Once upon a Dyke: New Exploits of Fairy Tale Lesbians
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781931513715
ISBN: 1931513716
Label: Bella Books
Manufacturer: Bella Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 307
Publication Date: 2004-06
Publisher: Bella Books
Studio: Bella Books
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Once upon a time, four of your favorite lesbian novelists embarked on a magical journey to bring their favorite fairy tale characters out of the closet and into the sheets. The result is a highly erotic and deliciously tongue-in-cheek collection that brings a whole new meaning to the term 'bedtime stories.'
Lie back and let these fantasy femmes – and a butch in wonderland – take you deep into the forest, high into castles, and through the looking glass. You’ll be enchanted as Rapunzel lets down more than her hair, the Little Mermaid gets soaking wet, and Snow White proves that Sleepy and Bashful are neither. Whether you grew up wanting to be a princess, or wanting to rescue one, Once Upon a Dyke is the book for you!
Rave Reviews from Fairy Tale Experts:
'This book is just right!'—Goldilocks
'Mirror, mirror on the wall, this book’s the hottest of them all.'—Evil Queen
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - modern fairy tales are the best!
i love fairy tales of any kind. this is a collection of short stories -fairy tales written from a lesbian point of view. i think the beauty and the beast adaptation was my favorite, oh, and the cinderella one (what a great compromise they all came up with at the end). i really didn't like the one about the woman who knocks her head and goes on to save all these fairy tale women by having sex with them. i hated her tone and her dumb 'being a good butch' blah blah. yuk. you might do better to pick and choose your stories, but it is very good.
Rating:  - Like Anais Nin, but all lesbian
Anais Nin is sometimes too poetic and well-written to be truly erotic. Her elevated language can be so cerebral that the nether regions disengage. I found that true in this anthology at times - but that doesn't mean that it, like Anais Nin, isn't worth exploring and savoring.
There are four novellas in this anthology, each a very different take on some aspect of fairy tales. There's good laughs (a few of the belly variety) and good sex. A few tears, some sweet sentiment and some pokes at the nature of feminine roles in such archetypal stories. I think that each author sat down to write something sexy and fun, but being all good writers they couldn't help but throw in a little more. Defniitely a couple of times I forgot I was turned on as phrases or ideas struck me as beautiful and thought-provoking.
I read the four stories some time apart so as not to overdose on the fairy tale theme. Karin Kallmaker left me haunted, while Therese Szymanski and Julia Watts ranged from funny to hilarious. Barbara Johnson slipped a cute twist into her story and they all had lots of all female action, including the seven lusty wenches. The bedroom (or forest thicket, tower bower, mermaid's grotto etc.) action had a wide range from vanilla to earthy, something for everyone in the vast middle of the lesbian sex spectrum. No extreme kink, but no fading to black when the going gets rough either.
The four stories were all satisfying in their own way and as a whole, the anthology will stand the test of time, I think. I am eagerly awaiting the next quartet effort which I'm sure will have the same excellent writing, humor and heat that this one did.
Rating: - Didn't know what to expect!
I bought this book because I really like two of the writers but the other two I'd never read. I figured I was sure to like half, and I'd also really liked "Back to Basics" from publisher Bella Afterdark.
I didn't know what to expect and was really quite surprised -- pleasantly so. The erotica was hot, high-charged and yet not "dangerous, dirty, denigrating and disrespectful" the 4D's which turns me off in a lot of erotica these days. There's couple, one-on-one and group dynamics.
The 4 stories (novellas, they're all quite meaty) are all about women who love women with fun, sensuous, tender and/or humorous takes on fairy tales. Though I liked one far more than the others, I liked them *all*. I visited Kallmaker's website and it looks like this is going to be a series. The next is about magical lesbians. What a great idea and I'll look forward to every volume.
Rating: - Buy it and live happily ever after ...
Once upon a Dyke: New Exploits of Fairy Tale Lesbians is an amusing and arousing quartet of novellas from four well-known lesbian writers. Culturally speaking, fairy tales were created for several reasons; community identity, teaching morality, and of course, as entertainment. Thus it is fitting for a group of lesbian authors to reconsider fairy tales and ask in their introduction, "Why were the heroines always pretty, pure, passive little things who needed rescuing? .... What was so charming about Prince Charming anyway?" pviii
Julia Watts pens an interesting retelling of Beauty and the Beast set in the rural South roughly 100 years ago. "La Belle Rose" questions the nature and quality of "otherness." Everyone sees Rosie as "normal" and yet this "pretty" young woman has always felt the different-ness of her internal self. Rosie escapes the expectations of others by joining a carnival show, and finds that her views of what is proper and normal resonate with the show's company more than with her family. When Rosie finds love with a "beast" many expect that it is only a temporary amusement because Rosie is "normal" and could return to the "normal world."
