Lustfully ever after - book discontinued by Cleis Press Inc. - review by Jenny Swallows

Once upon a time, the sexual content of our favorite fairytales was the province only of learned academics, and a faint stirring of familiarity once we were old enough to have figured out what they may have been about. Nowadays, the bookshelf fairly groans with adult renderings of the classics but, of them all, Lustfully Ever After might well be the best.

The key point is that the stories really do stand alone - you don't have to care for, or even remember, the underlying story. Rather, the seventeen stories occupy their own universe, one which may or may not give its inspiration up in its title ("Gretel's Lament" does, "A Sea Change" really doesn't), then allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions from what happens next.

And a lot happens. "You," by Charlotte Stein, is staggering, delving deep into pagan mythology and coming up smiling at the end; Sacchi Green's "Kit In Boots" is a supernatural thriller which captivates from its opening sentence... "Kit gaze into the miller's open grave and vowed silently that Puss would be buried forever with him." And Lisabet Sarai's "Shorn" is a magnificent reimagining of Rapunzel, alive with surprise and defiantly, delightfully, highly-charged.

Editor Kristina Wright might well have saved the best until (almost) last; Lynn Townsend's superlative "Garden Variety" brings a new world of meaning to Jack's beanstalk, but not in the way you might be thinking; and Andrea Dale's "Steadfast" reads so quickly that you are left gasping for more by its frenzied action. If there is any downside, it is that the overall mood of the stories is fairly vanilla. Possibilities of more intricate action do open up ("Garden Variety" again), but only Michelle Augello-Page's ferocious "Wolf Moon" truly shakes off the shackles - or, should I say, straps them on.

Shanna Germain's "Mirror Mirror," too, gets the fruit juices flowing, and includes one of my favorite lines in the entire book: "she comes quiet and hard, like a queen should, all shudder and arch and breathstop." Admit, you've always wondered how Royalty orgasms, too

A wonderful book, then, and one that I would seriously recommend you keep for bedtime story-time - read aloud to your partner, it will stir imaginings that will leave you both breathless.