I really enjoyed this little anthology- it was an interesting mix of folklore based shorted stories and was a fun and spooky read for the Halloween season.
Thank you to NetGalley for this Arc!

Some stories sounded quite familiar, I hadn't realised there would be some retellings. I think it really could have done with more editing, I felt more like I was reading a first draft.

In a Nutshell: A really good collection of fantastical stories, but these are better described as retold folktales than as “strange” or “weird” or “bizarre”. The title and the cover establish wrong expectations.

This anthology contains nine stories, all of which are retellings of old folktales and fairy tales. Actually, I don’t know if ‘retelling’ is the right word in this case, because the stories match the original tales to a great extent. There are only minor modifications, and these changes don’t even alter the core plot. Rather, they just add more details.

The blurb, the title, and the cover – all seem to market this book as a kind of dark fantasy anthology, possibly venturing into horror. This does the book a great disservice. It works nicely as a folklore/fairy tale collection, but if you expect to get chills and thrills from any of the stories, you will be utterly disappointed.

Furthermore, the blurb declares that these stories have been “retold with a contemporary twist”. I simply couldn’t figure out what was contemporary herein. Except for some scattered modern lingo in a couple of the stories, the tales seemed to fit the historical period they were originally set in.

I would have appreciated a mention of the original story’s name and/or origin alongside. If none of the stories here are original. it is only fair that the source of the folktale be mentioned. As it is, there is no author’s note, nor any kind of foreword or acknowledgement. The book begins directly with the index and first story, and ends with the last story. Luckily, the theme is quite clear the moment we begin reading the first story, but I do wish every anthology came with a kind of introductory note.

I was familiar with eight out of the nine stories in this collection, having read them in some or the other anthology. So most of the stories generated a sense of déjà vu in me. If you aren’t an avid reader of fantastical story collections, you might enjoy the stories even more.

At the same time, I liked almost all the stories in this book. The original folktales on which these retellings are based are quite diverse in terms of plot and approach, so we get that same variety here as well. Not a single tale bored me or caused my mind to wander into its own fantasies. Every story feels like a fable, with ample sprinklings of old-time magic and charm.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Except for ‘Spellbound’, every other story was a minimum of 3.5 stars for me. Again, I would have enjoyed them even more had I not already read them before in a slightly modified form. There was just one story that was new to me: ‘The Tale of Daniel Crowley’. This was the only genuinely strange tale and though it was bizarre, it was also amusing. I burst out laughing at the ending, thereby happily giving it 5 stars. Another favourite was ‘The Other Eye’, where I loved the balance of the human and the “other” elements. This was a 4.5 star experience for me. The remaining six stories were all either 3.5 or 4 stars.

I’d still recommend this anthology, because I am sure my familiarity with the stories dampened a little of my experience. If you are a fairytale or folklore newbie and are looking for a nice anthology to test out this genre, this would be a great collection to start with. But any avid folktale fan who wants something unnerving and original, this won’t work that well for you. So ignore the creepy vibes promised by the blurb and simply pick this up as a folktale anthology.

The collection would also work well for middle-graders and teens who enjoy dark fairytales.

3.8 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each tale.


My thanks to Firefly Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “Strange Tales”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

My favourite was Miss Fortune is a tale of a family, a royal family which consist of thr Queen and the King and their 7 daughters. Unfortunately one is cursed and the entire family encounter misfortune everywhere. The cursed princess leaves and although many people show her kindness, misfortune still follows her until she decides to find her fate.

I really enjoyed this short story and I like that it makes you think, the family’s experiences humbled them and they changed, which shows that people have different experiences which mould them. Strange Tales has other short stories which are all really interesting.

Thank you so much to Firefly Press and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

A collection of short stories told in a folklore style, with stories on witches, faerie’s, king and queens. Young people going on brave journeys to learn who they are and accomplish big things. A great and creative group of short stories.

This was not at all what I was thinking this book would be. I really thought it was going to contain creepy horror stories and they threw me when I started reading them. They were still very interesting stories to read though.

I quite enjoy folklore stories so I was still very much enjoying what I was reading there are some very strange and unusual stories indeed. We follow a boy down to hell, we have an old midwife that can see the Faeries, a girl cursed by her fate, and many other really interesting stories.

I think that others that are fascinated with folk tales would really enjoy this, it’s easy to read, each story is short but grips you into reading them, they are really detailed and have interesting topics within them. You will be thinking about them as you read and the messages told throughout. I did enjoy reading these short stories and delving into an unusual world of folklore.

This is not quite what I expected. I was expecting some scary ghost stories but these are more like folklores. It is nevertheless a very engaging book. The stories are simple yet interesting with a far deeper message for children to ponder on. I had to select "no" for "use in curriculum" as I still have not figured out how I could fit it in. But I think it is a book with a lot of potential as core text in the classroom.