Gingerbread houses deep in the forest. Baskets of treats for Grandma. Poisoned apples. Bowls of porridge, simmered just right. Food is an integral part of the fairy tales we tell, and to keep you satiated while you wait for The Fairy Tale Magazine's upcoming Issue Ravenous, we have served up a buffet of delicious folklore, literary cookbooks, luscious art, and food-themed quotations for you to savor. And, as a special treat, our Editor-in-Chief, professional composer and poet

Although Nightbird is classified as a young adult novel due to its twelve year old protagonist, a young girl who must navigate the secrets of her family and her small town, this spellbinding story will delight adults and fans of fairy tale magic. Written in Alice Hoffman’s beautiful style, Nightbird is a book that will lead you back to a time in your life when friendships, first love, and finding your true self all lead to enchantment. The novel takes place in the town of S

I have long been a fan of Sharon Lynn Fisher’s cozy Gothic fantasies (Salt & Broom, Grimm Curiosities, Tea & Alchemy) and I was thrilled to find Bane Bloom just as phenomenal! The novel begins with the mysterious diary entries of Charles Carroll, an apothecary from the London Society who has been sent to the Lake District to catalogue the specimens in Arthur Banes’ Pine Cottage. After Mr. Carroll loses his grip on reality and disappears, Catherine Gray, a young woman with an

Do you love Jane Austen? Do you love murder mysteries? If you answered yes to these questions, then add Vanessa Kelly’s novel, Murder in Highbury to your list today! The novel takes place in the summer of 1813, a year after Emma’s marriage to the magistrate George Knightly. Emma and her friend Harriet Martin discover the body of Mrs. Elton, the vicar’s wife, on the steps of the church, and when they notice bruises on her neck and a blood-smeared candlestick on the altar, fou

Inheritance is the first book in best-selling author Nora Roberts’ new The Lost Bride Trilogy and it will delight her fans. The book begins with the tale of an 19 th century bride ruthlessly murdered before her marriage can be consummated and then moves into the present day where the protagonist, Sonya MacTavish, is forced to call off her own wedding due to her groom’s infidelity. When she learns that her late father had a long lost twin who has left her a Victorian mansio

The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic is a beautifully written portal fantasy which sends Nora, a graduate student researching John Donne’s poetry, into a world where real magic exists. At first, the lonely Nora, who is suffering from both a real-world break-up and an existential crisis about her life path in academia, finds solace in the beautiful fairy world she encounters. She exists in a trance-like state as she is given a magical makeover to prepare her for a romance

I was lucky enough to read an early copy of The Elementist and was absolutely enchanted by it! Boyko tells the story of Caedris, a character who discovers herself through memory and her connection to the elements. Found wandering in the woods and covered in amethyst, emerald, and aquamarine tattoos, Caedris is pushed forward on a journey to find what is missing. Boyko builds a beautiful world with her writing, presenting a society based on the premise of gifting. There is a h

Steven Ostrowski’s semi-autobiographical poetry collection, Life Field , traces the development of a poet through the liminal spaces of life. His opening poem, “What is a Life Field?” unfolds as a series of questions that introduces a “boy, curly-haired, cautious, / reckless, climbing a rotted trestle” in the fields behind his home. In his second poem, “Babe in Smoke,” he reveals that even at four years old, “poems were / already inventing themselves inside me, since a poem i

Enter the place where hearing can be perceived as dangerous—a lure to certain death—or where it can serve as a warning. The authors of Siren Song—winners of our Prose & Poetry Contest 2026—bring us tales in which the sirens’ call is imperative. Sirens and their counterparts exist throughout the world, whether they be feathered or finned. This issue allows you to imagine siren calls in places we all frequent in addition to sirens whose very personal issues challenge whether th

The Porter women have lived without men for generations, teaching their red-haired, green-eyed daughters the art of healing and how to nurture their unique fairy gifts, but never to wish for fathers or husbands. Now, following the death of her grandmother and aunts, Arabella lives alone on the Scottish isle of Skye, the last of the Porter line. But when a letter left behind by her long-dead mother reveals the identity of her father, Arabella breaks with tradition, journeying