The Bloody Chamber

Carter was a brilliant prose stylist, describing the fantastical with a technicolour sensuality very few writers can match. This collection of short stories, her sensual, sexual, violent takes on fairy tales, is no exception.

Dripping with Gothic horror, visceral energy and defiantly female in its perspectives, The Bloody Chamber gives us variations on Beauty and The Beast, Red Riding hood, vampires, werewolves and woodland goblin kings. Carter takes the forms of the traditional fairy story and upends them, giving them a truly adult sensibility. Blood, sex and violence pulse through these tales. The riotously farcical Puss In Boots is bawdy fun, while The Bloody Chamber itself is dark, brooding and savage in its depiction of sexual dominance.

These stories won't be to everyone's taste. Indeed some of the tales read like prose poems and demand concentration from the reader. But they are all superbly written, even if I probably prefer her novel Nights at The Circus. Worth your time though.

Absolutely adored this. Dark, funny, and all around great. Most importantly though, it was dominated by females. Not to say there weren't interesting, noteworthy male characters, but for ONCE the women were complex, heroic, and represented in various dimensions- unlike in the mainstream culture I am exposed to outside of the bookworld. Traditional myths mixed with fantastical and horrific creativity.