Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand »

Louise Hawes is the author of many novels for young adults and is also a faculty member of the Spalding University MFA in Writing program. She has always loved fairy tales and says that Black Pearls was written for "everyone who dances without looking at the clock." She lives in North Carolina.

“ . . . and they lived happily ever after.” Remember the fairy tales you put away after you found that no princess is as beautiful as common sense and happy endings are just the beginning?
Well, the old tales are back, and they’ve grown up! Black Pearls brings you the stories of your childhood, told in a way you’ve never heard before. Instead of lulling you to sleep, they’ll wake you up—to the haunting sadness that waits just inside the windows of a gingerbread cottage, the passion that fuels a witch’s flight, and the heartache that comes, again and again, at the stroke of midnight.
Make no mistake: these stories are as dark as human nature itself. But they shine, too, lit with the fire of our dreams and our hunger for magic.

VOYA

Ashes, the fourth story in this collection, tells the true ending to the story of Cinderella-the vain princess is withdrawn and intent on destroying her stepfamily, and the prince in his loneliness is drawn to another woman. It is a dark and vengeful sadly-ever-after ending to what is traditionally a bright and hopeful fairy tale. So go all the stories in this compelling anthology. Hawes revisits, among others, Hansel and Gretel and the stepmother who banishes them in Mother Love, Snow White and the tortured dwarf who adores her in Diamonda, and the story of how an unruly girl is turned into a golden harp and sold to a cruel giant in Evelyn's Song. In her introduction, Hawes says she loves the old stories. It is evident in the graceful language and the tender air of pathos she crafts with each tale-like a sculptor reshaping a piece already known and loved by the world to disclose the dark insides. Reader recognize the tale instantly, but the new perspective is almost jarring, and they are left to wonder why they had never considered that possibility before. This lovely addition to the genre of retold fairy tales, with Guay's ethereal black-and-white illustrations, will appeal to older teen and adult fairy tale fans. Reviewer: Laura Lehner