Weight of Worlds — Alma Alexander

A master storyteller provides us with a collection of breathless and enchanting tales of magic, cruelty, and sacrifice. These stories by Alma Alexander are like a connoisseur's box of chocolates - dark and bittersweet. They should be nibbled at and savored, not devoured like a box of fast food.

In the cover story, we learn of several worlds and their millions of souls lost in game a chance; in another story we encounter the soul of a single sinner locked into a stony gargoyle serving out his time in purgatory.

She tells us of an angel offering a whole new life to a deeply troubled woman but at a bitter price. We watch as a cat battles an evil spirit and then offers a safe house for a troubled child.

All of Alexander's stories owe a debt to the dark and twisted fairy tales of Oscar WIlde and the passion and poignant drama of the tales of Hans Christian Andersen.

The dozen stories here are fairy tales for grown-ups - they are not the sort of stories you might want to read to your young children at bedtime. But if you read them just before go to sleep, your reward is likely to be dreams that are rich and strange, and that you may feel you have walked for a little while on roads paved with real magic.