A Spindle Splintered

Alix E. Harrow

Oct 2021 · Fractured Fables Book 1 · Sold by Tordotcom

About this ebook

USA Today bestselling author Alix E. Harrow's A Spindle Splintered brings her patented charm to a new version of a classic story. Featuring Arthur Rackham's original illustrations for The Sleeping Beauty, fractured and reimagined.

“A vivid, subversive and feminist reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, where implacable destiny is no match for courage, sisterhood, stubbornness and a good working knowledge of fairy tales.” —Katherine Arden

It's Zinnia Gray's twenty-first birthday, which is extra-special because it's the last birthday she'll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no-one has lived past twenty-one.

Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

There is a part of all of us, deep down, that loves fairy tales. Or why else would contemporary authors continue to create new versions, desperate to add something magically new to stories we've heard many, MANY times? Just as the very talented author Alix E. Harrow must have hoped to do in A SPINDLE SPLINTERED. This novella takes a new stab at the Sleeping Beauty legend, adding a decidedly feminist twist with LGBTQ overtones. Zinnia Gray, who recently graduated with a college degree in (what else?) fairy tales, is celebrating her 21st birthday, though it's necessarily a dark celebration. Everyone, including Zinnia, knows this is likely her last birthday. Like many in her town, Zinnia is "cursed" with an environmentally caused condition that is slowly killing her. And NO ONE with her illness has made it to 22 years of age. So, understanding Zinnia's love of fairy tales, Zinnia's best friend, Charm, arranges a particularly special birthday celebration -- a sort of reenactment of Sleeping Beauty, complete with abandoned tower and spinning wheel. Of course, it doesn't go quite as planned and Zinnia finds herself in a different world, meeting another sleeping beauty who, just like Zinnia, is trying to escape her fate. Like all Harrow's books, this is very well written. And a quick read. It's also just the first of a series of new takes on old fairy tales that Harrow plans. But for me, this one was just OK. Nothing special. I much prefer the originality she displays in her novels.

Wonderful

About the author

A former academic and adjunct, Alix E. Harrow is now a full-time writer living in Virginia with her husband and their semi-feral toddlers. In 2019 she won a Hugo Award for her short fiction and published her first novel, The Ten Thousand Doors of January.