SHORTLISTED FOR THE TADEUSZ BRADECKI PRIZE 'Elegant and decadent vulgar and clever
enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin - the book I really really
needed' SARAH PERRY author of The Essex Serpent 'The sentences sing on the page with wit and
intelligence ... This memorable novel reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling
to transform and even save lives then and now' THE NEW YORK TIMES Why don't they tell you
it is the beautiful princess who becomes the evil queen that they are just the same person at
different points in their story? Versailles 1682: a city of the rich a living fairy-tale
Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of opulence beauty and power. But strip back the lavish
exterior of polite society and you'll find a dark undercurrent of sexual intrigue and vicious
gossip. Nobody is safe here - no matter how highly born they are. No one knows this better
than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week a rogue group of intellectuals gather at her Parisian
home to debate flirt and perform Contes de Fées - fairy tales - that challenge the status quo
at a salon that will change the course of literature forever. But while they weave tales of
glass slippers enchanted beasts and long-haired princesses a wolf is lurking who threatens
to destroy the members of the salon one by one. Brilliant and bawdy romantic and provocative
The Modern Fairies is a dazzling novel inspired by real events about the delights and dangers
of storytelling in dark times. 'Funny filthy dancingly clever: a delectable confection of
many-layered pleasures. A story of stories storytellers and the lurking dangers of
fairytales. It reminded me of Jeanette Winterson's The Passion and I gobbled it all up' JOANNA
QUINN author of The Whalebone Theatre 'Original fantastical historical and
unputdownable' KAREN JOY FOWLER Booker Prize-shortlisted author of We Are All Completely
Beside Ourselves 'Pollard's future as a novelist is very bright indeed' THE I praise for
Delphi
