Legends of Arilland (en Inglés) - Alethea Kontis

Cover art and interior illustration by Caitlin Greer

Once upon a time, all of the famous fairy tales came from one family: the Woodcutters.

Well, almost all of them.

After the Wizard War, dragons went extinct. Faerie rose and fell and rose again. The sirens became masters of blood magic. The fey lived in mountains, ruled under hills, and rode the seven seas. Gods were often human until they were not, while trees usually weren’t until they were. Wolves lurked in shadows, stones spoke, and sometimes wishes really did come true. Even demons and unicorns were not what they seemed.

Have they ever been?

But some things remain ever true: A kind heart can defeat the darkest evil. A clever mind may thwart the most stalwart foe. And love will always triumph when all else succumbs to defeat.

These are the stories that built the fairy tale World we know and love today.

These are the legends of Arilland.

Within her multiple award-winning stories set in the World of Arilland, New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis forges fantasy built with science, taking the questions posed by some of the world’s most popular fairy tales and answering them...with other fairy tales. This extensive collection represents all the tales that have woven Kontis’s legendary tapestry to date.

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Legends of Arilland - List of Stories

Introduction by Alethea Kontis

"For Angels to Fly" - in which Lord Death unwittingly creates the first Angel of Fire

"Blood & Water" - a retelling of Andersen’s "The Little Mermaid," only, she’s a vampire. And there are pirates.

"The Dust Wish" - a romantic Middle Eastern mashup of "The White Cat" and "Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peri-Banu"

"The Seal-Woman’s Tale" - the sad tale of how an elemental Mediterranean seal spirit played an instrumental role in instigating the war between the trolls and the fey

"Blood from Stone" - two of the bloodiest fairy tale classics-"Bluebeard" and "Fitcher’s Bird"-told through the eyes of a besotted French scullery maid

"Hero Worship" - In this reimagining of "Little Red Riding Hood" with splashes of "Vasilisa the Beautiful," a young fangirl pursues her hero, Jack Woodcutter-and won’t let go.

"The Unicorn Hunter" - The legend that changed the World. After the huntsman and before the dwarfs, the fairest princess of them all met a demon in the dark Wood...

"Ashes & Anteros" - a twisted retelling of "Eros and Psyche," about Eros’s younger -and much darker-brother Anteros.

"Twinkle" - this charming mashup of "Pinocchio" and "Tom Thumb" tells a tale of Peter Woodcutter and the assassin Nabi

"The Goblin and the Treasure" - Defeated warrior Kira Kobold stars in this classic Grimm’s tale retold as a quest set on the cusp of the Third Age of Faerie

"The Glass Mountain" - Kontis’s masterful, romantic retelling of "Old Rinkrank," starring yet another magic mountain

"Dear Auntie Star" - an orphan girl escapes an evil wizard in Egypt and becomes Agony Aunt to various fairy tale characters around the world

"Sweetheart Come" - A Tam Lin-esque tale of wolves, music, and the Wild Wood; inspired by the song of the same name by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

"Like a Thief in the Light" - the street-sweeping son of a shadow thief learns the truth about the other half of his heritage with the help of a lethal long-fingered lemur and a kind old French Guianan gargoyle