Grifty Shades of Fey.
Cautionary Tales Uncovering the Dark Side of the Fair Folk
These aren't your run-of-the-mill happy fairy tales. These are cautionary tales. The short stories within are warnings all about otherworldly conniving creatures--the Fey, Fair Folk, Fairies, and how they interact with us mere mortals. When it comes to the Fey, we don't pretend to understand their reasoning, we just know they don't have our best interest at heart... if they have hearts.
I had the honor of being part of this unusual project. Fiction Vortex, always on the cutting edge of publishing, arranged for the publication of an anthology of original stories about Faeries, with undercurrents.
It's a handsome book and I share pages with such friends and inspirations as David Farland, Patti Larsen and Michaelbrent Collings. Michael Cluff is another great and longtime friend.
My contribution, A BARGAIN WELL MET, took me out of my comfort zone. I'm not a fantasy guy usually. Sci Fi I can do. gritty contemporary, magical realism, urban fantasy sure, but trope fantasy was a challenge. I finally focussed on my own back yard, on a piece of untended land our laziness has created but which has a long tradition. A fairy garden. The inspiration caught and one of my most tender stories ever was born.
UPDATE: Grifty Shades of Fey won a "Recommended Read" Quill Award at the 2020 Quills Conference!
A BARGAIN WELL MET in Grifty Shades of Fey
Genre: Short Fiction: Fantasy
Words: 3,500
Status: Now available at Amazon