With beautiful silhouette illustrations by the amazing multiple World Fantasy Award nominee Kathleen Jennings, Black-Winged Angels collects the nine reworked/reloaded fairytales for adult readers and the story ‘Flight’ from the original 2014 Ticonderoga Publications edition.
In addition, this edition includes ‘The Mer-Pearl’ written specifically for the Dutch limited edition of the novel All the Murmuring Bones plus appendices including story notes, critical explanations or interpretations of the text and a bibliography.
This book will appeal to fans of Angela Carter (‘The Company of Wolves’) and Emma Donoghue (‘Kissing the Witch’).
Dark bleatings, my winged tribe! (Wow…just imagine winged goats. We’d be unstoppable!). Anyway, I’m here to review a collection today and, like the synopsis says, if you’re an Angela Carter fan (as I am) I think you’ll like it.
The Little Moth Girl
Sad, poetic in theme, and rage-inducing from a female perspective. A girl learns how to survive men, until their shame ruins her. It was bleak and hopeful at the same time, and really set the feminist tone of the book.
Red Skein
Matilda is desired by all but something about her puts them off, despite her beauty. Her mother is afraid for her and sends her to Granny, who Matilda is much more like…
I’ve seen this particular tale recreated so many times, and the spin on this telling was refreshing.
The Girl with No Hands
Oh, Madchen! The story of a thoroughly decent lady that refuses the devil so he spends her lifetime trying to take as much as possible from her. It’s a horrifying concept but really exemplifies the power of goodness, and being true to your own character. I loved it.
Light as Mist, Heavy as Hope
Rumplestiltskin but with a much darker start. And I LOVE Rumplestiltskin stories – he has to be one of the most interesting fairy tale villains. The message in this one, I feel, is one of strength and unity.
Pressina’s Daughters
Pressina has 3 daughters and as children, they conspire and do something terrible. The rest of the tale tells of their lives and fates. This was the longest story in the book, if I’m not mistaken, and was easy to sink in to.
The Juniper Tree
This one is tough to read, but great. A juniper tree has a strange effect on a woman and it seems that something about it is responsible for her finally getting pregnant. I’d love to talk more about the story but I’d be going into spoiler territory, but I will say that this story feels like it’s about envy and consequence.
The Danger of Warmth
The only story in the collection that I disliked, and only because part of the plot made me really uncomfortable. A woman covets a man before he’s even a man, if you get what I’m saying. However, the flip side of this story talks of real, actual love, and that part I did feel drawn to.
Bluebeard
I was so excited to see this title, because both the original Bluebeard story and Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’ are favourites of mine. I’m delighted to say that Slatter did not let me down with this iteration! An escort takes her daughter to stay with her new man, a rich guy with a big house, who spends lots of money on them. Of course, dude has secrets…
I loved the ending, in particular.
The Bone Mother
Another favourite in this collection. A woman (some sort of witch that flies around in a pestle, which I loved!) loses her daughter when she runs away from her, and wonders what happened. She does find out, and it was a surprise to me, a delightful. I’m not familiar with the original tale so I don’t know how much Slatter changed, but regardless, this one was super fun for me.
Flight
Emer is taken prisoner and turned into a bird by her horrible aunt, the Black Bride, who covets a magical crown. Emer, and her captive mother, are under threat unless Emer can collect it for her. I think this one is about never being satisfied, and greed. You can have almost everything, but will fixate on that one thing you don’t have rather than everything you do have.
The Mer-Pearl
A mer-girl is kidnapped by a guy that demands she produce pearls for him, and she refuses so he throws her down a well. She might have some tricks up her sleeve, though, so to speak…
As well as these wonderful stories, this book also gives us story notes (love it when authors include those – obviously after reading these, I then learned which fairy tales were used, but on initial reading, I was a bit blind!). We are also treated to an introduction, an afterword, and some related non-fiction, which includes an examination of the themes of fairy tales, a section on feminism and this genre, a meditation on writing, and also references to other works that might be of interest.
I loved all of these ‘bonus features’, as I call them. It was like finishing a really great movie and then getting to enjoy the extra features on a DVD!
Last but not least, I can not round off this review without mentioning the beautiful illustrations by Kathleen Jennings. Honestly, gorgeous work that works so wonderfully with the theme of the book and the individual stories.
If you’re a fan of the darker side of fairy tales and/or the work of Angela Carter, I highly recommend this. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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