This is an absolutely delightful anthology of romantic fantasy tales. Despite the cover blurb, not all of them swashbuckling, but that's okay. My favorites were "The Topaz Desert" and the inventive, surprising "The Beheaded Queen." ( )

from the back cover: "...brimming with romantic courtly intrigues and dangerous liaisons, with cloak and dagger and perfumed handkerchiefs, the language of fan and stolen glances, with the manners of Jane Austen and the sparkling rapier wit of Oscar Wilde, here are nine fantastic stories of adventure, derring do, love and glamorous but subtle magic..."

I'm not much for short story collections because the stories are inevitably hit or miss and I have trouble reconciling whether I liked the collection enough to keep it. Ideally, I want a book to be one or the other and easily decided about. These stories are very diverse and yet of the same (by design). As expected, they were hit or miss with me. My favorite was The Beheaded Queen by Dave Smeds which was absolutely a pleasure and I wanted more of it. I struggled the most with The Rule of Engagement by Sherwood Smith - half the time I did not know what was happening. The story that I haven't stopped thinking about is The Night Street Baths by Chaz Brenchley - the world building was so rich and accomplished in such a limited space. ( )

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/may08.html#rosslab ( )

Amazon received

http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=6739 ( )