I have been a storyteller since I learned to write. I still have the first two short stories I wrote in the first grade. My very first story had a shape shifting witch and a sea monster. My fascination with fantasy and magic started at that early age and continued on, fueled by a diet of fantasy and fairy tales—the darker, the better. I haven’t yet seen Maleficent, but I’m looking forward to it, it’s the kind of movie I would have loved as a kid—and still love as an adult. Summer movie fare is all about escapism and adventure and the summer of 2014 is shaping up to be a memorable one with heroes, villains, quests and, at the heart of most every story, a romance. But let’s talk about fairy tales, as they are particularly near and dear to my heart this summer.

Fairy tales have made a huge resurgence in popular culture in the last decade. We’ve seen retellings of everything from Cinderella to Hansel and Gretel, in both blockbuster films and on television and cable. It’s not surprising that we’re starting to see stories of the villains being told—after all, sometimes the evil characters are the most interesting… right? And sometimes, they turn out not to be evil at all.

I just edited my third collection of erotic romance fairy tales for Cleis Press and it is darker, edgier and, I think, even better than the previous two collections, Fairy Tale Lust and Lustfully Ever After. A Princess Bound: Naughty Fairy Tales for Women goes where I haven’t gone before, bringing a BDSM twist to the fairy tale genre. Since this is a genre that is one of my first and enduring loves, I wanted to create a one-of-a-kind anthology for readers like me, who grew up heavily influenced by fairy tales and longing for both the nostalgia of those fantasy tales and a little something.. sexier.

Fairy tales tap into our deepest fantasies and darkest desires, weaving both the magical and historical into larger than life adventures of courage, quests, true love and good conquering evil. A Princess Bound has all of the classic fairy tale elements, along with sexy, kinky romance!

Here is an excerpt from the lovely, erotic story “Sealed” by Laila Blake:

When James Edward Dowascath met his future wife for the first time, he was a young lad of nineteen years, strong and full of dreams and desires. When he met her again, seven years later, the years of waiting and thinking of his one true love had turned him prematurely grim and solitary.

The first time, it was by chance. He had spent a long day at a cousin’s wedding in Kirkwall—a loud event with too many people, and his aunts pushing him towards young women who all laughed too loudly at the boys who were fool enough to make advances while the girls were in packs. He’d found himself by the sea that evening, letting the sound of the waves wash his ear canals clean. And there she was, naked and bathing in the ocean, scattering the moonlight about herself like liquid silver. He had called to her and she had smiled—that beautiful, innocent smile that she still had. They had made love on the wet sand in the surf, where he had made her kneel on all fours. Afterwards they had cleaned themselves together and she had lain in his arms and she had begged him not to let her go. But James had not understood, had smiled and promised without knowing what she’d meant. He was not a man who believed in fairy tales and old myths.

The next morning, he woke up to the high tide licking at his feet and the girl was gone. He waited for her for weeks, night after night but she never came back and James grew bitter and lonely as the seasons passed.

Seven years later, he was a different man. He owned the family house and lived alone, a fisherman who nobody had called ‘young man’ in years. His lined and dour face seemed to suggest a man far older than his twenty-six years. And one night, it was another full moon, he was awoken by a rap at the door.

There she was, his girl. Unlike him, she had not changed, not at all, she was still naked and soft and she still shimmered in the moon-light. Her eyes met his and her hand, still cold and wet, ran over his saddened, aged features as though she could wash the years away.

“Why did you let me go?” she asked. And that night, he tied her to his bed and he made her scream and writhe and beg and whimper like he had never seen a woman before, in pleasure he hadn’t known was possible. In the morning, her wrists and ankles had been red with rope burn and she’d told him what to do: how to find her skin and how to burn it so that the pull of the ocean could not draw her away from him like the tide.

While I can’t wait to see Maleficent for my own entertainment, it does put in me in the mood to edit a collection of erotic fairy tales based on villains. What do you think? Would you like to read an anthology of erotic romance where the evil queen finds true love (and lust) and that twisted little fellow Rumplestiltskin meets his match in an erotic battle of the wits? Hmm…

Where you can find A Princess Bound: Naught Fairy Tales for Women:
Cleis Press: http://www.cleispress.com/book_page.php?book_id=604
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Bound-Naughty-Fairy-Tales/dp/1627780351/
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-princess-bound-kristina-wright/1116957211?ean=9781627780353

More about Kristina Wright:
Website/blog: kristinawright.com
Facebook: facebook.com/kristinacw
Twitter: twitter.com/kristinawright