING BEAUTY. My favorite, hands down, was CINDERELLA. I grew up on a farm in Minnesota, outside a town of 2,000 people, and my main plan of escape was to turn into Cinderella and hitch a ride to New York City with an available prince. Perhaps fortunately, there were no princes on the lookout for plump girls with red-haired perms, so I went to college instead. Even now, years later, Cinderella stories are at the heart of many of my favorite romances. In Teresa Medeiros's ONCE AN ANGEL, a wild young girl, Emily, transforms herself from a waif to a gorgeous young lady who swirls around the ballroom, while Justin watches moodily from the side of the room. The book has a framework of THE LITTLE PRINCESS, one of my favorite children's books. This is one of the very best of the Cinderella stories every written... sigh.