I Read Stories: Do Not Waver, My Heart by Shanna Germain

 

Do Not Waver My Heart by Shanna Germain in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

The Witch has cursed our nameless heroine’s seven brothers. To transform them back she will have to make shirts for them. Shirts of neural fibres and starflowers and her own hair. And wrap them around to transform them back from being the Witch’s machines of destruction that fly out to other planets. She cannot speak to another living being until this is done, though at least she does have Aksana, her ship to speak to.

But this isn’t a science fantasy re-telling of the fairytale, or not just one. The Witch can declare curses and spells and cannot undo them, so the loopholes will always exist. The Witch has a Huntsman who tries to trick and trap our heroine off her course.

The story moves through horror and sacrifice, turning around and around different fragments of folk tales and fairy tales. At the heart is a trick, the one thing the Witch cannot do. And how she has made doing that one thing our heroine’s heart’s desire.

Read This: Anguish and betrayal and fairy tale proscriptions
Don’t Read This: Fairy Tales are already grim enough, and these have been dismantled and stitched back together