I Stole You: Stories From the Fae
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
You might get stolen too.
In these wide-ranging stories told from the perspectives of a Thai ghost, an Irish fairy trapped in a dog’s body, a crow fae, an Icelandic birch tree elf, a dream thief, and other shapeshifting creatures, Kristen Ringman examines whether these fae would love a human or kill them after a close look into their hearts.
“Ringman achieves a haunting, sexy, and visually stirring collection that explores the tension of identity, longing, and the intricacies of connection and obsession in this series of beautiful, complicated settings populated by a both magical and deeply frail, human cast. She effortlessly severs the line between mythology, the supernatural and practicality, and the reader recognizes that desperation to be known, to be understood, to be considered unique to an otherworldly presence, and to ourselves.” —Hilaree Robinson, co-author of The Distance
“The true wondrousness of Fae is as sly as it is innocent; it is magical and grounded, brutal and graceful, edgy and tender. Through a blend of fantasy, horror, and magical realism, Ringman digs around in the human condition, unearthing truths of the psyche, the body, and the spirit.” —Kate Evans, author of Call It Wonder: an odyssey of love, sex, spirit, and travel
“Dark and haunting, yet beautiful and hypnotic. Ringman brings poetry and beauty even to the monstrous.” —Christopher Jon Heuer, author of Bug: Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ringman (Makara) has woven her recollections of personal experiences with "fae creatures" into these 14 lyrical, disturbing first-person tales, all told to victims by vampiric shape-shifting beings drawn from various mythological traditions. Ringman, who is Deaf, postulates telepathic fae-to-human connections as well as signed communication with emotional overtones that no auditory vibrations can match. Among the more unsettling of these stories, the touching "A Real Dog" presents a fae creature locked in the body of a shelter dog who steals a person with its eyes, and "Love Within Tangled Branches," voiced by a birch tree spirit out of Icelandic saga lore, shows that love can make fae and human alike take risks. All fae creatures, Ringman suggests, come from humans, through dreams that are humans' way of seeing other realities. Closing with a painful vision of suicidal humans who inevitably destroy themselves and their world, this fantasy collection poses otherness that simultaneously attracts and repels, couched in an occasionally brutal modern idiom. Ringman successfully brings readers a few steps out of everyday reality.
