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Spellbinding Fairy Tales with a Modern Twist
Fairy tales served as medieval entertainment. They were cautionary tales, with advice about how to live your life as much as fables. They were not just for children.
“Odd Magics: Tales For The Lost,” by Sarah Hoyt, are a dozen updated fairy tales, snatched from traditional roots and garbed in modern clothing. Hoyt has taken stories you read as children, giving them her unique spin.
They are all there, The Frog Prince, Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and seven more. No longer set in Never-Neverland, they take place in 21st-century America (mostly Colorado).
They are delightfully weird. Some start out with the protagonist wondering if they might be hallucinating or imagining things. There is often no other way to explain what occurs in our world; a giant frog dropping out of the sky, a missing glass slipper, oddly-behaving mirrors. Others begin normally before seguing into something remarkable: trips into fairyland or an enchanted ball, discovering your beloved is a fairy-tale dwarf.
A few start normally, but with a fairy-tale plot. In one a husband and wife going through a divorce rediscover their love for each other. In another, a man alienated from his father rediscovers the magic – in a figurative sense – in the old family farm, abandoning the fast lane in New York City to return.
As with the original fairy tales, these stories have lessons. They show the importance of family and love. (Most end with the “happily-ever-after” enumerating the children the featured couple later have.) They underscore the impermanence of life. They demonstrate the futility of blindly pursuing material gain or current fashion. Indeed, Hoyt highlights traditional values with these stories.
This is a book for all ages. A teen or tween could benefit from the lessons that subversively undermine the siren song of today’s Woke society. They may not realize they are reading something more than an entertaining story. Yet you have to be an adult to appreciate all the nuances Hoyt layers into each story. Each story is a morality play concealed within entertainment innocent enough to read to a child.
These stories were originally published on Hoyt’s blog, over the course of several years. If you are a regular reader of it, you will not find anything new here, although it is collected into one body. For those who missed reading them there “Odd Magics” is a delightful read, worth the time to explore.
“Odd Magics: Tales For The Lost,” by Sarah Hoyt, Goldport Press, 2022, 105 pages, $8.99 (Paperback), $4.99 (Ebook)
This review was written by Mark Lardas who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com. It appeared in a different form in American Essence magazine and Epoch Times.
Published in Literature
I will check this out.
I can vouch for this book – it’s great! I got the ebook because it was inexpensive, and I appreciate Sarah’s contributions to Instapundit. It exceeded my expectations- very entertaining and surprisingly touching stories.
Good to see that you’re writing for/getting published by Epoch Times!
Haven’t I seen recently that Instapundit has gone off the deep end about Never Trump or something?
Or maybe it was Allahpundit.
Do a search on “Mark Lardas Epoch Times.”
Instapundit? Nope. Insty may not agree with Trump on everything, but believes Trump is a necessary purge to the body politic.
Not any of his contributors, either. You get the feeling with some of them that Trump is not their desired cup of tea, but they all want to see him treated fairly.
Allapundit (formerly of Hot Air)? Yep. He went off to some NT site to the cheers of Hot Air readers.
Sarah is a good writer and a fun person to listen to. Fascinating personal story as well.