An incredible anthology! Only criticism is that some of the stories felt too short to properly get to know the characters.

I absolutely adored all of the stories in this, although my favorites would have to be Tangled Nets and The Wish-Giver. A definite must-read for anyone interested in fantasy, LGBTQ+ characters, and trope subversion.

Wow! This was such an emotional experience! I think I cried at least once for each story. No Man of Woman Born is a collection of short stories, all with nonbinary or questioning characters, all playing on how oddly specific and gendered prophecies are in fantasy novels. Of all the stories Early to Rise was my favorite because of the antagonist and the unique way the protagonist solved their problems. The writing was lovely and the worlds were rich and creative. A considerable amount of effort and talent went into making each of the short stories and worlds unique. The first three stories had very similar plot beats/resolutions so it felt repetitive. But that might be because all of the stories are based on the prophecy trope (which I am not usually a fan of so maybe it won't bother anyone else.) Individually, the stories were very well done and heartwarming. I honestly teared up a bit every time the character affirmed their genders to themselves. This was so much fun I would highly recommend it.

Thank you to Netgalley, Acacia Moon Publishing and Ana Mardoll for giving me the opportunity to read this. I received a free arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a short story collection full of magic, myths and dragons, but also full of character with diverse gender identities.

The stories made me realize how much traditional fairy tales and heroic legends really rely in some ways on the traditional constructions of gender. So what this collection does with the usual patterns is a pretty smart move: It doesn’t just have characters outside of the cis gender-binary, but also uses their gender identities as a twist to the tales’ expectations.

I love this concept and I think it is important to write and read these stories to help people get used to the idea of different genders, see how one can talk about them and learn to use the pronouns (so one on complains that 'uh there were mistakes all over I want my money back' like I have seen it before in a review for a book with a non-binary character).

But what made me not rate this higher in the end was that the plots of the stories itself didn’t feel that special to me (with exceptions) and that after a while I didn’t enjoy them anymore because it felt all very repetitive.
The play with myth and gender was cool, but it was kind of the same twist over and over again in most of the stories.

'A man and a women will kill him' – oh, but I am both in one person
'She will sleep' – oh, but I am not always a she
'A son will kill him' – oh, but he just didn't know I was his son instead of daughter
'No man of women born can kill the King' - oh, but the person who gave birth to me realizes he's a man so I’m not born of a women

The stories in this collection are still very much worth reading, but reading them all together took some of my fun with it away in the end, sadly.

No Man of Woman Born is a collection of seven short stories by nonbinary author Ana Mardoll, each exploring the concept of fantastical prophecies fulfilled by unlikely heroes, all trans, nonbinary, or questioning. A fisher whose village is at the mercy of a man-eating dragon, a hedgewitch sent to save the land from a tyrannical queen, a warrior who seeks to avenge his family. Each story is a clever spin on a classic fairytale, and though some of the endings may be predictable, the journey there is full of heart.
I will preface this review by saying that I am a cis woman, and so I cannot speak to the quality of the representation. However, I have to say that the author manages, in very few pages, to establish her/xer protagonists as well-rounded people with fears and aspirations. They have lives outside of their gender identities and feel like tangible people whom I might meet in real life. Trans and nonbinary characters have certainly started to make their way into contemporary media, but it is still rare to find them in fantasy, so I hope that this author continues to publish more work in this vein.
If I have any criticisms, it would be that at times the stories felt a little slow. It’s a very character-driven book, which focuses a lot on establishing the humanity of its heroes. Given the length of each story, I understand that Mardoll had to choose between story and character. Still, after reading No Man of Woman Born, I’m definitely interested to take a look at Mardoll’s novel-length works. I urge everyone to give this book a shot, because though its characters go through grief and heartache, at its core the collection is about triumph and self-acceptance. No matter your identity, these are two themes that should resonate with us all.

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was a bit tough for me to read. Originally I was super excited for it's focus on non-binary and trans-gendered characters however I was vastly overwhelmed almost immediately with the pronouns, I wish there had been a description/chart on the terms and their usage before beginning the short story collection. I felt like I needed to do research before I could enjoy a diverse book and that was a bit off-putting for me. Because of how important the need for books like this and because I feel like this will appeal to many young new readers just discovering who they are, I give this a 3/5. The stories themselves fell a little flat for me and I can't quite put my finger on why. I did feel like they were a little boring and that there was too much description to fit into a short story whereas I would have loved to get more thrown into some action with descriptions here and there, not an entire history lesson then a story.

