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The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales is a beautiful collection of stories written by a social activist who urges radical transformation. Vasily Eroshenko was a blind Ukrainian writer who adopted Japan and China as his home during the political turbulence of the early 20th century. Renowned fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes explains in his foreword that Eroshenko uses an experimental prose style to expose the racism and hypocrisy at the core of western civilization. Taken together, the fairy tales in this collection provide a message of hope and transformation. I loved this collection of fairy tales. The writer, who lost his sight during his childhood, fills the tales with beautiful images like gold and silver butterflies and a setting sun that looks like “a purple shipwreck on the horizon”. The collection, which is divided into Japanese and Chinese tales, is permeated with characters who are physically or metaphorically blind, and many of the stories feature characters who try to escape the cages which confine them. In the title story, a tiger dreams of freeing animals who are fenced into pastures and people who are imprisoned in palaces, but each is a slave of man and is afraid of freedom. Other stories illustrate the common fate of the rich and poor who wait while Death, “drunk on the fragrance of spring”, stalks the halls of the hospital wearing her long white veil. My favorite stories explore the depths of true love. One features a goldfish and firefly who fall deeply in love and sacrifice their coveted scales and wings for one another when they are captured and placed into a bowl and a cage. Another, “The Tale of the Paper Lantern”, reads “she lit me with her love and lined me with the words I love you only. Indeed, her love was life itself, and brightly did I shine by it”. The collection is also full of sadness; a scholarly young mouse who reads the books lining a politician’s shelves meets a terrible fate at the hands of a cat, a woman raises a baby she finds abandoned in a grove of pines, and a tree stands witness to human joy and pain as its young leaves sing hymns to the sun, the night, and the stars. Beneath this heart wrenching melancholy is a strain of hope that beautiful stories can save the world. The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales is the kind of collection that can be read over and over. It is a wonderful complement to traditional fairy tales. Highly recommend to all who are interested in the power and beauty of storytelling! You can find the book here. Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair review. Kelly Jarvis is the Special Projects Writer and Contributing Editor for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Her work has appeared in Eternal Haunted Summer, Blue Heron Review, Forget-Me-Not Press, Mermaids Monthly, The Chamber Magazine, and Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. She teaches at Central Connecticut State University. And check out our SHOP PAGE with our all new DIGITAL DOWNLOADS HERE

Check out Kate's fabulous finds that you can enjoy, too! This week's pick: The Fairy Tale Magazine's ZAZZLE Store This week’s pick is our Zazzle store. If you haven’t been there in awhile, you’ll be surprised. We’ve added a lot of new merchandise and I’m adding even more today and tomorrow. And every penny of profit goes to The Fairy Tale Magazine. You’ll notice that we have some gorgeous merchandise with images designed by Amanda Bergloff, our art director. I genuinely love her work, especially “Moonrise” and “Moon Maiden.” I’m also a fan of notebooks, and we’ve got some terrific ones for sale with Amanda’s images and some great work by beloved Golden Age illustrator Ida Outhwaite. We also have some items featuring Arthur Rackham’s delightful “Piccalilly” garden illustration. There are numerous other items with classic illustrations, and even some just featuring our name. We’ve got everything from lapin pins to mugs to t-shirts and posters. If Zazzle isn’t your thing, then please check out our shop here on this site. Just go to the menu and hit “Shop” and you’ll be there. (Or just follow this link.) We’re not only selling the books I’ve edited, we’re also selling fantastic digital images, including some with the same images we use on merchandise at our Zazzle store. And even more great work by Amanda is at our shop. The images cost only $2 each, and there are no restrictions on how you may use them. The pictures you see here are for sale in our shop as digital downloads and are featured on Zazzle merchandise as well. They are, in order, “Moonrise,” “Moon Maiden,” by Amanda, and Arthur Rackham’s “Piccalilly.” I hope you find something that enchants you! Kate

