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Anne Sheldon's heroines have lowered eyes and seditious smiles. They are people of folklore and fairy tales: Penelope, the Crane Maiden, the Fates. Her heroes are outsiders in their own stories--Rumplestiltskin and Arachne's father.

These fourteen story-poems and stories focus on the work that women do with spinning wheel, spindle, and knitting needles. They are accompanied by evocative images of these instruments and the cloth they yield

In addition to reworking well-known fairy tales, she has several shining tales of her own making. Under the fluid sign of danger and domesticity--Anne Sheldon explores earthly and ethereal regions of the feminine.

Table of Contents:

• The Knitters of Paris
• The Fates at Work
• The Thirteenth Fairy
• Spider Yarn
• The Story of Arachne
• A Passing Good Woman
• The Horned Women of Slievenamon
• Rumpelstiltskin Laments
• The Girl with Twelve Brothers
• An Apocryphal Legend
• Dream from My Mother's House
• Household Needles
• The Crane Maiden
• Penelope at Night
• Bachelorae Antiquae
• Grandmother's Flower Garden
• The Art of Fiber

Fi is a bookish treasure hunter with a knack for ruins and riddles who definitely doesn't believe in true love.

Shane is a tough-as-dirt girl warrior from the north who likes cracking skulls, pretty girls, and doing things her own way.

Briar Rose is a prince under a sleeping curse who's been waiting a hundred years for the kiss that will wake him.

Cursed princes are nothing but ancient history to Fi - until she pricks her finger on a bone spindle while exploring a long-lost ruin. Now she's stuck with the spirit of Briar Rose until she and Shane can break the century-old curse on his kingdom.

Dark magic, witch hunters, and bad exes all stand in her way - not to mention a mysterious witch who might wind up stealing Shane's heart, along with whatever else she's after. But nothing scares Fi more than the possibility of falling in love with Briar Rose.

Fi has awakened the sleeping prince, but the battle for Andar is far from over. The Spindle Witch, the Witch Hunters, and Fi's own Butterfly Curse all stand between them and happily ever after.

Shane has her partner's back. But she's in for the fight of her life against Red, the right hand of the Spindle Witch who she's also, foolishly, hellbent on saving.

Briar Rose would do anything to restore his kingdom. But there's a darkness creeping inside him--a sinister bond to the Spindle Witch he can't escape.

All hopes of restoring Andar rest on deciphering a mysterious book code, finding the hidden city of the last Witches, and uncovering a secret lost for centuries--one that just might hold the key to the Spindle Witch's defeat. If they can all survive that long...

Fi is a prisoner. Briar, a monster. Shane's a warrior. And Red is a traitor. What was once a formidable group of four fighting to reawaken the kingdom is now ruptured, torn apart by the wicked Spindle Witch.

Confined to a tower with the monstrous Briar Rose, Fi is caught in the Spindle Witch's ever-tightening web. With the Spindle Witch on the verge of finding the Siphoning Spells and crushing Andar--with Fi's help, no less--Fi's only hope lies in decoding the ancient riddle of the Rose Witches before she loses Briar forever.

Shane is desperate to save Andar--and her partner. She's on the hunt for a weapon left by the mysterious Lord of the Butterflies, which holds the key to the Spindle Witch's demise. Her love for Red has only fortified. But Red's betrayal puts her in danger from a new enemy--the Spindle Witch's executioner, the Wraith, a witch as powerful as he is cruel.

The future of Andar lies in the secrets of its past. Fi and Shane must take on the greatest lost ruin of them all--the Tomb of Queen Aurora.