Six of the world's most exciting and best-loved writers have chosen fairytales as inspiration for this spellbinding and subversive short-story collection.
Six writers - Margo Lanagan, Rosie Borella, Isobelle Carmody, Richard Harland, Margaret Mahy and Martine Murray - have taken inspiration from stories that have shaped us all, like 'Beauty and the Beast,' 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier' and 'The Snow Queen'. This collection carries universal themes of envy and jealousy, deception and abandonment, control and power, courage and sacrifice, violence and deception. Characters are enchanted, they transgress, they yearn, they hunger, they hate and sometimes, they kill. Some of the stories inhabit a traditional fairytale world, while others are set in the distant future. Some are set in the present and some in an alternative present. The stories offer no prescription for living or moral advice and none belong in a nursery. Open the covers and submit to their enchantment.