Editor’s note: The rhythm and sweet symmetry of this lovely story, and its classic structure, makes it a pleasure to read. Enjoy! Once there was a farmer’s wife named Hildreth who was pregnant with her first child. She and her husband, Gerald, were very pleased, and when her time to give birth arrived, she labored for many hours until her husband began to fear for her life. At last the farmer hurried into the forest in search of the wise woman who had birthed babies for many years. Now Gerald was afraid of the wise woman, as many were, but love for his wife pressed him on. At last he found her cottage and rapped on the door. “Please, my wife’s labor goes poorly,” he said. “I will pay whatever you ask.” The wise woman saw that he was in earnest, so she agreed to go with him. But first, she told him to pluck three things from her garden: a thorn, a petal, and a vine. So he did, though the thorns made him bleed and the flowers made him sneeze and the vines did not want to come loose. When at last they both arrived at the farm, his wife had fainted from the pain. The wise woman examined Hildreth as slowly and calmly as if she were a ripe vegetable. “Not one baby,” she said, grinning. “Your wife carries three within her womb.” The poor farmer was struck dumb at that, thinking his wife and all his children had perished before he had even met them; but with a muttered ministration, Hildreth woke, and with the wise woman’s care first one baby was born, and then the second, and finally, with a monumental effort, the third child arrived: daughters three. They were very small and did not cry at first. “Quick,” the wise woman said, “put this thorn to your firstborn’s finger.” Gerald did so, and the child cried out as a drop of red blood sprung from her finger. “Quick,” the wise woman said, “put the petal on your second born’s tongue.” Gerald did so, and the child swallowed it and let out a good wail. “Quick,” the wise woman said, “wrap this vine around your youngest’s leg.” Gerald did so, and the child whimpered, but never cried. But Hildreth put her to nurse first, and so, by suckling all her children, granted them what only she could, and all the terrors of birth fell away into the realm of the past. “What would you have for payment?” Asked Gerald. He was grateful and more than a little stunned. “You must only let your children be what they will be,” answered the wise woman. “That is payment enough.” The three children grew up, the pride and joy of their parents. Aline, the oldest, became a woman whose strength evoked admiration and awe in all the nearby farms and villages. Alessa, the second, sang as she worked, composing songs that lightened their days. Annika, the youngest, was neither strong nor clever, but she had a kind heart, and she worked as best she could. One by one they left home. Aline built her own mill by hand, then rescued a woodcutter from a fallen tree and married him. Alessa moved to the city and joined the minstrel’s guild. And Annika, when her parents asked her what life she might seek, said only, “I am happy here with you.” What could they do? She was not very helpful on the farm, though she tried her best. She had no voice for song, though Alessa had tried to teach her. Perhaps, they thought, a kind businessman might love her and give her a suitable life. So her parents took her to visit her sister in the city in the hopes that she might introduce her to someone, and indeed she did. One of her poet friends spun sonnets in praise of Annika’s kindness and beauty until she fell in love with him. They were married, and remained in the city. It was a poor livelihood, being married to a poet. She did not mind the poor conditions, for they were well matched in temperament and love, but Annika missed the country dreadfully. And she was no more suited for city occupations than she was for farming. Then one day her husband said, “I fear my poor mother is dying. I must go to her in the country. Will you come with me?” “Of course I will,” she said. Though she grieved for her husband, she was secretly pleased to go home. They rode out of the city and past her sister’s mill. They rode past her parent’s farm. They rode into the woods and stopped at an old cottage in an overgrown garden. And there, in bed, lay the poet’s mother, who was of course none other than the wise woman who had delivered Annika and her sisters long ago. The couple was saddened to see her so weak. But the wise woman smiled at them. “Quick,” she said, “put a thorn to my thumb.” They were reluctant at first, but she assured them it would help. As a drop of blood fell from her thumb, her pain ebbed away. “Quick,” she said, “put a petal on my tongue.” Annika did so, and the wise woman spoke the wisdom of midwifery and healing, all manner of remedies and balms. “Quick,” she said, and her voice was fading, “wrap my leg in a vine, to ease my passing.” They did so, and a smile spread across her wrinkled face. “Thank you, my children,” she said. “Now I bless you both.” And so she died. The poet and his wife wept for her and buried her in the garden. They stayed on in the cottage. The poet wrote in the peace and quiet of the woods, and Annika, who remembered all that the wise woman had said, spent her days making poultices, easing fevers, and delivering babies. And though they are poor, to this day the young wise woman and her poet husband are very happy. Stephanie Ascough is the author of A Land of Light and Shadow, an MG fantasy, and is working on too many projects at once. When she isn’t parenting or feigning housework, she can be found exploring fairy tales and folklore, reading, or playing guitar or mandolin. Image by Annie Spratt

