Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Fangs and Fairytales
AUTHOR: L.J. Hamlin
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press
LENGTH: 50 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 3, 2018
BLURB:
“The Undead Poet Society”—Elizabeth is used to standing apart, because of her cane and her fangs. Then a beautiful woman way out of her league reads a poem…
“Lust”—May is invited to a club by the girl she’s been flirting with in class, and all goes better than she could have hoped.
“Red and the Hunter”—When Red’s grandmother is taken by the Wolf Clan, she turns desperately to the village’s best hunter for help.
“The Princess’s Dove”—Each night, Crystal sneaks out to be with her secret lover, Dove, and dreams a day they can love openly, without fear of what Dove’s father would do if he caught them…
REVIEW:
I’ve read a few short works by L.J. Hamlin, and I’ve had middling opinions on each. This is definitely my favorite work of hers by far. She’s grown as a writer and has really sharpened her storytelling. Here’s my breakdown of the four stories in this collection.
“The Undead Poet Society”
This story provided a strong start. I fell in love with the main character, Elizabeth, right away. She’s a vampire who was turned in the Victorian age and still appreciates some social etiquette of the time, but life if much better now that she can be an out and proud lesbian in the modern age. Her chemistry with a younger vampire is instantly palpable, and the setting is super queer and eclectic. And the love scene is absolutely scorching. I enjoyed this one from start to finish. Great plot, great characters, perfect length.
RATING: 
“Lust”
While this vampire story brought the same amount of heat as the previous one, it fell short on actual story to keep me invested. It’s an erotic interlude more than anything. I actually had trouble keeping it apart from the first one because it felt tonally and thematically similar. Well-written and sexy, but not particularly memorable.
RATING: 
“Red and the Hunter”
This story marks the shift in the collection from “fangs” to “fairy tales,” though there are elements of both. It’s a queer twist on a Little Red Riding Hood story with a lovely first-time lesbian experience. The story and romance plot of this one was very sweet and felt like a classic fairy tale, but it also had a jarring amount of spelling and editing errors compared to the other three works. It needed another editing sweep for it to read more smoothly.
RATING:
“The Princess’s Dove”
This is my second-favorite story in the collection. It reads like a sweeping, romantic fairy tale about forbidden love between a princess and a commoner, but elements of magical amnesia and dark sorcery set it apart from the norm. The romance between Princess Crystal and Dove is so achingly tender and sweet, feeling like all the best kind of young-love stories. The plot comes together a little too quickly by the end, but it’s still a great romance.
RATING: 
Conclusion
The high points of this collection came at the beginning and end, leading me to believe the middle two stories were filler more than anything. I can tell more care was put into “The Undead Poet Society” and “The Princess’ Dove” and that Hamlin probably wrote the other two with less interest. But they all have hallmarks of Hamlin’s strongest works—characters with disabilities, strong enthusiastic consent before and during love scenes, and cozy queer settings that feel like home. I’ve had issues with her plot pacing in the past, but these stories all move at a steady clip and feel much more readable.
It’s a collection with strong and weak stories, but the strong points make it worth a read. I’m definitely see a ton of growth in Hamlin’s writing as her career continues.
OVERALL RATING: 
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