This is a collection of stories that all feature trans, nonbinary or gender fluid characters in a fantasy world where we don’t usually find them.
What was particularly great about it is that these stories take place in the typical medieval setting, devoid of hormone therapy or anything that would help someone pass, yet there is never anyone purposely misgendering anyone else.

As with any short story collection, I liked some of the stories more than others, but my favorites are the ones that feature someone fulfilling a prophecy that no one suspects they are the chosen one of, due to the prophecy specifying a gender that no one knows this character is.

Unique writing and story that kept me interested. A story that had me wanting to read more. Relatable characters and a good flow. Would recommend!

i want to be careful in my review of this book, because i know it wasn't meant for me, and that's alright. that's wonderful, actually. this book is lovingly crafted for trans readers, and that's incredibly important. it's one of those books that's deeply needed, and i can only hope it finds it's way into the hands on someone who's been longing for just this: an anthology of fantasy stories with wonderful writing, interesting characters, and most importantly, one that's centered around trans folks. 'no man of woman born' is about prophecies, long lambasted for often being so cisnormative in stories, and the ways they can be written to celebrate diversity instead of stifle it.

honestly, my biggest complaint was that i wished the stories were longer — that i could spend more time with these characters and their worlds. leaving a novel wanting more is a wonderful problem to have though, and i'm grateful i had the opportunity to read and review this one. i don't want to go too in depth and ruin the next reader for the delight of discovering each story contained within this anthology, all the clever ways ana mardoll subverts and rebuilds the familiar fantasy tropes to suit these heroes, so i'll leave you with this: this is definitely one i'll be recommending to my friends, and it's one you should read too.

I just skimmed through this one. I don't care for the content. It's not for me. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Like with every anthology, I loved some of the stories and didn't care much about others. All in all is an original take of classic fantasy stories with some great worldbuilding, and my main problem was that the rythm felt a bit off sometimes.

Oh my. I have no words. Having finished No Man of Woman Born I fear I may be hopelessly infatuated with Ana Mardoll's voice and vision. This was such a beautiful, powerful, and necessary collection. I am envious, jealous even, of a generation that gets to grow up reading empowering, inclusive stories like this alongside their mass-market fantasies.

What Mardoll offers here are familiar fantasy tales of sacrifice, vengeance, justice, and love. They are simple stories, a mix of fairy tale, fable, and fantasy, which follow the genre conventions we all know and love. Some of them are explicitly about gender, with pivotal questions of identity and expression. These are the stories that follow the prophecy from which the collection gets its name, where 'no man of woman born' is subverted in some clever and entertaining ways.

That said, there are no traps or surprises here, no big reveals designed to shock or titillate the reader. There is one story - a sword in the stone story - where the reveal of gender is done publicly and proudly, but it a moment of empowerment, of claiming one's destiny. There is also a story - a dragon sacrifice story - that is all about the wishing for one's true gender identity, but for all its very public spectacle, what exactly the wish changed, if anything, remains a very private thing.

It is the other stories that I think are even more important, however. They are the stories that are not about gender, but where the characters exist in a world where nonbinary genders are simply accepted without question, without comment, without hatred, and without ridicule. More importantly, they are accepted as a state of being, as a defined gender, and not some confusing phase of transition. There is no expectation that these characters ever were or will become binary. These are the stories where, if not for the gender-neutral pronouns, most readers likely would not have picked up on the gender aspect.

There are also stories here that straddle those two extremes, suitably non-binary stories of non-binary storytelling. There is one in particular that I just loved - a Sleeping Beauty style fairy tale - where the entire castle knows the protagonist has boy days and girl days, and where that duality of gender is the key to circumventing the fairy's curse.

Gender aspects aside, I would be woefully remiss if I did not call out the storytelling of Mardoll. These stories in No Man of Woman Born flow so beautifully, are so wonderfully readable, that it is almost too easy to overlook the polished sense of style. The writing is as beautiful as the sentiments it conveys, and I will never stop recommending this to friends.

