Edited by Kristina Wright

ISBN-10: 1573443972

ISBN-13: 978-1573443975

Rating: 5 stars

Reviewed by: Erin O’Riordan

We see the words “fairy tale,” and we automatically think of frivolous, fluffy stories with no real significance. Scratch the surface, however, and you find that fairy tales are full of all the stuff of dreams and nightmares, the stuff of life: birth, death, courage and cowardice, anxiety, starvation, love and lust, humiliation, redemption. Like our most cherished religious myths, fairy tales tell us who we are at our very core and give us hints at what we might need…and our most secret desires. Far from child’s play, fairy tales have earned the right to transition to our adulthood bedtime stories.

Cleis Press seems to be especially good at the adult fairy tale genre. First Cleis published Mitzi Szereto’s gleefully erotic tales of long, long ago in a faraway land, In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed. This time. Cleis Press has published Fairy Tale Lust: Erotic Fantasies For Women, edited by Kristina Wright and featuring a talented stable of erotic writers. Along with tales of long, long ago and far away there are stories so contemporary and realistically told, they could be happening next door, right now.

It’s a charming amalgam. “How the Little Mermaid Got Her Tail Back” (in a sushi restaurant!) is as beguiling as a siren. “The Return” is eerily seductive. “Three Times” is breathtaking. Jeremy Edwards’ reworking of “Goldielocks and the Three Bears” is cute, but so often in these tales, cute is a mere cover for the deep, dark well of human desires. “In the Dark Woods” by editor Kristina Wright is a modern-day morality play of good and evil, playing out on a mattress. They’re all so charming, it’s nearly impossible to choose a favorite.