“Enthralling, fantastic, and darkly haunting.highly recommended for fans of powerful short stories, fairy tales, and enchantment.” - YA Books Central Melissa Albert and Althea Proserpine’s stories are bloody and brutal and make the Brothers Grimm feel sugary sweet.” - Tor.com Don’t come into this collection expecting Disney princesses. Now Melissa Albert gifts us with the stories themselves, of Hansa the Traveler, of Twice-Killed Katherine, and of Alice-Three-Times, whose story will perhaps mean the most to readers. “We first heard about the book of fairy tales written by Althea Proserpine in The Hazel Wood, and witnessed the fallout from them in The Night Country. “This inventive, enchanting collection reads like the fairy tales of old, hushed stories passed woman to woman, before the Grimms came and wiped away all the blood.” - Laura Ruby, author of Thirteen Dorways, Wolves Behind Them All I loved these.” - Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

“Lush and deliciously sinister fairytales to be consumed as greedily as Turkish delight or any fairy fruit. “Rich with bloodshed, metamorphosis and inevitable comeuppance, written with the absolute assurance of a master storyteller summoning an audience to the fireside on a winter’s night, Albert’s book is uniquely transporting and discomfiting, a length of shining fabric flecked with glass that sparkles as it cuts.” - The Times Literary Supplement (UK) Albert’s rich and tightly focused collection forms the core of the mythology created in her novels, and her fans will be thrilled at this further glimpse into that world.” - Booklist, starred review “The writing is as spare and precise as poetry, connected to the darker, edgier elements of fairy-tale conventions.

Tales of the hinterland