Watts challenges readers to look beyond the surface and our assumptions. "La Belle Rose" is a parable for many gender issues, including the ability for more traditionally "feminine" lesbians or bisexual women to "pass" in the "normal" world. She points out that these women who have a "choice" about their role and place in society suffer pressure from both the "normal" and "other" world. Rosie's solution to this quandary is a very touching one. For fans of Watts' novels, the tone of "La Belle Rose" is recognizably hers with its engaging characters, empathetic presentation of heartache, the rural southern setting, and the touching, unexpected, resolution.
Therese Szymanski takes her readers on a witty little romp in "A Butch in Fairy Tale Land." This trip through several fairy tales is a kind of "Queer Eye meets Quantum Leap." Cody is a sweet (but don't call her that), sexy, well-meaning, romantic butch who likes to rescue fair maidens, or meddle in the lives of friends, depending upon one's point of view. Thus, when she stumbles into an enchanted forest and runs into Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and a range of princesses, Cody finds she HAS to solve their problems. (This, despite the fact that the characters are rescued in the stories that come down to us.)
The action grows erotic as Cody discovers Rapunzel in her tower, not to mention a totally new slant on Snow White and the seven ... dwarves. Cody's wry observations prompt several laughs. For example in this little bit when she evaluates her decision to kill the witch that Hansel and Gretel have met in the forest:
"The point I was struggling with was, what if this was a misunderstood good witch, a victim of patriarchal mistrust of feminine nature and oppression of old womyn and their unusual abodes? What if I chopped up a good Crone? How would I ever go [to the Michigan Music festival] topless and share tofu again? Well, now that I thought about it ... maybe the key was to just get it over quickly. Trust the fairy tale. Next time I was passing the talking stick around the bonfire, I just wouldn't mention this little episode." p82
Most contemporary fairy tale reinterpretations attempt to flesh out the stereotype or symbolic characters of the story. However, in this satirical survey of fairy tales, Cody is the opposite. She becomes "The Butch" a new queer fairy tale persona for the 21st century. Overall this characterization works as a way to keep the humors, as it were, flowing.
Barbara Johnson's "Charlotte of Hessen" is a sweet retelling of Cinderella with a sprinkle of "fairy dust." An orphaned Charlotte finds herself at the mercy of an unpleasant step-mother and two step-sisters. Charlotte takes solace in the animals of her woodland retreat and in Mina, a striking young woman sporting men's clothing. Mina's love makes her life worth living. Little does Charlotte know how true that will be! This charming story is after a fashion the most "traditional" retelling of the four. However, the erotic moments and amusing double lavender twist ending will please readers.
Karin Kallmaker's "A Fish Out of Water" turns "The Little Mermaid" on her tail and creates a "Mer" culture that is complex, magical, sensual and perhaps not as superior as it first appears. Ariel is the seventy-seventh daughter -- Not the most advantageous of birth order -- of the Queen of the Mer. When Ariel and some of her Mer friends go "hunting" for "human song" one night, Ariel accidentally breaks an edict from the queen and is punished for it. In a complicated twist, her sentence holds the possibility of a "cure" which is heavily laced with its own punishment.
Kallmaker reflects the original story's themes of love, redemption and self-sacrifice; poses questions about the nature of desire and obsession; and tweaks the reader's point of view in what is considered "perverted." As a tale about magic and fantastic beings, "Fish Out of Water" is more typical of her Laura Adams' fantasy novels than Kallmaker's contemporary romances. The story also carries Adam's lyrical writing voice with the Mer "song" imagery, dark mystic elements, and use of symbolism. This thoughtful, bittersweet story is a vast improvement over Andersen's original. Yes, it is definitely a fairy tale for this century.
Finally, Once upon a Dyke is a title in Bella Books, "Bella After Dark" imprint or as the editors say in their introduction, "Fairy Tales are about sex, and we're not shy." pviii The sex gets steamy and sometimes may challenge readers. The novella formats make for a nice change of pace in reading. Once upon a Dyke is romantic, funny, thoughtful, and hot. Buy a copy and live happily ever after, for a while.
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