Title: No Man of Woman Born: Rewoven Tales

Publisher: Acacia Moon Publishing

Author: Ana Mardoll

Pages: 180pp

Price: $9.99/$4.99

A humble fisher and weaver of nets. A cunning hedge-witch of unremarkable power. An orphan on a path of revenge. A secret daughter who is the heir to a long-prophesied destiny. A royal heir cursed by faeries. A young warrior determined to rid the land of an evil tyrant. A child with one heart-felt wish ....

In this collection of seven stories, Mardoll weaves tales of love, duty, vengeance, courage, betrayal, dragons, and destiny -- and each features a non-binary character in the role of heroic protagonist.

I love epic fantasy, but I just do not have the time to devote to multi-volume sagas. As such, I grabbed a copy of Mardoll's No Man of Woman Born when I spotted it on netgalley. And I'll be honest -- it was the fantasy and witch parts that initially attracted me; the fact that the protagonists were all non-binary was interesting, but of secondary importance.

That changed the further I got into the collection. Mardoll's tales are filled with rich, wonderfully-realized characters; some very young, some on the cusp of adulthood, some mature in years. Each character's non-binary-ness is inherent not only to them as characters, but is also a necessary element of the story. Consider Finndís in "Daughter of Kings": there is a prophecy that a daughter of King Njáll will pull the golden sword from the stone and unite the fracturing tribes. Unfortunately, the King has no daughters -- except Finndís, who is female, even if no one else sees her that way.* In "Early to Rise" (a reimagining of Sleeping Beauty), Claude has been cursed to sleep until she is awakened by true love's kiss. Claude, however, has girl days, boy days, and days when they are neither. This loophole -- uh, nope, sorry. No spoilers.

No Man of Woman Born was a thought-provoking and enchanting introduction to a new writer and the worlds xie can create. I will definitely be reading more of xer work in the future. ... Um, it would be really cool if some of these characters got their own books; just sayin' ....

I highly recommend No Man of Woman Born to fans of epic fantasy; anyone looking for stories with non-traditional protagonists, especially non-binary/genderqueer heroes; and fans of Effie Calvin, KJ Charles, and Jordan L Hawk.



* By the way, that's Finndís on the cover. :)

No Man of Woman Born is a collection of short stories featuring prominent characters who do not identify as cisgender – there are trans princes, non-binary princesses, genderfluid royals whose family adapt pronouns used accordingly, and it’s beautiful. With a title taken from Shakespeare, and a prologue mentioning the infamous scene in which Tolkien’s Éowyn defies a gendered prophecy by proclaiming that while no man may complete it, she is no man, I knew this was going to be good. What I didn’t anticipate was how much I loved it. I have a mixed history with short story anthologies in that I usually want to love them and then end up really, really disappointed. However, Mardoll did not disappoint with this collection of fantastical stories ranging from princesses determined to live as such in a world that denies them their true names to peasants avenging the death of loved ones.



Soldiers and seers had been helpless before the dragon, but they had been men and women. Wren was neither, yet the knowledge did not make xer feel special. Xie simply was xerself, in the same way Halwen was a witch.



Each story comes with a list of warnings where appropriate, and many also come with a phonetic guide to the pronouns used. For example Wren, the collection’s first protagonist, uses xie and xer. Now while this may look confusing at first, it is literally a few letters from being she and her both of which are used all the time so really it’s not that big of a leap. It’s even phonetic so you know how to say it aloud!



I once wrote a good portion of my dissertation defending the use of ‘they/them’ as pronouns in academic texts and I for a First Class Honours Degree. Fight me with your ‘oh but won’t it get confusing’ bullshit. If it got confusing, then I’d have been marked a lot less using it again and again for 13,000 odd words.



“Father never believed me,” she whispered , so softly she wasn’t sure he heard. “I told him when I was younger than Rúni, still just a baby. He thought I’d heard Leifur and Magni talking about the prophecy, but I hadn’t known anything about it. I wouldn’t have cared even if I had! I didn’t want to be a queen or hold a magic sword, I just wanted him to stop calling me something I wasn’t. I wanted him to see me.”



