The Midnight Forest is a place where curses are cast... but also broken.

If you love action-packed, character-driven medieval shapeshifer fairytales, you won't want to miss this enthralling collection, where every story will leave you guessing right until the end.

Amberflame

Take a midnight walk with Willa to meet her lover. But keep an eye on the sky, or you might not make it home.

Amélie

A castle under siege. A magic amulet. Amélie is on her own. She knows that the enemy has come a long way and will take no prisoners.

Artemis' Wings

Cross the cursed lake with Artemis to face an evil sorcerer. But beware of the creatures lurking in the dark waters.

Aura

Breitenau is in flames. Marielle can't control the fire. Who will she turn to for help when there is no one left to trust?

Anguish

Enjoy an evening in the gardens of Asterbury Hall with Mary. But careful! The creature in the hedges has teeth, and it will bite.

Five unusual shapeshifters, five hauntingly suspenseful reads you won't forget - in one volume! Includes one previously unpublished story.

This book was provided for free by the Author and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

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Tales from the Midnight Forest: The Shapeshifter Collection is a collection of Lisa Hofmann’s previously separately published short stories and a new previously unpublished story, now collated under one theme: stories about unusual shapeshifter women. Shapeshifters have always fascinated me, and I love short story collections, so when Lisa requested a review, I was happy to oblige!

Tales from the Midnight Forest is a wonderful collection of short stories for fans of fantasy, creative world building, shapeshifters and particularly female protagonists with spirit, which means, for me, it ticked all the right boxes! The Shapeshifter Collection contains five stories dedicated to female shapeshifters, and they couldn’t be more different from each other in terms of the nature of shapeshifting. The stories are spread out throughout history, with the synopsis listing their settings as medieval Ireland, Germany, France, and 19th-century England.

The five stories are:

‘Amberflame’ takes us to a kingdom terrorised by a dragon. A midnight walk with Willa to meet her lover to meet her lover turns into a fight for her life when the dragon unexpectedly turns up after a nearby town fails to provide its tribute to appease the dangerous beast. Willa is plunged into a world of dangerous secrets and magic as she seeks to stop the dragon and reclaim her future.

‘Amélie’ takes us back in time to when the Saxons were invading lands across Europe. In one such land, a castle is under siege, and a young girl, Amélie, is forced to accept the harsh reality of the situation. Her father is dead, her mother is dying, and the enemy has come a long way and will take no prisoners. To stay in the castle and wait for the enemy to crash through their weakening defences is suicide. With just the clothes on her back and a parting gift from her mother, a strange amulet each and strict instructions about it, she and her brother are ushered out through a secret entrance. It’s not so hidden, though, and Amélie soon finds herself alone with just the amulet and those strange instructions to protect her…

‘Artemis’ Wings’ is an interesting story that at first glance appears to be the usual fantasy trope of a curse laid by an evil sorcerer. Artemis and her family have been cursed, forced to abandon their royal birthright and live their lives on an island, isolated from everything and everyone. That is, until something changes and Artemis learns that there’s more to the curse than she ever knew. Sometimes, not everything is as it appears.

In ‘Aura’, Marielle finds herself struggling with the terrifying ability to create fire, yet has no way to control it. With no one to turn to, she finds help, and surprising and terrifying answers, in a place she least expects it.

‘Anguish’ is a story about a young girl, Mary, whose new home is full of secrets. The garden is home to a monster that only Mary can see, and no one, not even her new stepsister Amanda, believes her. The monster in the garden is the least of Mary’s worries when it is revealed what is actually happening at Asterbury Hall.

What stopped Tales from the Midnight Forest from receiving a higher rating from me was that, after a few stories, I felt that there were too many recurring themes. Several of the heroines were just a little too similar at times, especially in their attitudes and their desires. There is an overarching theme of an unhappy home life and a need to escape it, to be free and independent. This may be completely intentional; in a lot of literature, the ability to change shape is seen as freeing, as is a shapeshifter’s connection to the wild. That would make sense if these stories had originally been written as an intended collection; they weren’t. They were all written at different times and have now been collected in one work, which suggests the theme may not be intentional. Rather than the theme being comforting, I found that it made the stories a bit predictable, and that is what made Tales from the Midnight Forest less enjoyable for me.

Despite this, the level of creativity and the fantastic variety in the type of shapeshifters featured in Tales from the Midnight Forest make it one of the best selections of shapeshifter stories I have read in a long time. Everyone has a unique method of shapeshifting that has been beautifully created, and even better, there’s not a wolf shapeshifter in sight! Not that I have anything against wolf shapeshifters or werewolves, but let’s be frank, they are so overused! The mixture of mythical (dragon and phoenix), mundane (fox and raven) and unusual (bat) is just right, and there are a few more surprises not mentioned in the synopsis that you’ll just have to find out for yourself 😉

Thank you for reading my review of Tales from the Midnight Forest. If you’re a fan of shapeshifters or just love a good fantasy short story, then this is a collection you’ll enjoy.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of my reviews if you’re looking for some more book recommendations 🙂 You can also now sign up for my newsletter to get an email each month with a list of my new reviews!

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