Magic Casements, by Pamela Sherwood is a delightful collection of stories that echo the tropes and themes of fairy tales while still being fresh enough to feel new. This is a solid group of stories overall, but I did have favorites, including “The Knight of the Gillyflower,” which bends the traditional ideas about what women can do. I also loved “The Magic Stove,” because it’s told from the point of view of the stove, and I love that kind of thing—anthropomorphizing is extremely appealing to me, and this stove lives a varied and useful life. My third favorite is “Nine Lives,” which journeys through time to show us how cats have a varied and remarkable (magical) connection to humans. Sherwood also has a strong poem at the beginning of the book called “After Ever After,” which offers the reader a thoughtful focus on some of the most famous fairy tales. I also enjoyed a chapter near the end of the book called “The Story Behind the Story,” which explains how each story came to be. I didn’t love every story, of course, because that’s the nature of such collections. “The Faun and the Fae” was sweet, and eventually, I enjoyed it, but it suffered from large paragraphs of dialogue that functioned as info dumping. “Fatal Flowers” was hard to follow, and even though I adore cats (and stories about them), “Catspaw” just left me confused and uninterested. I think any lover of fairy tales will find at least half of the stories worth reading—but probably more. And, while there are stories I didn’t love, there isn’t a true dud in the collection. I will definitely be on the lookout for other work by Sherwood. You can buy a Kindle copy of the book right now, and the paperback will be available on Amazon on March 30. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. Review by Kate Wolford. editor-in-chief of The Fairy Tale Magazine.

Check out Kate's fabulous finds that you can enjoy, too! This week's pick: My Mom’s Okra Soup I don’t like okra, but I do like this soup. It’s an old, cheap favorite from childhood, and most people will eat it, even if they fish out the okra bits, like I do. The ham bone adds a meaty richness to it that makes it filling, and the vegetables add a bit of bulk and sweetness to the broth. As for okra itself, it originated in Africa, and was brought over to the U.S. by enslaved people in the 18th century. It is grown in hot regions around the world, including the southern U.S. You can buy it fresh, but probably not in the Midwest, where I live. Frozen is just fine for this recipe, which is a gumbo, or stew, using okra both as an ingredient and thickener. (Do not use canned okra. The texture of the soup will be ruined and the okra will be gooey.) Okra can be slimy, and I don’t love it fried or in almost any form, but tens of millions of people disagree with me, and you may be one of them. Okra soup/gumbo “must haves” vary wildly, but in our family, okra and tomatoes are a must, as are the ham bone, bacon and onions. I think some diced celery and peppers sautéed with the onions might add to the savoriness of the soup, but as you can see, it’s not in the recipe. I also think a cup or two of diced ham in place of the ham bone would be just fine. Over rice, with a salad, this would feed four people very easily, with leftovers. The rice will change its soupiness into more of a stew, but it’s still good. My mom, a South Carolina native, made this for us all the time growing up. My Mom’s Okra Soup Four 28 oz. cans whole tomatoes, chopped (Don’t substitute diced tomatoes) 1 ham bone 3 strips of bacon 2 medium yellow or white onions, chopped 1 pound okra (fresh or frozen) trimmed and sliced into half-inch pieces 2 cups corn (fresh or frozen) 2 cups lima beans (frozen) In a large pot over medium-high heat, sauté bacon. Add onions and cook until onions are translucent. Discard bacon (or eat it, like me). Stir in tomatoes and add ham bone. Cook on low heat for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove the ham bone from the soup and add okra. Cook okra for 20 minutes and then add lima beans and corn. Continue cooking on low for another 20 minutes or until the okra and lima beans are tender. Serve over long-grain rice, if you’d like. Enjoy! Kate (Vintage image is a botanical drawing of okra, source unknown.)