Aside from being wonderful fantasy stories with the traditional hallmarks of the genre – dragons, prophecies, witches and spells and curses – these stories contain some very poignant moments. The quote above is from Daughter of Kings, the collection’s fourth tale, and I thought it was beautiful. Finndís, the daughter of the King, never sets out to be a prophesied ruler – only to be seen in her father’s eyes as the young woman she has always been. She does not want a crown, or the influence of the council, or a socially important marriage – she wants people to call her by her name, and say ‘she’ when they refer to her. So not much at all, in a land where Kingdoms are at stake. These stories are about people who – to quote Mardoll directly – “aren’t special because they are trans; they are special and they are trans”. Yes, these stories open up the floor for discussion of rigid gender binaries and just how necessary they are in settings where flesh-eating dragons literally live next door and demand sacrifices, they show how much complexity, colour and depth can be added to tales of prophecy and magic, but they also exist purely as a series of incredibly enjoyable, well-written stories that just happen to feature trans people. They can also be fantastically funny. One of my favourite lines was definitely the following:



If gossip from the capital could be believed, the last attempt on the overlord’s life had involved an exotic undetectable poison, a goat, and a young culinary genius.



Does that, or does that not, sound like a Skyrim side-quest?



“You are my child, and you are special and loved . Whether you’re a boy, or a girl, or both, or neither, or something else entirely, Eoghan and I will love you as we always have and always will.”



There are some amazing dynamics between characters, my favourite possible being that of Claude and their family in Early to Rise where despite being about a genderfluid child with a curse hanging over their head, Mardoll manages to include the sorts of moments every family experiences – the ‘don’t tell mum’ moment where a sibling helps you do something they shouldn’t, those awkward discussions with parents about who you fancy, and Claude’s all-consuming love for their family who accept them on boy days, girl days, and the days where they’re not sure but they know they’re loved regardless.




“How do you know when a shoe doesn’t fit quite right? It covers your foot and it’s better than nothing at all, because you’re not getting burrs stuck in your heel when you walk, and no shoe is perfect. Maybe if you just wear thicker socks, it’ll feel right. Maybe all shoes are bad and you just need to accept it and stop complaining that your feet hurt.” Kie grinned, shaking kir head. “And then one day you take the shoe off and try on a different one and it’s like you’re seeing sunshine for the first time. And you realize shoes can be comfortable, you were just wearing the wrong one.”



I loved this book, each story was a perfect little tale of love and defiance that both invoked and reworked tales we know well – sleeping beauty and her spindle, waiting for a prince, the sword in the stone and the leader who will pull it free – and created worlds both fantastical and moving. Please read this book.



I want to finish with a few quotes from the Author’s note at the end of the book.



Please only refer to characters by their correct pronouns. For characters whose gender might be considered a ‘spoiler’, it would be better not to reference them at all in reviews rather than concealing their gender with incorrect pronouns .



More resources on transgender characters and how to write about them are available at GLAAD.org and Nonbinary.org for those who are interested. I owe a debt of gratitude to Vee (@ FindMeReading) of GayYA.Org for sharing their poignant thoughts regarding how trans characters are handled in book reviews and how we can better serve our community.



Overall rating: 5 books out of 5



A Copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

The book as a whole. 4/5
I really enjoyed it. The author’s note was so touching and I think the hopes for this book were realized. Diversity in all types of fiction are really necessary so that we might all find ourselves and our potential in the stories we enjoy. The one thing at the beginning that threw me off was that these really are short stories/fairy tales. These are not long novels with in-depth stories and though that is made very obvious in the description this sometimes made me feel left hanging. Now, to the stories themselves

Tangled Nets 3/5
Wren was an interesting character. Xhie had obviously been through a lot with xer sister and there was a lot going on, but I just didn’t feel attached to xer. There was some cool world exploration, but right as I wanted to know more about xer the story was over. I think my biggest thing was there was some information about the other dragons and what happened to the white dragon that while interesting would have been better used as time to explore Wren more.

King’s Favor 3/5
I liked this one better than Tangled Nets. There’s world building, but there’s also some exploration of Caran that I enjoyed about why nee was doing what nee was doing and why nee was specifically chosen. While I felt a bit of attachment to nee I wanted more. Caran got this amazing opportunity at the end and then it was over.

