'Depravity' is so dark, interesting and wonderfully written that it was stupid of me to doubt the author at the beginning. I have only read Winter Queen before this and I haven't read any classic version of Beauty and the Beast; only the disney movie and another retelling of it by Sara J. Maas entitled A Court of Thorns and Roses. Haag's take on Beauty and the Beast will draw you to its unique story and will leave you to wanting for more. I assure you!

While reading through the chapters, I have quite a few laughs. I don't know if it was supposed to be funny though and I was so absorbed to this book, flipping through its pages and reading every word eagerly that I didn't even notice the mistakes and finished the book in one sitting! Oh, the last part. It was torture. The cliffhanger was torture. In fact, I thought it was missing a few pages and cursed my Kindle app for being crappy.

The author did a wonderful job on the world building; everything I saw through reading was so clear and well thought throughout. I loved everything although some scenes were slightly disturbing, I loved it nonetheless. Melissa Haag 'owned' it! I even have a book hangover until now!

I will say no more because I'm terrified I might give everything away, but you must know that I highly recommend this book!!

I received an ARC from the author in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own.

 

                Not all the stories in this collection are stand-outs, and not all, thankfully, have to do with brides.  Datlow and Windling, however, should get a huge round of applause and much credit for bringing back the female beast and male looker instead of just staying to the whole typical Beauty and the Beast format.

                Stand out stories include:

                “Puma’s Daughter” by Tanith Lee.  This is a predictable yet quietly powerful story about acceptance and letting go.  I have always considered Lee’s short fiction (short stories and novellas) to be more powerful than her novels.  This is an example of why.

                Delia Sherman has a lovely poem, “The Selkie Speaks,” and it is quite magical.  The last poem in the collection “Rosina” by Nan Fry isn’t quite as magical, but it has a wonderful twist to the story.

                “Map of Seventeen” by Christopher Bazark is a beautiful and quiet coming of age story.

                “The Monkey Bride” by Midori Snyder is the one tale that follows source material very closely; there is earnestness about the story that makes up for the predictability.

                It is impossible to read “Piscah” without the recent reports about rape in India springing to mind.

                My favorite story in the collection is “Coyote and Valrosa” and not simply because there is a local collection to the story.  It is light hearted but also reminds one of Angela Carter.

Tanith Lee has been one of my favorite writers since my teens. She's equally adept at high fantasy or science fiction, has a prodigious imagination, and a lush, sensuous style. Here she proves she can impress as easily at short as in novel-length, and the 11 stories here show off a wide range. The title story "The Gorgon" won the World Fantasy Award for best short story, and most of the other stories are just as impressive. About half of the stories could be called Urban Fantasy, a couple science fiction, and all have an element of horror, even the humorous tales--and some of the most horrific maintain an element of humor. Here, for instance, are a few lines from "Anna Medea"--a couple talking about their children (who are a handful). "I told you, I can't explain. Perhaps it's instinct. She might--harm the children." "Do you really think so?" Claude Irving asked with some eagerness. The tales deal with such fantastic beasts as gorgons, succubi, unicorns, dragons, weres, kelpies, selkies. Several of the stories are absolutely creepy, among them "Magritte's Secret Agent" and "Sirriamnis." Besides those already mentioned, I especially liked the humorous "Draco, Draco," (which like several of the tales had a clever twist and subversion of genre) and the last story, "La Reine Blanche," which had a fairy tale feel (and obviously inspired the cover.) I'd also note I last read these stories decades ago when I first bought the book, and yet I remembered most of these stories, or at least elements of them, if not right from the title, yet paragraphs in--that's not usual with short stories but these are standouts.

Every anthology is a mixed bag, especially when the stories are collected from many authors. Luckily, this is a very nice mix overall. I can't think of a single story that I really disliked, and most of the stories were quite good. For me, the two best were Tanith Lee's The Puma's Daughter and Peter S. Beagle's The Children of the Shark God. There are a lot of great stories in here besides those, though, and I was pleased that merfolk/selkies were well represented.