ALL THE BETTER TO READ YOU WITH

It’s a prick of blood, the bite of an apple, the evil eye, a wedding ring or a pair of red shoes. Curses come in all shapes and sizes, and they can happen to anyone, not just those of us with unpopular stepparents… 

Here you’ll find unique twists on curses, from fairy tale classics to brand-new hexes of the modern world – expect new monsters and mythologies as well as twists on well-loved fables. Stories to shock and stories of warning, stories of monsters and stories of magic.

Thanks so much to Titan Books for inviting me to take part in another one of their Instagram tours! Titan seems to consistently release some really great anthologies, and Cursed is no exception!!

To start with, on the whole, this collection is WAY darker than I had anticipated. I guess I was somewhat anticipating a sort’ve creepy yet whimsical feel to the stories (and there are some that feel that way), but dang…there’s some outright horror in this collection, for sure!! And to be clear, I don’t consider myself any kind of authority on fairy tales and/or stories about curses. Some of the stories in this collection are likely retellings of old fairy tales, or at least contain more than a few nods to those stories. And plenty of those references probably went straight over my head. But anyway!

Looking back through this, it’s really the first short story (there is one poem before it) in this collection that stands out the most for me: As Red as Blood, as White as Snow by Christina Henry. It’s a diabolically clever take on Snow White, with a sort’ve epic fantasy meets horror vibe, and a Prince Charming that’s the stuff of nightmares. This story really set the tone for the whole rest of the anthology!

Looking at the copyrights in the beginning of the book, it looks like Neil Gaiman’s Troll Bridge (1993) is the oldest story in the collection. I enjoyed it, but also had the absolute strangest sense of déjà vu reading it…and I’m like 95% certain I never did read it. Anyway, it’s a cool story about a troll under a bridge, and it’s probably the first time I’ve read any Gaiman since Anansi Boys came out in 2005.

This is now the third Titan anthology in a row that I’ve read that features an awesome story by Angela Slatter. This one is called New Wine, and it’s about a rich kid (well, he’s like nineteen or so) and the woman his father hires to be his (the boy’s) tutor/caretaker/friend/etc…there’s a lot of backstory given in a short amount of time, but this is an awesome story. It reminded me very slightly of a particular Stephen King story, but I’m not saying which one!

M. R. Carey is one of my favorites, and I’m betting his entry here, Henry and the Snakewood Box, was a lot of fun for him to write. It’s sort’ve a play on the genie in a bottle, only the genie is a demon & kind of a manipulative asshole. Ha!

All in all, this is a solid collection. Like any anthology, some of the stories didn’t work quite as well as others for me. But the overall vibe of this book is really dark & creepy, and in addition to the stories by authors I love, it was a great introduction to some new-to-me authors!

Again, thanks to Titan Books for the copy & for inviting me to be a part of the Instagram tour for Cursed!