August 2011 Guest Editor Julie Hearn: It is with a mixture of respect and delight that I greet any book capable of blasting an entire genre out of the water with its audacity and grace. Tender Morsels is such a book.” So wrote Meg Rosoff , in a review for The Guardian (1st August 2009). I’ll second that, I thought. A loose re-working of the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red, this novel follows an abused young girl into an alternative universe. It is shocking, fiercely clever and so beautifully written that if I ever meet Margo Lanagan (unlikely, as she lives in Australia) I will probably stutter, in awe. I teach a ‘Writing Fiction for Young Adults’ summer school course, at Oxford University, and always cite Lanagan’s work – this novel, in particular, along with her short story collections Black Juice and Red Spikes – as examples of fine writing for older teens who like their fiction strong and dark, without sugar.
The Lovereading Comment:
This is a striking retelling of the Grimms’ Snow White and Rose Red, beautifully written and strangely original. It’s an unforgettable novel that is sure to shock and amaze in equal measure. Constantly shifting from beauty to horror, darkness to light, Tender Morsels will take you to the very edge. But one thing is for sure, it’s guaranteed to enthral you and hold you within the pages until the very end.
Liga endures unspeakable cruelties at the hands of her father, before being magically granted her own personal heaven, a safe haven from the real world. She raises her two daughters in this alternate reality, and they grow up protected from the violence that once harmed their mother. But the real world cannot be denied forever ...Magicked men and wild bears break down the borders of Liga's refuge. Now, having known Heaven, how will these three women survive in a world where beauty and brutality lie side by side?
Margo Lanagan is a highly acclaimed writer of novels, short stories and poetry. Black Juice, her second collection of stories, won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection. Margo lives with her husband and sons in Sydney, Australia.
