The Scarlet Circus


 
 
 
 
 Praise for The Scarlet Circus
 
 “For this whimsical collection, World Fantasy Award winner Yolen (The Midnight Circus) brings together 11 fantastical shorts centered on romantic love. Yolen’s trademark fairy tale styling is on display throughout, with vivid, pithy prose animating each quirky flight of fancy. In her author’s note, she complains that dictionary definitions of romance are all too ‘human-centric.’ Indeed, these tales feature romance between all manner of magical creatures: a fey man falls for a ghost in the comic ‘Dusty Loves,’ though she’s more interested in haunting the boy she left behind; a sailor witnesses the love between a family of merpeople in the sweet ‘The Sea Man’; a princess meets a man who may or may not be a unicorn in standout ‘The Unicorn Hunt’; and an enslaved man finds romance with a djinn in the dated ‘Memoirs of a Bottle Djinn,’ the weakest piece. Many stories riff on the familiar: ‘The Sword and the Stone’ offers a fresh take on King Arthur, while ‘Peter in Wonderland’ imagines an adult Alice falling down the rabbit hole again.”
 —Publishers Weekly
 
 “The Scarlet Circus is a magical collection of love stories, where love is often an act of courage and intelligence. Jane Yolen has a true storyteller's voice—a voice that makes the writing disappear so that only the stories remain.”
 —Anne Bishop, New York Times bestselling author of the Black Jewels series
 
 “All these years, and Jane Yolen still reduces me to helpless, gibbering admiration. I'll read anything with her name on it, even if it's just a damn grocery list!”
 —Peter S. Beagle, author of In Calabria
 
 “Jane Yolen spins captivating tales of whimsy, romance, brave knights, dragons, and twist endings. It was like reading the Grimm's fairy tales as a kid—it has that same timeless feel. I was immersed in every story.”
 —Heather Wallwork, author of Entwined
 
 “Jane Yolen is not only one of the best writers I know of, she's also consistently excellent. A Grand Master, old-school style!”
 —Mercedes Lackey, author of the Valdemar series 
 
 “The Scarlet Circus is a magnificent and beautiful anthology from a master storyteller! Jane Yolen's stories Also by Jane Yolen
 
 
 
 Novels
 The Wizard of Washington Square (1969)
 Hobo Toad and the Motorcycle Gang (1970)
 The Bird of Time (1971)
 The Magic Three of Solatia (1974)
 The Transfigured Hart (1975)
 The Mermaid’s Three Wisdoms (1978)
 The Acorn Quest (1981)
 The Stone Silenus (1984)
 Cards of Grief (1985)
 The Devil’s Arithmetic (1988)
 The Dragon’s Boy (1990)
 Wizard’s Hall (1991)
 Briar Rose (1992)
 Good Griselle (1994)
 The Wild Hunt (1995)
 The Sea Man (1997)
 Here There Be Ghosts (1998)
 Sword of the Rightful King (2003)
 The Young Merlin Trilogy: Passager, Hobby, and Merlin (2004)
 Except the Queen (with Midori Snyder, 2010)
 Snow in Summer (2011)
 Curse of the Thirteenth Fey (2012)
 B. U. G. (Big Ugly Guy) (with Adam Stemple, 2013)
 Centaur Rising (2014)
 A Plague of Unicorns (2014)
 Trash Mountain (2015)
 The Last Tsar’s Dragons (with Adam Stemple, 2019)
 Arch of Bone (2021)
 
 
 Collections
 The Girl Who Cried Flowers and Other Tales (1974)
 The Moon Ribbon (1976)
 The Hundredth Dove and Other Tales (1977)
 Dream Weaver (1979)
 Neptune Rising: Songs and Tales of the Undersea People (1982)
 Tales of Wonder (1983)
 The Whitethorn Wood and Other Magicks (1984)
 Dragonfield and Other Stories (1985)
 Favorite Folktales From Around the World (1986)
 Merlin’s Booke (1986)
 The Faery Flag (1989)
 Storyteller (1992)
 Here There Be Dragons (1993)
 Here There Be Unicorns (1994)
 Here There Be Witches (1995)
 Among Angels (with Nancy Willard, 1995)
 Here There Be Angels (1996)
 Here There Be Ghosts (1998)
 Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast (1997)
 Sister Emily’s Lightship and Other Stories (2000)
 Not One Damsel in Distress (2000)
 Mightier Than the Sword (2003)
 Once Upon A Time (She Said) (2005)
 The Last Selchie Child (2012)
 Grumbles from the Forest: Fairy-Tales Voices with a Twist (with Rebecca Kai Dotlich,
 2013)
 The Emerald Circus (2017)
 How to Fracture a Fairy Tale (2018)
 The Midnight Circus (2020)
 
 
 Graphic Novels
 Foiled (2010)
 The Last Dragon (2011)
 Curses! Foiled Again (2013)
 
 Young Heroes series (with Robert J. Harris)
 Odysseus in the Serpent Maze (2001)
 Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons (2002)
 Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast (2003)
 Jason and the Gorgon’s Blood (2004)
 
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