Twisted Fairy Tales reviews

I haven’t mentioned my collection Twisted Fairy Tales in some time, which is available to buy on Amazon, and many book stores in the USA.

The reviews so far have been mostly positive, and I’m hearing that it’s been selling well, especially in Barnes & Noble in the USA.

This gladdens my heart of course!

One reviewer on Amazon mentioned that it was too dark and descriptive for her nine-year-old son. That made me smile. When I was nine I would have thought ‘challenge accepted!’ and sought it out at once. It all depends on the child, however. I’d always had a fascination with dark fiction.

Two reviews have made me particularly happy. One was by Sharon Browning on LitStack.

In this anthology, you have magical, you have beautiful, you have the macabre, and you have the just plain creepy. And it’s all so very good.

The other is by K.A. Laity on A Knife and A Quill:

I’m a fairy tale addict, so this beautiful book is just the thing for me. If you also devour things like Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, you’ll love it too. I know it’s meant to be a YA book, but there’s such deft hands at work here that the only thing that makes it feel like a book for young readers is that the tales are short. Despite their brevity McHugh manages to invoke entire worlds that live vividly. It’s a challenge to keep finding ways to reignite the magic of fairy tales, but so many of the tales offered up surprises that nonetheless felt just right — as if we’d had the story wrong before.

The tales remain dark: there’s cruelty, mayhem and some genuine scares. I *loved* that as a kid, always seeking out macabre tales. And what great heroines, too! Boys and girls both will love Molly Whupple, Pinocchio and brave Vasilisa who ventures to Baba Yaga’s house. These stories give spark to the true magic of fairy tales: showing us how we can face evil and survive.

Thanks to everyone who has bought and supported the book so far. A friend informed me on Facebook that she convinced her dentist to buy the collection! I’d imagine the horrors of the dental practice would make my stories seem like light relief.