I first read this book somewhere between 20 and 25 years ago, pulling it out of the paperback carousel at my local library. It was more or less the first work of fantasy I had ever read outside of a few classics and it legitimately changed my life. The stories stuck in my imagination in a way nothing else ever had and awoke a new way of thinking about the world. I went on a huge Robin McKinley kick after reading it and came to love her other works, which I still reread periodically.

But I hadn't come back to this one, a bit afraid that it wouldn't stand up to the test of time and age and a great deal of fantasy read in the interim.

I am so pleased that it does. If found this book for the first time today I would still love it. It is so evocative and thoughtful, and builds all that is necessary in a short span of pages.

My thanks to the library, to Robin McKinley, perhaps- I should like to think- to Luthe for the chance that led me on the journey I began so long ago, providing a nudge in the direction that would open the doors of imagination.

Short story collections are often so underwhelming and unsatisfying, and this was no exception. I enjoyed Touk's House, but I would've enjoyed it much more as a full novel. The title story really did nothing for me. And the other three were...okayish.

(Also, I don't really think much about it reading her novels, but in a short story collection it is so much more obvious how much of a thing Robin McKinley has for May-December romances.)

Apparently I am okay with reading a book of collected novellas from the same author. An anthology of short stories from the same author seems to get on my nerves, but not a novella. Of course, it could just be that it's an anthology from Robin McKinley and therefore I don't mind.

I was really expecting to find one (or both) of Aerin's visions in this collection, but I didn't. So I shall have to continue.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had actually not read all of these novellas before, in fact the only one I've read was the first.

I did not like them all equally. The buttercup one, for instance, I didn't like. There were just too many things that were left loose ended. Why did Coral and her family run away from the mountains? What was the bane she carried? I don't know.

Ruen's story was just annoying. Why did she have to go back to her country, and why did Luthe make her? Couldn't she have just married the stag man like she wanted and let her country just get taken over by the neighbors? They seemed nice enough as it was, why not just annex the two countries together and she wouldn't have 20 years of suffering before she got to do what she wanted. It wasn't like she actually ruled anything. To be honest, it didn't seem like McKinley at all, Ruen was way too passive to be a McKinley character, and everything was a little too pat, and a little too fairy tale to mesh well. Maybe she was writing it tongue in cheek.

I love McKinlley's fairy tales, which most of these were, and my heart was stolen by Luthe many years ago.

EXCELLENT set of stories, some I loved, some were really good, only one was " meh"... But that's a matter of opinion.

Robin McKinley is a hit or miss for me. Nothing offensive and the writing is decent as always, but I was underwhelmed by these short stories.

All I want to do is read fairytales and I can’t get this mood to stop in order to tackle some arcs.

I always enjoy McKinley’s writing. It’s obvious she draws so much inspiration from fairy tales and I love that about her as an author. I grew up reading them myself and whenever I read her books, I think about how one day, I’d like to be someone like her: a quite understated but also entirely relatable imagination stuck in a body that has to write to be free.

Five short stories of fantasy. The first two take place in the author's realm of Damar. The third, Touk's House is a fairy tale that turns convention on its head. Buttercups made me think about what is really of value: gold or love? The title story, set at the time of writing, is about wish fulfillment. All very enjoyable. Recommended.

A Knot in the Grain

A story of change, and hope, and fairy dust. Two of the stories in this book are excellent, the kind that make you think about what is being written. The other two are excellent but I'm still considering them.

Reading Robin McKinley's blog, as I do, has given me a rather acute sensitivity to her prose style. In the case of this book, this is acutally rather an asset, as it renders the prose nearly transparent, letting me appreciate the stories more than I think I did when I first read them fifteen years ago. I do still get a little irritated with Luthe's tendency to show up and solve everyone's problems--it might not be so conspicuous if it didn't occur in two successive stories--but the entire book is redeemed for me by the wonderful ending of the final story. To have a teen girl, uprooted by a move, discover and use a powerful and deeply mysterious magic to save her new town from development, and then set that magic firmly aside so that she might live a normal life...what a wonderfully unconventional story. And how utterly delightful. I love it.

The characters are of course the main attraction here for me--the middle aged farmer and his lovely young wife in "Buttercups", the mute healer Lily in the first story, and of course Annabelle in "A Knot in the Grain." The other two stories are more overlty fairy-tale, with somewhat less engaging characters; the stories are fairy tales, rather than being tales of the numinous breaking in on otherwise normal people with their lives and preoccupations. Even a McKinley story that I don't adore, however, is a good use of my time.

Creative and entertaining stories with endings you might not expect.

Those collected short stories are all very atmospheric and subtle. I almost think they're too subtle for children and would have been better marketed for adults. I can definitely remember rereading the titular story several times as a kid, trying to figure out what happened--or more specifically, how what happened was supposed to be the end of a story. I understood all the words and the events, but it wasn't a satisfying conclusion when I was 12.

But since "The Knot In The Grain" has stuck with me for 20+ years, it obviously caught my attention and hold on tight. The story was bittersweet and lovely this time around.