The title and description of the poetry collection, Velvet Dragonflies, drew me in, but when I first started reading, I wasn’t sure I would love it. The book opens with the word “flight” and the phrase “the path back to yourself will be unique”. The collection seemed like a self-help book written in verse with advice like “nostalgia will keep you renting space in toxic places”, “honesty is like cardio for the soul”, and “love for yourself can never arrive too late”. But, as I continued reading the poems, which are surrounded by large amounts of white space, I did realize that the book offers some beautiful words and worthwhile ideas. The book is divided into sections labeled “viscose” (a solution used to manufacture rayon), “koigu” (a type of yarn), “damask” (a patterned fabric formed by weaving), and “charmeuse” (a lightweight fabric with satin weave). The content in each section seems to build and replicate rather than being distinct, and with this structure, the poet implies that a tapestry is being woven from ideas about self-love and forgiveness. The last section, called “landing”, brings closure to the opening “flight” and states that life has no order of events. This made me realize that the repetition in each section is purposeful, allowing the reader to flip back through the pages and read the small poems without worrying about narrative order. The collection offers thoughts on how fear and ego can hold us back and on the importance of letting go of relationships that no longer serve us. The focus lies with courting self-love and appreciation through the healing of personal wounds and the acceptance of individual faults. The poems speak to the necessity of boundaries and propose some phrases that will stay with me such as “home is not a place, it’s a feeling”, “do not waste ink trying to rewrite someone’s narrative of you”, and “the universe reacts to your intentions, not to the opinions others have of you”. Self-help books are not my favorite genre, but I did enjoy this interesting collection of poems and will certainly circle back to pages which spoke to me and helped me to see my life and the world through a new lens. Velvet Dragonflies is a beautiful read for those who enjoy innovative poetry and philosophical thinking. You can purchase it here. Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair review. Kelly Jarvis teaches classes in literature, writing, and fairy tale at Central Connecticut State University, The University of Connecticut, and Tunxis Community College. She lives, happily ever after, with her husband and three sons in a house filled with fairy tale books. She is also The Fairy Tale Magazine's special project’s writer.

Clytemnestra, by Costanza Casati, is a book that aims to overturn your thoughts about Greek heroes by presenting the story of a woman who has historically been relegated to the shadows of the tales. Written in the tradition of Madeline Miller’s Circe, this debut novel focuses on Clytemnestra, daughter, sister, wife, mother, warrior and queen. The story begins when Clytemnestra, daughter of Leda and sister to Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, is a princess living in Sparta, a place where women are trained in the martial arts so that they will only submit to the most vicious of men. Although Helen is the beauty, it is Clytemnestra who possesses intelligence, fierceness, and a desire to protect her family at all costs. By the end of the novel, Clytemnestra will have watched her brothers go off to adventure with the Argonauts and witnessed the fall of Troy as the Greeks reclaim her sister Helen from Paris, but the book is about the life of an incredible woman who endures a difficult marriage, suffers immeasurable loss, and exacts revenge upon those who have wronged her. Clytemnestra features characters and stories from Greek mythology and will delight those who enjoy The Iliad and The Odyssey because it gives readers a chance to revisit these stories through a feminine perspective. There is a family tree located in the front of the book for readers less familiar with the traditional tales. I loved that characters like Leda, Helen, Penelope, Iphigenia, and Clytemnestra all become more than they are in the hands of traditional tale tellers. The book provides a harsh and beautiful look at the lives of women who suffer through great pain to find fleeting moments of love and happiness. The writing is full of images that stay with you from the Spartan gorge when criminal bodies rot to the bathhouse where Agamemnon meets his fate, but the story truly sings when exploring the complex relationships between the women. Clytemnestra has been vilified in many stories, and forgotten in many others, but this novel celebrates her triumphs and explores her losses, and in doing so, elevates the lives and experiences of all the women whose stories have never been told. I truly enjoyed this book! You can order it here. Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair review. Kelly Jarvis is the Special Projects Writer and Contributing Editor for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Her work has appeared in Eternal Haunted Summer, Blue Heron Review, Forget-Me-Not Press, Mermaids Monthly, The Chamber Magazine, and Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. She teaches at Central Connecticut State University.

Her sorcery-cloaked sisters come seeking her spells. The Sea Witch asking for An ocean tempest for a prince’s doom and A mermaid’s voice. The Ice Queen willing To pay for a shard to pierce an eye and Freeze a heart. The Enchantress in need of Gloom and rain to seal a merchant’s fate and A daughter’s loss. Stirring storms of fire and ice, Water and wind, Shadow and light, The Weather Witch obliges. Chanting Meteorological incantations, she conjures Cold nights for lost children and Dry wastelands for sightless lovers, Sea squalls to drown sailors and Blizzards to blind travelers. Her cauldron brimming with Gale and flood, she speaks the spells Her sisters seek. Brewing Air and atmosphere, The Weather Witch obliges. Deborah W. Sage is a native of Kentucky, USA. She has been published in Enchanted Conversation, Eternal Haunted Summer and Literary LEO. A former business executive who after years of being committed to the bottom line is gaining equilibrium in her psyche through her endeavors in folklore. Cover: Amanda Bergloff Twitter @AMANDABERGLOFF

