Robin McKinley

A rich & varied collection of the best short fantasy fiction of the last two centuries. Escape into the fantastic worlds of Charles Dickens, J.M. Barrie, Graham Greene, Harlan Ellison, and others found in these 38 magical tales.

I thought I could escape the Beast … but he already devoured my heart. When the Beast took me and dragged me back to his cell, I thought my life was over. In the darkness, he watched me. Yearned for me. Tasted me. He loved my scars, called me a beauty … Made me irrevocably his. Until his owner finally let him out … And his final task was to destroy my father. The only thing that stood between them was me. Faced with an impossible choice, I run. But even the beauty can’t escape the claws of the Beast.

"She took a deep breath, and stepped through the door in the hedge." Four tales of stolen princesses, magical hinds, talking frogs, and dancing princesses, on the far side of the door into faeryland.

This is the story of Corlath, golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the Lady Aerin. And this is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimad-sol, King's Rider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since the Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle. And this is the song of the kelar of the Hillfolk, the magic of the blood, the weaver of destinies... --back cover

From the inside flap: It was on a ferry ride to Manhattan that the idea for this anthology was conceived, Robin McKinley tells us in her foreword. The stories all would be fantasy, but with a particularly strong sense of location of the lands in which they take place. The result is an enthralling collection of nine stories, the settings of which range from what might be mistaken for a California landscape in James P. Blaylock's "Paper Dragons", to the hidden town beneath a real Norwich, England in Robert Westall's "The Big Rock Candy Mountain", to Robin McKinley's "The Stone Fey" which takes place in imaginary Damar, the scene of her prizewinning novels. And expert fantasists Peter Dickinson, P. C. Hodgell, Michael de Larrabeiti, Patricia A. McKillip, Joan D. Vinge, and Jane Yolen contribute their own visionary landscapes. The armchair traveller will find dragons and fairies, magic and myth, the best of fantasy on this grand tour of Imaginary Lands.

Although she is the daughter of Damar's king, Aerin was never fully accepted as royalty. People would whisper the story of her mother, the witch-woman, who they said charmed the king into marrying her, and Aerin turned into an awkward young woman, persecuted by many in the court. But none knew her hidden strength and courage until she became the hero her kingdom desperately needed.

A child and her new puppy work through the difficult initial adjustments and soon belong to each other.

The evil fairy Pernicia has set a curse on Princess Briar-Rose: she is fated to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into an endless, poisoned sleep. Katriona, a young fairy, kidnaps the princess in order to save her; she and her aunt raise the child in their small village, where no one knows her true identity. But Pernicia is looking for her, intent on revenge for a defeat four hundred years old. Robin McKinley's masterful version of Sleeping Beauty is, like all of her work, a remarkable literary feat.

A young girl doesn't remember her father, a ship's captain who has been at sea.

From the award-winning author of Sunshine comes a novel that "will involve readers from the first to the last page with its sheer beauty, its anguish, agony, horror, despair, and, ultimately, its joy" (Kliatt). As Princess Lissar reaches womanhood, it is clear to all the kingdom that in her breathtaking beauty she is the mirror image of her mother, the queen. But this seeming blessing forces her to flee for safety from her father's lust and madness. With her loyal dog Ash at her side, Lissar will unlock a door to a world of magic, where she will find the key to her survival-and an adventure beyond her wildest dreams.

Reborn as the Flame, thirteen-year-old Emily has saved Olympus from destruction but when the gruesome Nirads begin a new invasion, Emily and her friends become entangled in the conflict as old grudges are unearthed and new enemies are discovered.

As the newly appointed Chalice, Mirasol is the most important member of the Master's Circle. It is her duty to bind the Circle, the land and its people together with their new Master. But the new Master of Willowlands is a Priest of Fire, only drawn back into the human world by the sudden death of his brother. No one knows if it is even possible for him to live amongst his people. Mirasol wants the Master to have his chance, but her only training is as a beekeeper. How can she help settle their demesne during these troubled times and bind it to a Priest of Fire, the touch of whose hand can burn human flesh to the bone?Robin McKinley weaves a captivating tale that reveals the healing power of duty and honor, love and honey.

Five tales: A young woman with the power to heal, but no power of speech, meets a mage who has lost—or renounced—his powers; a princess who is chained inside a cave as a sacrifice to a monster finds he is no monster; a troll bargains for a human wife, but will not hold her against her will; an old farmer releases a curse on his own land for love of his beautiful young wife; and a young girl finds a mysterious box in the attic of her family's new house.