The Wicked Stepbrother And Other Stories

Fairy tales. Prince Charming fights evil, wins the princess, lives happily ever after. Three sons, three wishes, witches, dragons, a quest, and happily ever after. These stories are part of our cultural fabric. The stories change in retellings to reflect contemporary culture, such as Princess Charming, or heroes and heroines as people of color. In this collection, queer characters take center stage in stories that grew out of questions: What if the prince falls in love with Cinderella's gay stepbrother? What if Rumpelstiltskin doesn't really want the Queen's child but rather the King himself? What if Beauty and the Beast are two men? These stories explore metaphors of magic and the magical, this time, with a gay perspective. What price must be paid for happily ever after? Duty or love? Is love worth great sacrifice? Once upon a time ...

Home, a place where we belong and are safe and loved. Home, the house in which we grew up, a neighborhood, a culture, even a country. Home is a state of mind, it is a place of the heart, and in the heart. Finding home, coming home, and bringing home the one we love is a journey, a journey that can be a dangerous adventure. For the lovers in these stories, adventures can include quests and fighting dragons and demons, past and present, physical as well as mental and emotional. Rocket launchers need to be dodged, the Wild Hunt needs to be outrun. For some of the lovers here, home has been lost, or they have been forced to leave, as is too common for LGBT+ youth. In this collection queer positive speculative fiction stories, explore the idea of what and where home is in the lives of these lovers. Will they survive their quests, defeat their monsters? Will they find a place to call home?

Gavin Booker, a school librarian, leads an orderly, normal life. Work, jogging, friends from work, his son every other weekend. Gavin is also a secret. He is a hybrid, or part-fairy. And in the Columbian Empire, hybrids are under an automatic death sentence. In this alternate version of the USA, magic is illegal. So is loving another man. Fairies are locked away in ghettoes, and magical beasts, such as gryphons, unicorns, and pegasi, are kept in zoos. The others, tree and water spirits, talking beasts, fauns, and the rest, are in hiding. This is the world in which Gavin grew up. He survived, thanks to his mother. He can never forget he is different: ministers preach against people like him constantly. Hating the other is a part of every school’s curriculum. But things are changing fast, and seemingly for the worst. Earthquakes, volcanoes, killer storms are frequent occurrences. The medicine Gavin takes to suppress his body’s glow isn’t working. The spells cast by his doctor, a witch, are losing their power. If anyone finds out what Gavin is, he is dead. The Empire always goes after its marginalized people. Can Gavin survive the coming catastrophe? Will he ever recover from losing the boys he loved earlier in life? Can he find the fairy man who has haunted his dreams before it is too late?

My stepbrother hates me. That's fine, because I hate him too. I hate his crooked smile and the way he looks at me, like he's a sugar addict and I'm the last cupcake on earth. I hate that he makes me feel like I'm more than that lost little girl whose mom didn't want her, then leaves and doesn't come home again for days. And I really, really hate that he flirts with other girls. A lot of other girls. But it's fine. Really, it is. Soon, he'll be leaving to attend university on the other side of the world, and I'll only have to see him on holidays and at the rare family get-together. It'll all be just fine. As long as I don't fall in love with him.

"Wickedly charming, flirty, and clever. This is the ultimate friends to lovers story. I loved it!" Becky Monson, Number One Bestselling Author of the Spinster Series ★★★★★"You'll want to crawl between the covers of this book and never leave." - Whitney Dineen, Number One Bestselling Author of Relatively Normal ★★★★★Loveless is more than a name, it's a curse. I, Emma Loveless, have a destiny. It's not the greatest of destinies, but when you have a name like Loveless, what can you do? I'm cursed to always be the friend, never the girlfriend. Unless you count my love affair with Duncan Hines, Dr. Pepper, and the ever-lovable Pillsbury Doughboy. They've seen me through it all, but a girl needs more than refined sugar to curl up to every night. It doesn't help that I have a meddling, albeit wonderful, mother who can't help playing matchmaker. Thanks to her, I can say I've been on a date with a felon. Now she swears she's found the one for me, her new optometrist, Dr. Sawyer King. Meanwhile, I'm preparing for the inevitable restraining order. That is, until I meet the sexy doctor and have to admit my mother is right-love at first sight does exist. Unfortunately, my last name means business. Not only do I find myself in the friend zone, but also the twilight zone. Only in my world would Mr. Right turn into my stepbrother. To top it off, he brings with him a wicked stepmother who will do anything to keep us apart. Despite all this my heart-or is that my mom?-keeps telling me Sawyer is the one. But what if true love isn't strong enough to interfere with my destiny? It'll be me and the Doughboy...for eternity.

Holden, you have sunk to a new low. Making fun of Maddie's beloved Snow White has changed the story and led to the Wicked Queen triumphing. If you and Maddie don't stop arguing, the prince will never marry Snow White and, more importantly, you'll never go home to the real world! Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to fix the fairy tale you go!

Rhys, acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea, Quartet, and other novels treating the alienation of a woman from the Caribbean living in European settings, has been a focus of interest both as a feminist writer and in the context of Caribbean literature.