Editor's Note: We have a St. Patrick's Day treat for this Throwback Thursday, and remember to be careful of your heart's desire, for it could be something quite unexpected. Enjoy today's flash tale by E.K. Lekman, and happy St. Patrick's Day to all! Fat raindrops slapped against the broad-leafed alders above Seamus. The smell of the impending storm grew potent, petrichor and condensation. Earth and water. The elements of the natural world, which dominated him. The inescapable duty that the rainbow brought. More than a decade had passed, but the regret still haunted him. Digging his feet into the mud and listening to the cacophony of greenfinches above, Seamus did his best to distract himself. Despite his best efforts, though, the memories plagued him, vivid and insistent. The two of them had been right here all those years ago, beneath this very canopy of leaves. The other man had been panting from the exertion of smuggling the gold away when Seamus found him. The look in his eyes when they finally saw one another had been impossible to place. At the time, Seamus clocked it as anger, perhaps greed. In hindsight, he realized it was pity. The man had pleaded with Seamus not to take it, to leave him alone, to forget this had ever happened. “Trust me,” he had pleaded, “save yourself.” But Seamus had only smirked as he had shoved the old man out of the way. The burden, the sorrow, and the inexplicable weight of the treasure descended upon Seamus the moment his fingers gripped the wrought iron. The sight of the rainbow shook Seamus out of his reveries. It settled at his feet now, as it always did. He sighed and leaned into the familiar vessel to haul it away, barely glancing at the shimmering riches that weighed it down. And the evening passed much as it always did, Seamus at the mercy of the elements, bearing the burden he had coveted so badly, once upon a time. E.K. Lekman lives in Celebration, Florida with her two young daughters. When she isn’t busy pondering the fantastic or the improbable, she can be found enjoying Bob Ross reruns or re-reading Nikola Tesla biographies. Painting by: Boris Kustodiev, 1925 Layout: Amanda Bergloff

Alice Hoffman’s newest book, The Invisible Hour, tells the riveting story of Mia Jacobs, a young woman who has grown up in an isolated farming community in the Berkshires. Run by a domineering man named Joel Davis, the community limits members’ interactions with the outside world and censors reading material. Although Mia and her mother’s experience takes place in the 21st century, it is an echo of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, a book that saves Mia’s life when she decides to escape. Mia’s mother Ivy is married to Joel, but she never fully renounces the stories and fairy tales that helped her to navigate her own turbulent adolescence. Stories become the bond that helps the women “walk invisible”, and books become a way for Mia to understand the world and her place within it. Mia builds her adult life around the beauty of libraries, and she forges a romantic relationship with an author from the past to help her process the opportunities and limitations of contemporary women’s lives. Alice Hoffman is at her best when exploring magic, and The Invisible Hour oozes with it. Hoffman returns readers to the enchanted apple orchards and gardens of Blackwell, Massachusetts, a town made famous by the stories in her book The Red Garden, and transports readers to a fairy tale past. She lovingly presents complex relationships between generations of women and shows how even the simplest stories can change someone’s life. Her prose casts a magic spell over her readers, leading them to a deeper understanding of the power of stories and a recognition of the sacred bond between readers and writers. I loved every word of The Invisible Hour. Fans of Hoffman will find delight in her lush description and perfect pacing, and new readers will be spellbound by Hoffman’s storytelling prowess. Like The Scarlet Letter, a novel that reaches back to a Puritan past to comment on 19th century life, The Invisible Hour reaches back to the 19th century to comment on the 21st. Hoffman’s writing offers her readers both a romantic escape and a social exploration. The Invisible Hour celebrates the joy and potential of storytelling and will be remembered as an Alice Hoffman classic. You can pre-order the book here. Thank you for an ARC of the book in exchange for a fair review. Kelly Jarvis teaches classes in literature, writing, and fairy tale at Central Connecticut State University, The University of Connecticut, and Tunxis Community College. She lives, happily ever after, with her husband and three sons in a house filled with fairy tale books. She is also The Fairy Tale Magazine's special project’s writer.

