Seek

by Sarah Diemer

What would you do to be with the love of your life? Seek, a lady knight, has asked herself this question and come to a bone-chilling conclusion: she would summon a monster from the ocean's depths. But is Lady Ella truly worth the ugly price the monster demands?


"Seek" is a dark fantasy short story about desire and how strange love can be. "Seek" is part of the forthcoming collection LOVE DEVOURS: TALES OF MONSTROUS ADORATION, Sarah Diemer's first anthology, a collection of queer dark fantasy and science fiction stories.

Genres: LGBT, Fantasy, Lesbian, Young Adult, Queer, Short Stories

ebook

First published July 30, 2012

About the author

I write about heroic, magical girls who love girls. YA author of Golden Crown Award-winning THE DARK WIFE (the lesbian, YA retelling of the Persephone myth) and TWIXT and co-author, with my amazing wife, author Jennifer Diemer, of Project Unicorn: A Lesbian YA Extravaganza.
http://www.MuseRising.com

Reviews

[Nicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should probably have waited for the whole anthology, rather than purchasing the short stories available on their own on Amazon, but I'm impatient when it comes to Sarah Diemer -- particularly as I love the way her work is developing, and I love (and believe in the importance of) her stated goals of putting lesbian fantasy, particularly YA, out there. It is something people need -- if I could've given this to my sister, when she was younger, it would've helped so much. If I'd had this to read myself when I was younger, it'd have helped.

Anyway. Like her other short stories, I think Seek is very well-structured, and this one is quite... dark, too, in a way that surprised and pleased me. It sounds like a traditional fairytale just twisted, just a little -- but it turns out not to be. I thought I knew where it was going, and I didn't. Sarah Diemer played pretty neatly with my expectations, there.

To me, it's definitely worth getting the stories separately rather than waiting for the anthology. They bring a little spot of love (I won't say light, in the case of this story) into any day.

[Jaylee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is not nearly as amazing as the Witch Sea... and perhaps it's not fair to compare them. But the writing was not as rich and the characters were not as deep either. I think this story is shorter (at least it felt so) and so I didn't really get a strong feel for any of the characters. The ending felt a bit rushed as well. This wasn't a bad story, and there were parts of it I enjoyed, but it just wasn't SPECTACULAR.

I am awful at reviews, haha.

[Anna (Bananas) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. Nice little twist. Didn't make a big impact on me though.

[Annalise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed this more than the sea witch, dont kill me!

[Ayse · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was well written in a believable fairytale style, but it is a world populated only by lesbians, so the fantasy is too far a stretch. In a lesbian retelling I would rather that the tale resemble a world where lesbians exist within a larger tapestry, not one where everyone and every classical trope is replaced by a lesbian sensibility. In this particular story, I would have enjoyed it much more, it would have felt more real, more like a tale in a possible world if Seek were a man. Then everything that happens could unfold the same, even the lovely princess. It seems silly to talk of realism in a fantasy, but suspension of disbelief can only get you so far. In a fairytale world that seems like the familiar one that we grew up in, the extreme unreality of every female character being a lesbian suspends my disbelief too far. Fairytales are the parables that we tell to give moral lessons about the real world using a world that could exist. Since I know this world does not exist, it didn't lead to a moral that carried any weight for me. I don't mean to say that a lady knight cannot be all the things that Seek was, but this story was about the muse. I look forward to a different story focused on a knight. A good short read but left me wishing the author had been slightly more subtle..

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the moment this is possibly my very most favorite story of Sarah's. I was following along, watching the drama unfold, pleasantly attaching myself to Seek, The Lady Knight and her cause (To Win Her Lovely Lady' Hand), assuming she would learn her lessons along the way, find the value of true love and grow into an extraordinary person.

But?


I was totally wrong and my warm, comfy confine couch of assumption was blown out of the water.

But what happened was even better, deeper, richer, and full of so much more commentary (and circuity) about love, faste, and destiny. This book has, once again, broaden my great love and respect for all that Sarah can bring to the field of storytelling.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

creepy and satisfying!

[Aine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is my favorite story of hers!

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunning piece of magic. Sarah Diemer gets better and better!