Snow in Summer by Jane Yolen
Set in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1940s, Snow in Summer is one of the books in the seeming endless stream of "Snow White" adaptations. (I have no problem with this endless string, but I know plenty are fed up with it.)
Our Heroine is named "Snow in Summer" because she was born in the summer and her appearance reminded her mother of the Snow White story. After her mother dies, Summer's father sinks into a deep depression. It's assumed that he'll eventually marry Nancy, his cousin's widow and Summer's godmother, but instead one day he walks back from the cemetary with a strange woman no one has ever seen before, and his new bride, a witch, intends to steal his strength and make Summer (who she prefers to call Snow) her apprentice.
The story doesn't reach the point where the huntsman and the dwarves (much less a prince figure) come into play until the last quarter of the book. Instead, the majority of the book centers around Summer's grief over her mother, and her relationships with her surrogate mother, Nancy, and her stepmother, who is never actually named. There's a realistic and depressing portrayal of both mental and physical abuse, but I found the relationship between Summer and her stepmother fascinating, and Summer and Nancy's relationship very endearing. The majority of the book is written from Summer's POV, but both Nancy and the stepmother have several POV chapters, too. (One of the dwarves also gets a short one near the end.) There's also (unsurprisingly, given the setting and approach) a fair bit of focus on religion, but I didn't find it very heavyhanded.
It's not my favorite version of Snow White, but I thought it was pretty decent and an interesting choice of setting, and I give it a lot of props for making the main focus be the relationships between Snow White and her mothers (and that Nancy and the stepmother's rivalry was entirely about Summer, and not her father) and for assuming that the reader is going to be more interested in those relationships than in Summer's adventures involving dwarves and/or prince figures.
(And may I just close with a comment about how hard it was to consistently refer to her as "Summer" and not "Snow"? Because it was very weird.)
Our Heroine is named "Snow in Summer" because she was born in the summer and her appearance reminded her mother of the Snow White story. After her mother dies, Summer's father sinks into a deep depression. It's assumed that he'll eventually marry Nancy, his cousin's widow and Summer's godmother, but instead one day he walks back from the cemetary with a strange woman no one has ever seen before, and his new bride, a witch, intends to steal his strength and make Summer (who she prefers to call Snow) her apprentice.
The story doesn't reach the point where the huntsman and the dwarves (much less a prince figure) come into play until the last quarter of the book. Instead, the majority of the book centers around Summer's grief over her mother, and her relationships with her surrogate mother, Nancy, and her stepmother, who is never actually named. There's a realistic and depressing portrayal of both mental and physical abuse, but I found the relationship between Summer and her stepmother fascinating, and Summer and Nancy's relationship very endearing. The majority of the book is written from Summer's POV, but both Nancy and the stepmother have several POV chapters, too. (One of the dwarves also gets a short one near the end.) There's also (unsurprisingly, given the setting and approach) a fair bit of focus on religion, but I didn't find it very heavyhanded.
It's not my favorite version of Snow White, but I thought it was pretty decent and an interesting choice of setting, and I give it a lot of props for making the main focus be the relationships between Snow White and her mothers (and that Nancy and the stepmother's rivalry was entirely about Summer, and not her father) and for assuming that the reader is going to be more interested in those relationships than in Summer's adventures involving dwarves and/or prince figures.
(And may I just close with a comment about how hard it was to consistently refer to her as "Summer" and not "Snow"? Because it was very weird.)