#1 Bestseller in Fantasy Anthologies and Dark Fantasy! Seventeen magical stories from NY Times and USA Today bestsellers and award-winning authors that will entice you to the darker side of faerie tales. More Grimm than Disney, in this collection you’ll find twists on Snow White, Hansel & Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, The Snow Queen, Cinderella, The Pied Piper, Alice in Wonderland, and Red Riding … Wonderland, and Red Riding Hood, plus new tales paying homage to the old traditions.
Shadows cannot exist without light, however, and you’ll find enough happily-ever-afters to lift your spirits in this anthology full of adventure, dark powers, and ultimately the enduring power of true love.
YARROW, STURDY AND BRIGHT by Devon Monk – Sweet music cannot hide a wicked heart…
FAE HORSE by Anthea Sharp – Faerie bargains can grant any desire, but be careful what you wish for.
THE QUEEN OF FROST AND DARKNESS by Christine Pope – Her heart is the only thing colder than a Russian winter….
BONES by Yasmine Galenorn – Sometimes, your most cherished dream can turn out to be a nightmare.
MAGIC AFTER MIDNIGHT by C. Gockel – The Wicked Stepmother is about to meet her match…
DANCE WITH THE DEVIL by Donna Augustine – When the devil makes a deal with a dancer, he gets more than he bargained for.
NO GIFT OF WORDS by Annie Bellet – Never steal from a witch…
THE GRIM BROTHER by Audrey Faye – Not all walks in the wood end well…
BEAST INSIDE BEAUTY by Danielle Monsch – Happily Ever After ain’t guaranteed when Once Upon a Time is here.
FAESCORNED by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson – The Morrigan, Celtic goddess of war and strife, must relive a painful memory that reminds her of what she can never have.
DRAWN TO THE BRINK by Tara Maya – Sajiana’s job is to hunt down monsters brought alive from paintings. She never expected to meet one so handsome… or to need his help.
THE VARIANCE COURT by Alexia Purdy – Anna, a struggling college student, discovers a mysterious ring that turns her quiet life chaotic when the ring’s magic doesn’t do what it’s told.
THE MORRIGAN by Phaedra Weldon – A young man discovers he has leprechaun blood – and is wanted by dark faerie forces.
ALICE by Julia Crane – A twisted tale of Alice and Wonderland. Facing madness and an ominous prophecy, Alice chooses to follow her heart despite knowing her world is about to change forever.
STILL RED by Sabrina Locke – When the Hunters come, can there be any escape?
THE FINAL STRAW by Jennifer Blackstream – To banish a gold-spinning demon, first you must guess his name…
THE UNICORN HUNTER by Alethea Kontis – Only Snow White knows what really happened in the forest…
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this is an anthology, so it is all of the things above and more. hard to speak of anthologies, except there’s always at least one stand out and one that is not up to the rest. i enjoyed reading this anthology. if it’s your style, youm will, too
Loved this dark instalment in the Once Upon set series. Recommend for lovers of dark fairy tales. 17 full books, yum!
Really great dark short story collection with a heavy fairy tale theme….I love short stories personally and fantasy anthologies are always awesome because they expose you to a wide range of authors with their own uninque novels for you to check out and read. Loooove it 😉
Well written
The stories weren’t always that interesting and sometimes appeared to be parts of a book they wanted you to get…
There were many, many stories in this anthology. 3 of them were good.
The writing was amateur and weak. Multiple spelling and grammar errors. The title is also misleading and the tales don’t even touch on curses. Some of the stories are random chapters from full length novels which is confusing and disjointed
I enjoyed it overall but liked certain stories better.
I did not care for the first 3 or 4 stories so I tossed it! The stories are very amateurish and the ones I read where unfinished, they just ended without explanation! These ideas for the stories where interesting but the writers didn’t know how to put the creative ideas to pen. I hope any constructive criticism will help these writers in future writing. The talent is there.
I didn’t care for the dark fairy tales but it may appeal to many
A mixed bag, as most collections are. One or two were very good. Some were okay, and one was basically nothing more than a prologue to their book.
Don’t like dark reads. Every day news is bad enough!!
This book is an assortment of fairy tales told in a different way. A number of the stories are “dark”. I felt like quite a few stories ended before the story was completed.
Too simple. Definitely YA.
Too dark for me- not what I thought it was…
I enjoy fairy tales. This is book has been a good, if not great, read.
some stories are very good, some others are merely ok. overall, not a bad read.
Was quick easy to read stories
This book is an anthology, so some of the stories are going to be better than others by default. So some I really enjoyed (particularly Magic After Midnight and Drawn to the Brink), whereas others were only so-so. I did have one huge beef with the book, and that is that some are partial stories, i.e., pulled from longer books. I get that these kinds of anthologies are generally to introduce the reader to the writers in hopes that they’ll be interested and buy more books, but some of the ones I was most interested in were excerpts, so either they didn’t have a conclusion or I didn’t entirely understand what was going on. I know that writing short stories is tough, and even doing so in a world that you’ve already created can be useful, but I’d rather have a short story/novella that an excerpt from your book. (After all, I can usually get that excerpt for free on Amazon anyway!)
I didn’t finish it; way too dark for me.