I just read this book called Red by Kate SeRine. The general gist of it is that a faerie godmother (Cinderella’s) and a djinn (Aladdin’s) got in a magic fight and ripped a hole in the fabric of reality between the land of make believe and the “here & now” (being the human or Ordinary world). This transplanted (ah hah! series name right there!) a whole of faerie tale people and creatures. Though strictly speaking they aren’t limited to just what we would consider faerie tales (Cinderella, Little Miss Muffett, Beauty and the Beast etc). It really covered literature as a whole, bringing over people from various points in their stories. For instance, Juliet is alive and well (and married to a gangster)…for now.

Red is about, I’m sure you guess, Little Red Riding Hood. Her name is Tess Little (ha) and she may be short but she’s no young lass. She’s an adult woman who works for the “Fairytale Management Authority” (FMA). They make sure that the transplanted tales don’t garner the attention of ordinary humans. See, its really rather hard to kill a Tale and they also retain characteristics from their stories (werewolves in literature will be werewolves here, faeries still have wings and magic etc). Ordinaries would likely want to either kill or study them, so everything needs to be hush-hush. If a Tale is injured, they’re taken to a special, Tale only hospital. There is at least one Tale only jail where one can spend decades or more and come out looking the same.

Red starts out tracking down the Pied Piper because he broke his parole (this guy is apparently a pedophile in this story and now I will never be able to read that story to children because ICK). Instead of ‘coming quietly’ for a year or two to finish his sentence, he takes his own life. It sparks an investigation where Red gets a new partner, a reaper with a fondness for film noir clothing called Nate Grimm (which cracks me the hell up because I know a guy by that name).

The Pied Piper is not the only Tale to mysteriously die and now Red is on the heels of a serial Tale killer who may or may not be one of her (many) exes including one Big Bad Wolf (aka Seth Wolf).  Will she find out who is behind the killings? How much will it cost her? I really hope you find out because this book was fun and interesting. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a concept like this before and if I have, it certainly isn’t as well done. I’ve picked up the next book in the series, The Better to See You. Can’t wait to finish that one. One thing is for certain, you will never look at any faerie tales the same way again. I think this includes if you have read the original Grimm and Anderson tales, which are much darker than the faerie tales American kids are raised on.

Rating: A. Pick it up.