Loved these books! ( )

Mixed bag

Some of these were my flavor. Some were not. This was a good way to get a taste of a range of writers. I've bought a couple of books because I was introduced to the authors here. ( )

A fantastic collection

There was a brilliant variety of stories in this collection - some better than others, but that was to be expected. I liked how some spun well known (and some lesser known) tales into something new, and how some took familiar fairytale elements and create something new and interesting.

I look forward to reading the other collections in the series. ( )

A fantastic collection

There was a brilliant variety of stories in this collection - some better than others, but that was to be expected. I liked how some spun well known (and some lesser known) tales into something new, and how some took familiar fairytale elements and create something new and interesting.

I look forward to reading the other collections in the series. ( )

Once Upon a Curse is an anthology of 17 short stories by women published in 2016 by Fiddlehead Press, a very small press??, or possibly an author self-publishing under a press name? It's not clear. There is a website with the name of this press and no actual content. And there's a page on Smashwords, "the world's largest distributor of indie ebooks" that links to Anthea Lawson's site. Lawson is a romance author, and Fiddlehead Press appears to publish mostly urban fantasy romance and some historical romances. This anthology lists no editor and has no introductory material about the collection of stories, but it definitely falls into the fantasy romance category. Every one of these tales centers on a fairly standard straight romance trope with the exception of the final story 2 stories, and "The Grim Brother," which are also the only 3 narrated from a male perspective. So it may be a collective effort at self-promotion. Each story ends with a brief blurb about the author, the author's website, and in many cases, notes that the story features characters or settings in their existing oeuvre.

Most are a spin on some traditional fairy tale but not all of them. Devon Monk opens with "Yarrow, Sturdy and Bright," a retelling of the Pied Piper. "Fae Horse" by Anthea Sharp draws on Celtic folklore and persecution of witches in Ireland. "Faescorned" by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson and "The Morrigan" by Phaedra Weldon are two very different takes on a Celtic goddess, the former from her perspective coping with an immortal curse confronted with mortal love, the latter a fresh take on leprechauns and shillelaghs. Christina Pope bases "The Queen of Frost and Darkness" in Russian folklore. I thought "Bones" by Yasmine Galenorn would be a spin on the Persephone myth, but it's more like a tangent. C. Gockel's "Magic After Midnight" is a modern urban fantasy that is a humorous take on our ever-popular pointy-toothed friends and blended families. "Dance with the Devil" is a ballerina's hellish bargain by Donna Augustine. Annie Bellet shares an African tale in "No Gift of Words." Audrey Faye's "The Grim Brother" is an interesting take on Hansel and Gretel. "Drawn to the Brink" by Tara Maya was the most original and unrelated to any traditional lore and also the most immersive in terms of dropping the reader right in and having to figure out what was going on over the course of the story as various terms became clear. "The Variance Court" by Alexia Purdy also seems very original rather than connected to a specific legend, unless it be to the lost princess trope popularized after the Russian Revolution. Unfortunately, to me, it also read like a first work with lots of room to improve. "Still Red" by Sabrina Locke was a very dark interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood indeed. Jennifer Blackstream wrote "The Final Straw" based on Rumpelstilsken but involving a djinn or male sylph, demon possession, vampires, and very much part of Blackstream's larger body of work. Three stories adapted some version of Cinderella. Julia Crane's "Alice" feels like a mash-up of Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. "Hunter's Heart" by Christine Pope is more like Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead applied to fairy tale instead of Shakespeare. And Alethia Kontiss used it as a springboard into an original story based on general concepts of unicorns, demons, balance, and innocent princess.

As per usual in such anthologies, a range of writing and storytelling styles is presented. Some I liked, some not so much. I enjoyed the stories by Monk, Weldon, Gockel, Bellet, and Maya the most. I thought Galenorn, Faye, Locke and Crane captured abusive dynamics and dysfunction very well. I found the Kontiss and Blackstream stories charmingly well done. The story by Augustine had an amusing moment but otherwise, meh. The stories by Sharp, Johnson, and Pope were well done to varying degrees, and I appreciated the writing, but the stories were not so much to my taste, which is perfectly fine.

This book is not a keeper. I'll be passing it along. But I might look up more from Tara Maya and Annie Bellet. If nothing else, this exposed me to more authors. Christina Pope was the only whose name I recognized, and I'd never read anything by her before. ( )