A fine and imaginative collection of tales spinning stories older still, all with the thread of a curse woven through. Some tales were better than others, as is typical in any anthology; in particular, Gaiman, Arden, Wise and Harris presented striking reimaginings.

A lot of this was “wtf did I just read”, and a lot of that was due to Gaiman’s short story. If you, like me, picked this up with a curiosity about the theme as well as a few familiar names, gear up, for the overall theme turned out to be “how to get a good grade at being edgy and twisted”. Gaiman’s story in particular was gross and offputting: if choosing a different woman to be vilified in a fairy tale was at least on brand for “let’s out-edgy ourselves” theme, the extend to which this was taken was absolutely unnecessary. Turning the villainy switch from the queen to the Snow White — sure, whatever; doing so with a loving focus on sexual violence, incest and similar downright vouyeristic attention to detail — that’s garbage. I wish I could scrub my memory clean.

Thanks to Netgalley for an arc, all opinions are my own.

I am a great fan of short stories but anthologies are usually a mixed bag, with a few standouts making up for the not so entertaining stories. But this volume is great, I really enjoyed it and would recommend to anyone with a taste for horror.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this short story collection.

I have always loved fairytale retelling, as a teenager I loved Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, and this reminded me off it so much. Each story was twisted and left me with a sense of unease and discomfort. My favourites were Dark Carousel and Just You Standard Haunted Doll Drama.

The appeal of an anthology is always interesting, I went into this being familiar with the likes of Neil Gaiman, Katherine Arden and a couple of other authors, but came out with authors I want to read more of. Each story felt so intricately written, no matter how long or short, creating a sense of the wider world around those few pages.

Yes yes yes. Such a great collection of short stories, all of them deliciously scary

An interesting and enjoyable collection overall! Katherine Arden once again shows what a phenomenal writer she is (I may be longing for more from the world of the Winternight Trilogy but this was very well done). My favorites were Mr. Thirteen, Shoes Red as Blood,Awake, and A Curse Is A Curse. Dark Carousel was impressively chilling. Neil Gaimen though, is currently in time out for writing something where almost every line could be an entry in the "Men Write Women" twitter account. Snow White from the queen's perspective? Very cool idea (that has been done well by other authors). This just felt really self-defeating because it takes a story about a queen who is obsessed with living up to society's beauty standards infuses the male gaze so deeply into the prose that the characters are pretty inaccessible.