Grim, amusing interpretations of classic literature and characters.
Moore adds twists to popular fairy tales and folklore in this short story collection.
Self-proclaimed historian Charles Wellington III has inherited a “library of original works.” These writings are essentially the true stories behind well-known characters. For starters, Santa Claus is a “gift kingpin.” His business thrives on intimidation, using moblike tactics to scare children’s parents and his elvish workforce. Subsequent tales star the Easter Bunny and Pinocchio. While Haré amasses mutated bunnies for brutal revenge against Billy, a disturbed boy who tortures the furry animals, Pinocchio mistakenly believes the path to becoming a real, live boy should be paved in blood. This first batch of stories takes violent turns, but the collection’s latter half lightens up even as the overall tone stays dark. At the same time, Moore links characters in entertaining fashion. For example, the titular feline of “Puss in Boots” crops up in a later narrative; “Robert ‘Rumpel’ Schneider,” a Rumpelstiltskin origin story, sets up the next tale, “Frog Prince.” The author likewise weaves multiple folk and fairy tales into certain stories, such as “The Fox.” This begins as a version of the Grimms’ “The Wolf and the Fox,” but the clever vulpine protagonist later offers to train the Tortoise in beating the much-faster Hare in a race. A few of the tales sport unexpected endings, with the award for most gleefully unsettling denouement going to “Goldie’s Locks and the Three Bears.” Despite the stories’ frequent contemporary dialogue, Moore writes in a simple prose akin to classic fairy tales: “In her many years, she had never seen a man with her own eyes. Only images from the books that the sorceress had given her to kill time.” In the final entry, Wellington makes another appearance and offers a fitting, surprising finale.
Grim, amusing interpretations of classic literature and characters.Pub Date: March 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66552-084-3
Page Count: 200
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
