The essence of fantasy is magic and the folklore of women has often dwelt on the innumerable powers they possess. Magic that heals, magic that destroys, magic that saves their community. All these elements and more can be found in the queer women of Hellebore & Rue. These lesbians shape their worlds, their wants and needs, and, most important, their destinies. Here are stories of a greenmage reuniting with her former partner on one last mission in Connie Wilkin's "The Windskimmer"; a shaman calling on the power of the Medicine Buddha to fight demons in Jean Marie Ward's "Personal Demons"; and even an aging school nurse discovering a dark secret about her heritage in Steve Berman's "D is for Delicious." A dozen stories by a dozen talented authors, including Juliet Kemp, Lisa Morton, Ruth Sorrell, C. B. Calsing and other names that promise the reader many wonders.

Queer women and magic

Fairy tales never leave us. Romantic and sensual, dark and terrifying, old and new, these ten stories move beyond the old trope of prince and princess living happily ever. Sleeping Beauty, Indeed offers readers imaginative tales based on the classic works - Cinderella, the Pied Piper - but retold through the lavender lens of lesbian experience. With such talented contributors as Meredith Schwarz, Catherynne M. Valente, and Erzebet YellowBoy, turning a page is like taking a bite of that luscious apple. Sweet and dangerous but fated.

Lesbian fairy tales

The fifteen tantalizing, thrilling, and ingenious tales in Steam-Powered put a new spin on steampunk by putting women where they belong -- in the captain's chair, the laboratory, and one another's arms. Here you'll meet inventors, diamond thieves, lonely pawn brokers, clockwork empresses, brilliant asylum inmates, and privateers in the service of San Francisco's eccentric empire. Though they hail from across the globe and universes far away, each character is driven to follow her own path to independence and to romance. The women of Steam-Powered push steampunk to its limits and beyond. "From colonial India to New Orleans in slavery times, from a rogue San Francisco to the Lower East Side of old New York, these stories are thoughtful, wide-ranging, exciting, and often very, very sexy. Anybody who thinks that "steampunk" and "lesbian" are niche interests should read Steam-Powered and get their horizons seriously expanded." -Delia Sherman, Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner and author of Through a Brazen Mirror.

Lesbian characters, diverse characters

These fifteen thrilling and ingenious tales take the familiar genre of steampunk in exciting new directions, following women from across the globe and through pasts that never were (but could have been) on their search for money, adventure, prestige, freedom--and the love of another woman. Here you'll meet a Moroccan airship engineer and an English diplomat who receive a cryptic message and an exploding music box, a librarian who doubts her God, a Malaysian shipping clerk who dreams of adventure, a terracotta bride from the Tenth Circle of Hell, and an aeronaut on her way to certain death and a surprising discovery--and many more. Though they hail from across the globe and universes far away, each of them is driven to follow her own path to independence and to romance. The women of Steam-Powered 2 push steampunk to its limits and beyond.

Lesbian characters, diverse characters