Kirstyn McDermott

"Triquetra" by Kirstyn McDermott is a dark fantasy novelette about the fraught relationship between Snow White and her stepmother after Snow White has married the prince and has her own child. She visits her stepmother monthly promising to kill her in ever more horrible ways, at the same time attempting to stay away from the mirror that started it all. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.com Original

Triquetra

Contains Small Parts

Caution

Alex doesn't know what he wants to do, how to connect with people or what's good for him. He drifts his way through dead-end jobs and fumbled relationships, unable to find a way out of the rut his life has become. Then he runs into Madigan Sargood and everything changes. A ray of light shining from an almost-forgotten past, Madigan is beautiful and impulsive, enigmatic and passionate beyond measure. This is what it means to live, Alex realises, and to love. Never mind that she can be somewhat possessive. Never mind that his best friend thinks there's something wrong with her, something dangerous even. Never mind that the creepy band of misfits she attracts have all but taken over his home. Madigan fills Alex's life with significance; he will put up with anything to be with her. Until, without any warning, she kills herself. Now Alex can't seem to get her out of his head, and his world - along with his sanity - begins to disintegrate. Black outs and missing time, conversations he can't recall, people he can't remember. Is this the product of a diseased and lovesick mind, or can Madigan really be trying to communicate with him? When the past threatens to obliterate the future, Alex is forced to take action. To save himself and those he loves, he must discover the sinister reason why Madigan took her own life - and why she won't lie still in her grave.

Madigan Mine

Burnt Sugar is a dark and evocative re-imagining of a classic fairy tale from the award-winning Kirstyn McDermott. Ideal for fans of Jane Yolen, Theodora Goss, and Catherynne M. Valente. Decades after the incident in the woods, Gretel has forged a good life in a small village, running a bakery and taking care of her brother and the stray, bedraggled women who find work as her apprentices. Business is good, and when it’s not, Gretel took more from the witch than a knack of making sweet treats and gingerbread, just as her brother returned home forever changed by the torture he experienced. The book of magic hidden beneath the stairs has kept Gretel and her household comfortable for years, but it also calls to Gretel in the night, demanding she return to the woods and replace the witch they killed. For years, she’s been resisting, determined to keep Hansel and her apprentices safe. Then Hansel’s drinking goes too far and Gretel realises her brother is dying. Finally, the seductive call of the book’s magic might be too strong to deny… Burnt Sugar is the first novella in Kirstyn McDermott’s Never Afters series. Dark, powerful, and brimming with magic, these tales weave a reimagined world in which fairy-tale girls grow up to find both love and heartbreak, family and friendship, and moments of loss and forgiveness.

A Never Afters Tale

Burnt Sugar

The New Wife is a bloody tale of ghosts, vengeance, and dark curses from the award-winning Kirstyn McDermott, sure to appeal fans of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Angela Slatter’s Sourdough stories. Bluebeard’s seventh wife is the first to survive his wrath, courtesy of ghostly warnings and the timely intervention of her brothers. The village burns her murderous husband, his crimes laid bare and his wealth passed on to her… but even after his death, Bluebeard’s house won’t allow anyone to leave. All wives—living and dead—remain trapped in their husband’s manor, even as the man who terrorised them proves to be less dead than they had hoped. Haunted by his vengeful ghost, can the wives find a way to break the curse that would bind them in darkness and torment forever? The New Wife is the second novella in Kirstyn McDermott’s Never Afters series. Dark, powerful, and brimming with magic, these tales weave a reimagined world in which fairy-tale girls grow up to find both love and heartbreak, family and friendship, and moments of loss and forgiveness.

The New Wife: A Never Afters Tale

Two sisters. One wish. Unimaginable consequences. Not all fairytales are for children. Antoinette and Jacqueline have little in common beyond a mutual antipathy for their paranoid, domineering mother, a bond which has united them since childhood. In the aftermath of a savage betrayal, Antoinette lands on her sister’s doorstep bearing a suitcase and a broken heart. But Jacqueline, the ambitious would-be manager of a trendy Melbourne art gallery, has her own problems – chasing down a delinquent painter in the sweltering heat of a Brisbane summer. Abandoned, armed with a bottle of vodka and her own grief-spun desires, Antoinette weaves a dark and desperate magic that can never, ever be undone. Their lives swiftly unravelling, the two sisters find themselves drawn into a tangle of lies, manipulations and the most terrible of family secrets. The Aurealis and Australian Shadows award-winning novel by the author of Madigan Mine and Caution: Contains Small Parts. Reviews “Perfections sings from the page. It is dark, compelling and monstrously beautiful.” Alison Goodman, New York Times bestselling author of Eon and Eona. “Kirstyn McDermott’s prose is darkly magical, insidious and insistent. Once her words get under your skin, they are there to stay.” Angela Slatter, British Fantasy Award-winning author of Sourdough and Other Stories. “Perfections is a sharp, creepy and deeply discomfiting novel full of awkward truths and raw emotions.” Tansy Rayner Roberts, author of the Creature Court Trilogy and Love and Romanpunk. "McDermott has expertly weaved character, psychology, and dialogue to create a creepy, suspenseful story that will slip under your skin." Aurealis magazine

Kirstyn McDermott

About

Books

Join the club