A farmer had five sons and when he died his farm was divided into equal shares, one for each son. The sons worked hard, married, and had good harvests for several years. One year, the sons loaded their extra produce on their wagons, drove to town, and sold their crops at market. On their way home, they encountered an old woman covered in mud. She sat crying near a stream. Her wagon was turned over and most of her belongings were scattered along both sides of the stream. Her two horses were mired in the mud. The brothers, being of good heart, stopped and helped the old woman. They dug her horses from the muck and mire. They uprighted her wagon and pulled it from the steam. The oldest and youngest brother repaired two broken wheels and the other three gathered the woman’s belongings from the stream. The middle brother brought the woman water to drink and water to clean herself. They hitched the woman’s horses and then helped her into her wagon. The oldest brother said, “What a beautiful day. We fared well at market and were rewarded by helping you in your difficulties. Safe travels.” The old woman replied, “Don’t be so quick to leave. I thank you. I am not just an old woman. I am a weather witch and I would reward each of you with a boon, a wish if you will. What would you have from me?” The brothers laughed among themselves for they were ones who believed in hard work rather than witchcraft. The youngest brother said, “Let us make wishes. It will make her happy and will do us no harm.” The youngest spoke first to the witch. “I hate winter. I hate cold and I hate chopping wood. I would have no winters on my land.” The second son said, “Spring makes my eyes water and my nose run. I hate rain. I would have no spring on my land.” “Summers make me sweat. I hate heat. No summers for me.” The fourth brother complained about fall and hating the hard work that comes with the harvest. “As you will,” said the witch. The oldest brother thought carefully and asked if he might wait before requesting his favor. The witch agreed and said that he could have a year and a day to make his wish, but no more. They agreed to meet at the same spot in a year and a day. The brothers and the witch went their separate ways. A year later, the four younger brothers came to the oldest brother’s house. The youngest complained. “Without winter, the soil didn’t have time to rest and my crops were weak and died during the hot summer. We’re starving.” The second brother said, “With no spring rains, my crops wilted and died in the over-long summer.” “Without a summer, my crops were not ripened when the first killing frost came. I lost everything.” The fourth brother hung his head. “With no fall to make the harvest, my crops died when winter came.” The oldest brother had made a great harvest and had food in abundance. He welcomed his brothers and their families and promised to feed them. The youngest brother promised to work hard and even chop wood for the coming winter. The oldest brother said, “It is good that you are here for tomorrow is a year and a day since you made your wishes. Come with me. We will meet the weather witch and I will make my wish.” The next morning the five brothers met the old woman at the stream. She greeted them with great cheer. “Hast your wishes worked as you hoped.” “No, they haven’t,” said the oldest brother. “They didn’t choose well. For my boon, I ask that you restore the seasons and the weather to my brothers’ lands. Make things as they were before.” The weather witch looked at the brothers. “Would you have me cancel your wishes?” “Gratefully,” said the youngest. The witch agreed and rode away. The brothers never saw her again. The five brothers all grew good crops the next year and the year after that and for many more years. They worked hard. They rested in the winters, planted in the springs, weeded and watered in the summers, and made harvests in the fall. They never complained about the cold or the heat. They laughed in the rain, sweated in the hot sun, and marveled at the lightning and thunder. They taught their children to take the weather as it comes, for nature knows what it needs. There are reasons for the seasons. Robert Allen Lupton is retired and lives in New Mexico where he is a commercial hot air balloon pilot. Robert runs and writes every day, but not necessarily in that order. Over 180 of his short stories have been published in various anthologies. Cover: Amanda Bergloff

Check out Kate's fabulous finds that you can enjoy, too! This week's pick: Spray Edged Books Hello Enchanted Friends Well, a cold I thought I’d kicked is back—there’s a very nasty non-Covid cold going around these days and it’s not done with me after all, so this pick will be very short and sweet as I am exhausted. My pick is sprayed-edge books! Many of you are probably familiar with them, as they are commonly part of specialty book subscription boxes like Fairy Loot. Sadly, most of these subscription services have lengthy waiting lists and are known for sometimes sending their boxes months late. So I checked out Etsy for “sprayed edge books,” and there are a number of shops catering to readers who love books with gorgeous covers and edges. You can do your own research on Etsy just by putting the phrase above in the search. There are a ton of options, so take your time and research what you want. (You will notice that YA dominates this kind of book art.) The photos you see here are all from Kathy’s Bookish Shop, and her prices in euros are about right for the average sprayed edge book. (She’s not on Etsy, but everything else is comparable.) These books are an affordable indulgence for yourself or a friend. Enjoy! Yours in Enchantment, Kate