His Father’s Son 5/5
This story was all I wanted! Nocien was the first character I really felt attached to in the book and he was glorious. We got his backstory through him remembering everything in a lot more detail than I feel like the previous short stories and I was hooked. Then, there was action, a great amount of it that really hit you and then the ending! I felt like I got the complete story.

Daughter of Kings 4/5
This one got me right in the feels. Finndis is lovely, but there’s a past that is a bit painful. We get just enough of her history to really enjoy her victory. What a great story.

Early to Rise 3/5
The most obvious retelling of a fairy tale in the book. An interesting retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It was short, but I enjoyed it well enough

No man of Woman Born 4/5
Innes asks some great questions about prophesies that I admit I never thought about. I love that all the details don’t seem to slow any of these characters down. I think it really speaks to most of us who have dreamed of being heroes during at least one point in our lives. What a great story to give people faith in themselves.

The Wish-Giver 4/5
Short, but so heartwarming.

A really cool collection of fantasy short stories where transgender and nonbinary characters take centre stage. No Man subverts gendered prophecies of tales that are old as time. There are pronunciation guides provided for each story. And that’s what I liked a lot, since I follow Ana Mardoll on twitter, they’re very informative and a pretty interesting person. I was already aware of some nonbinary terms, but this book introduces some ones I wasn’t aware of.

My favourite of all the stories was either Tangled Nets or His Father’s Son. All are amazing but these two caught my eye the most and was most intriguing to read.

This was an absolute joy. If you like fantasy at all, especially if you like twists on fantasy tropes, you need to read this. Despite most of the stories all being based on the idea "prophecy seems to foretell that evil ruler/dragon/monster will never be killed, turns out it was actually talking about a trans person who would do it," they never get old. Each one has a different cliché prophecy and subverts it in a new way. It's creative and well-written and what so many people are looking for right now. Trans girls and trans boys saving their people! Nonbinary heroes getting dragged into fighting evil! People who are still figuring out their gender and if they could be the prophesied warrior! Collect them all!

The one thing I still don't understand is why the theme was broken for the very last story, which didn't involve a prophecy. I liked it, but I was confused at the sudden break from the premise. Nevertheless, you should read it.

I've been following Ana Mardoll on twitter for ages, but never read one of xer books (my TBR is SO long, and I try to not acquire more books, also for financial reasons), but when I saw the following tweet, I could not help myself:

https://twitter.com/AnaMardoll/status/1054408759659913217

So on to Netgalley I went, and requested and send to kindle I did.
And I loved it. The stories had a lovely length befitting to the story. The only one that I wished was a bit longer, was the last one, about a little girl going to a dragon to have a wish granted. I just wanted to see what kind of adventures she would have when she was older, since she was so brave and sure as a toddler.

It's amazing to see how genderessentalist tropes and fairytales get turned on their head, when a protaganist isn't cis gendered, or falls outside of the gender-binary. It was lovely to see stories where the gender of the main character was a plotpoint, but not a problem (except for one story, where the near family does not accept the gender identity of the protagonist, but even there the problem is not that the protagonist is trans, but the problem is that his father finds that hard to accept. And even that is not the main issue in the story).

I've learned that witches and dragons and sorcerers really need to take a gender 101 class if they want to see their curses actually be successful in the long term. And this also rekindled my love for fairytell retellings. And realised that stories about non-cis characters are really validating to my own non-cis gender identity. More please! Maybe I should lift my selfimposed book-buying ban...

The stories in this book are beautiful. The way the author takes well-known fairy tale tropes and subverts the gendered stereotypes associated is extremely well done. The helpful tips to using neopronouns provided before each story is a nice touch that will help readers who are new to the concept. Overall, a wonderful book. I'll definitely be adding to my personal collection, and advocating for its addition to our library.

This book took me a while to get into.

I am trying to read more LGBTQIA books so i can see more representation of myself and my friends in the world.
This novel definitely achieved that head on in every mini story and taught me things i didn't know like neo pronouns in literature.

I loved the way they changed up the well known fairytales - usually you can tell the ending but in this novel you couldn't as they had re-written the entire theme in order to allow the transgender or non-binary character to blossom.

This was okay, but it was a little bit too shallow in the storytelling. I think i would prefer this sort of book if it was one story in depth focused on one character.

Book given in exchange for a free review.