Wishes and Sorrows

by Cindy Lynn Speer

Overview

"Richly ambitious"--Publishers Weekly

For every wish there is a sorrow...

Wishes are born from sorrows, blessings are sometimes curses, and even fairy godmothers cannot always get what they want. In this original collection, Cindy Lynn Speer, the author of "The Chocolatier's Wife", brings to life creatures of myths and tales, mixing them into a vibrant tapestry of stories, happy and sad, magical and real, each lovingly crafted and sure to touch the reader's soul.

Step into the world where magic is real, and every mundane bit of reality is as magical as a true fairy tale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781940076041
Publisher:	Dragonwell Publishing
Publication date:	10/30/2014
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

Editorial Reviews

09/15/2014
The sorrows outnumber the wishes in this frustrating collection of 13 intriguing but unevenly executed ideas. “The Fortunate Ones” imagines a lineage of magically lucky women enslaved to their husbands, but falters in extending the story beyond its cruel conceit. “What Will I Do When the Dream Is Over?” similarly abbreviates the prospects of a unicorn rider in contemporary middle America who has fulfilled her fantastic destiny. Slender characterizations and jarringly modern language (“And I can’t believe he thought Corpsy was me... I mean, that’s a male body!”) mar secondary-world efforts like the supernatural revenge tragedy “The Jester’s Heart” or the Arabesque “The Tower in the Desert.” Speer (Unbalanced) has room to range through subgenres, but her strengths show most clearly in the retellings: the bleak false gifts of “Every Word I Speak,” the richly ambiguous ending of “A Necklace of Rubies,” and the nested Cinderella variants of “But Can You Let Him Go?”, positing their cross-cultural ubiquity as the result of a fairy godmother’s quest for redemption. The apologetic introduction would make a better afterword. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly