AMAZING collection fairy tales with an LGBTQIA+ twist. Like any anthology, the book as a whole is a little hit or miss. Some stories are really well written and amazingly told, and some fall a little flat. The writing aptitude of all of the stories is fairly high overall though, so even the stories that didn't resonate with me are still very competently written. And the ones that DID resonate - wow.

The latest edition of Ninestar Press's Once Upon a Rainbow series is thoroughly charming. The premise is simple: queer retellings of classic fairy tales, but the execution is, for lack of a better word, magical. I haven't read the first two volumes, but bought them immediately upon finishing this review copy. As with their Into the Mystic anthologies, Ninestar's editorial chops are on full display here - none of the stories stand out as "filler." Yes, there are a few that worked better for me than others, but most of that is personal preference, not objective quality issues.

There's something immeasurably satisfying about reading the stories I grew up with, turned into queer happily-ever-afters. Why shouldn't Cinderella be trans? Is that not the perfect story for a trans man? Why shouldn't Pinocchio be a lovingly-crafted sculpture come to life as a lover? And why must the Big Bad Wolf always be a man? Retelling fairy tales from a queer perspective brings something fresh to each of these stories, so much so that I didn't realize there were two Cinderella retellings until I was writing this review.

If you want a bit more on each of the stories, I've written the tiniest of reviews for each of the seven below. TL;DR: If you're looking for a palate cleanser, some delightfully queer fluff, or a story that makes you cry because you feel seen? This is an excellent volume.



Baile de la Marioneta, by W.M. Fawkes

Jose is an art student studying sculpture, and one day he crafts a man out of wood. This is a surprising Pinocchio retelling - when the wooden man lies, it's not his nose that grows. This little detail could have tipped the story from sweet to crass, but it doesn't. I think this was the most emotionally charged of the anthology, with an exploration of consent, ownership, and the power of love to transform.



Loose in the Heel, Tight in the Toe, by Valentine Wheeler

This is the first of two Cinderella retellings, this time with a lesbian Cinderella who wants to go to the ball but really doesn't want to marry the prince. Turns out... he's asexual and more than happy to make an arrangement with his bride-to-be. The author also works in a cast of secondary characters and story elements that make the whole thing come together very well. One of the best in the anthology.



Green Things Grow from Cinders, by A.E. Ross

I adored this story. The hero is a trans man who owns a florist shop and isn't out to his roommates. He has a huge crush on the man hosting a friend's wedding (that he's doing the flowers for) but doesn't want to go in the bridesmaid dress he ordered months ago. Cue the fairy godmother, who steps in to send this Cinderfella off to the ball in style.



The Scent of Magic, by N.J. Romaine

The wolf in this story is a soldier/hunter who's exiled herself to the woods after the kingdom she protected is cursed to go to sleep. A girl with a red cloak is walking through the forest and the wolf offers to escort her. But nothing is quite what it seems...



The Rescue, by Sam Burns

This one has a few twists, so I'll just say that it's the story of a gay knight who really doesn't want to marry the princess he's set off to rescue from the dragon. There's definitely an HEA, though!



The Bremen Town Musicians, by Mark Lesney

The classic folktale, but twisted to be about a ragtag group of teens who've been called by names like "Donkey" and "Hound" all their lives. I had issues with the use of the word g*psy and also with the fact that a band of said Romani were brutally killed by the robbers in the story. Not great to have a persecuted minority group in your book to provide an emotional arc for the main characters, and to refer to them by an ethnic slur... The folk tale itself has always been messed up, right? I knew this was going to be a dark story, with scaring off robbers and so on, but I think the slaughter of 10 innocent Roma could have been left out.

The queer pairing is m/m, in case you're curious.


Gretel on Her Own, by Elna Holst

As you can probably predict from the title, this is a Hansel and Gretel retelling that focuses on Gretel. The story is an f/f romance that explores themes mental illness, magic, and temptation. It was confusing in a wonderful sort of way.

This was an interesting collection of stories that follow the theme well, Some are difficult to tell where the inspiration comes from, while others are crystal clear. I don't usually enjoy Cinderella stories, but found that my favourite stories in the collection were the ones inspired by that story. There is a great mix of diversity and pairings, and I liked that Ace people were represented in my favourite story, where Cinderella marries an Ace prince who agrees she can see women in their marriage of social convience. It sounds a little forced, but working in the historical mindset of the story, it really is a happily ever after in many ways. A really enjoyable read.

Not so long ago I read Ninestar press' short story anthology 'Into the Mystic V.3" which I awarded 4 stars. Because of that I was really excited to read Once Upon A Rainbow V.3 when I saw it on Netgallery. But it turned out to be a disappointment. I didn't enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed Into the Mystic, the stories were less interesting and were not written as well as they were in the other anthology. This is for the reasons I will outline below.
Baile De La Marioneta - W.M. Fawkes
This story was a little slow, but it was very cute. José is an art student who carves a man out of wood. This man then comes alive in true Pinocchio fashion and wants to learn what it's like to be a real man. We read some parts from Tecún's (the wooden man) point of view which is pretty unique and interesting, however it is also frustrating. He's like a child discovering the world, not knowing what anything is one second, then he seems to know exactly what something is the next. It's a bit odd, he either knows about the world, or he doesn't. I did enjoy the plot of this story, there was a lot of action, but I do feel like it went on longer than it should have.
Loose In The Heel, Tight In The Toe - Valentine Wheeler
This story is set in the past and it's a take on Cinderella. This is my favourite story in the anthology and the only one I really enjoyed as much as the stories in 'into the mystic'. Our protagonist Catherine is living with her stepmother who has stolen both her inheritance of a house and woolmill from her and is forcing her into an arranged marriage to a fifty-year-old brute of a man called Pieter. She also lives with two stepsisters who she loves to bits, and two stepbrothers who she doesn't get on with, yet will inherit Catherine's business when their mother dies.
This story is so much more absorbing than the first and I really enjoyed Catherine's narration. Her rapport with her fairy-god-mother Eleanor was hilarious. In this story we get to see the transformation, the ball and the slipper but then we move swiftly on to what happens after Catherine's marriage to Prince Heinrich. The pace is good, it keeps your interest while providing all the backstory you need for what comes later.
Catherine is gay, Heinrich is asexual, it's a mutual marriage of friendship and convenience and not a traditional fairytale. I LOVED that about this story. Their friendship is adorable and it's a great take on the traditional Cinderella story. I would really like to read more about them one day.
This story also has a strong feminist message with Catherine's fight to claim her inheritance back from her stepmother and step brothers, and her fight to save as many women as she can, including her stepsisters, from forced marriages that they don't want to be in. It's a great story, but unfortunately it's the only fully-rounded and interesting story in this book.
Green Things Grow From Cinders- A.E. Ross
Don't get me wrong, I did like this story, it's the only other story I did like in this book. But the ending ruined it for me. Once again it's a take on Cinderella, different enough from the last, but still I wish it'd been placed later in the anthology so I didn't have to read two Cinderella stories one after the other. Our protagonist Ash is a transgender male struggling to adjust to his new identity and shake his old. His friends still see him as the girl he once was and he is struggling with how to tell them that he is no longer their 'girlfriend' any more. He is trapped inside his own body, and because of that this story is really emotional and heart-breaking to read. But the story is all about Ash finding himself and becoming comfortable in his own skin which is wonderful, however it all goes off on a tangent and instead we follow his romance with a high school crush. I do enjoy a romance and all, especially as the romance was a big part in Ash feeling confident in who he was. But the empowering transgender themes that I loved so much disappear from here. Before the romance, it was a compelling story about the struggles of what life is like as a transgender teen and the emotion that comes with the transition. But the romance distracts from it all rather than helps. The story ends with the climax of the romance, not of Ash finding himself. I wanted to see him find the courage to come out to his friends and accept himself for the person he is, but instead the story ends as soon as he begins his relationship. It seems like there was all build up and no conclusion to the story that really mattered- ash's.
The Scent of Magic- N.J.Romaine
Oh my, this story was boring. I actually DNFed this one. I thought I'd love it because it's a take on red riding hood mixed with a fantasy novel and the faerie world. But it was all world-building and no plot. It's impossible to fit an epic fantasy into a short story and keep it interesting, there just isn't enough word-count to allow you to really get into the story and the characters as much as you could in the first place. So this story started off bad in it's concept, and got worse through it's execution. It's so, so complex. Too complex for the world of a short story. Unlike 'into the mystic' these stories are so long, I prefer the short and snappy short stories than these long, but lacking detail ones. Everytime it felt like we were nearing the conclusion or some action, it would trail off onto yet another boring side quest that was all talking and no action. And after the characters met the Faerie queen and she set them on another side quest. I just gave up. Too bored to want to continue. all they ever did was talk. yawn! Although this story was set up like a cool epic fantasy, it still wouldn't work as a story at all, it's too boring, even if it wasn't all squashed into a short story and had more space for character development. I still wouldn't want to read it. Yawn.
The Rescue | Sam Burns
This story was a little better. It was still longer than it should have been though, a lot of these stories would work better if they were more concise. It was cute though, Brice a knight, goes to rescue a princess from a dragon. But he isn't a traditional knight, as he has no interest in marrying the princess, because he prefers princes. So his honour leads him to rescue her, not his selfishness, which was a refreshing take on the traditional knight-in-shining-armour story. To make things even better, Rose, the princess is really badass and cool and she knows how to fight her own battles. But the love story develops after the knight saves the princess, when he is captured in the cave with the dragon instead. Rose's escape means that he has to stay behind with the mysterious Aiden who also lives in the Dragon's caves. Aiden and Brice's budding romance was adorable and I liked reading the build up, but their first kiss really fell flat which was weird, after all the build up I was expecting, more? The twist at the end of the story was great though and made up for the weird romantic conclusion.
The Bremen Town Musicians - Mark Lesney
This story was weird. It starts when our four protagonists are children, escaping from their various horrible childhoods and going on the run together with dreams of becoming a travelling entertainment troop. Their stories are sad, and interesting to read about, but once again, there was just a lot of exposition and little action so it got boring fast. But then we jump into the future when they are all older and traveling with a group of actors. But the scene we jump into is just weird. We go from reading about them as children, to a more 'intimate' scene between two of the protagonists as teenagers. Without any build-up and warning. They were children one page ago, and it's just weird. Especially as this is the only scene of it's kind in the story and there is no real reason for it to even be placed there. Weird. And it gets stranger still. A lot of people die, suddenly, and with no ceremony. They are just killed off without warning and without any real purpose. This story just gets weirder after that when the protags go dark themselves. The only redeeming part is the ending, which is actually a cute 'happy ever after' even if the means to get there were just WEIRD.
Gretel On Her Own - Elna Holst
And finally, the most confusing story of the bunch. This is a modern take on Hansel and Gretel, set in Germany once they are all grown up. Their Mother is mentally ill, Hansel is mentally ill and their father has just left them all leaving Gretel to deal with the fallout on her own. It's then that she meets Dorophea, the niece of the lady who (maybe?) was the witch that ruined their childhood. But from here, I didn't really understand the rest of the story, it's just really confusing. The details I just told you are all I could really make out from the plot. There is a little too much mystery. So much so that we are never given many answers and hardly anything makes sense. And the ending was just weirder. I am so confused by this. I can't even make sense of it enough to write a proper review about the plot in this story, because I didn't really get the plot in this story.
So all in all. This anthology was boring, confusing and a little too stretched out and overcomplex. But there were a couple of shining lights that cut through, meaning that I didn't DNF the anthology completely. But unfortunately the bad outweighed the good, so I can only really give it two stars.

I was really excited about the premise of this collection of stories. Taking classic fairy tales and giving them an LGBTQ twist. I mean, this is what we need more of in today's time. Having said that, I struggled with most of the stories. Some were right on target, easily read, and thoroughly enjoyable. The rest felt clunky with scenes of romance and intimacy coming off as forced. Man I wanted to love this, but I didn't. That isn't to say that this book doesn't need to be read, I believe there is a place in this day and age for this book, and others like it. And I hope these authors continue to challenge the way society thinks about fairy tales, love, LGBTQ, etc.

The premise here is a fantastic one, it really makes me wonder why these age-old stories haven't been retold to include the LGBTQIA+ community before this. I love the idea of inclusive stories and I also adore fairytales as much as the next gal so these two things together is right up my street. I have been an avid reader of all of the retellings that have been published recently but none of them accomplish the objective of inclusivity like "Once Upon A Rainbow".

Each of these retellings puts a new spin on the stories we have been reading for decades. The fairytales that are featured in this book with their own special twists are as follows -

* Cinderella (x2)
* Hansel & Gretel
* Town Musicians of Bremen
* The Scent of Magic
* Rapunzel
* Pinocchio

This is well worthy of your time if you enjoy fairytales, folklore, myths and legends. The writing was sound and the characters were memorable. The twists are what really make this book stand out. I am positive that there is an appetite out there for LGBTQIA+ fiction. If you get the chance, pick this one up!

Many thanks to NineStar Press for an ARC. I was not required to post a review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I read only two stories and they were both amazing. They were told well enough to get a sense of the fantasy world but also its characters and motivations. This is enough to guage the quality of editing and storytelling