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Monstrous Little Voices #1
Coral Bones
Miranda, daughter to Prospero, the feared sorcerer-Duke of Milan, stifles in her new marriage. Oppressed by her father, unloved by Ferdinand, she seeks freedom; and is granted it, when her childhood friend, the fairy spirit Ariel, returns. Miranda sets out to reach Queen Titania’s court in Illyria, to make a new future...
Monstrous Little Voices is a collection of five short novellas, a single long tale set in Shakespeare’s fantasy world of fairies, wizards and potions, in honour of the four-hundredth anniversary of the Bard’s death.
Monstrous Little Voices is a collection of five short novellas, a single long tale set in Shakespeare’s fantasy world of fairies, wizards and potions, in honour of the four-hundredth anniversary of the Bard’s death.
54 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 8, 2016
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308 people want to read
About the author
Foz Meadows
22 books1,174 followersFoz Meadows is a queer SFF author living in California.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 1, 2016
Notes on Diversity:
Ah, it's like this book was written just for me! A FAAB genderqueer protagonist!
IT ME.
UGH. ALL MAH FEELS.
So, yeah, Miranda is genderqueer (genderfluid might be a better word for her*?). And Ariel, too! Which I always felt like was probably true, actually, Shakespeare.
AND. Foz Meadows includes in her portrait of the fairy realm many fairies of color, even as they are described in fantastical ways. Moth might have skin like a moth's wings--"whites and browns in a calico patchwork"--but her kinky black and silver hair clearly signal she is a person of color. Queen Titania, likewise, has kinky hair and her "skin is the colour of burnished copper." That's right, the most powerful person in the story, the fairy queen herself, is coded as Black. Puck, too, has horns but is also brown-skinned. The preponderance of brown fairies normalized the idea of fairies of color within the story itself.
First a very small spoiler and content warning:
If you are triggered by incest, you may want to tread carefully with this book. Meadows is careful to state that nothing actually happened between Prospero and Miranda, but that that island was desolate and lonely, and that when she came into adolescence his looks lingered. She definitely felt unsafe. There was definite squick (none of it, course, any fault of Miranda's; the text is clear on this point). There was a definite sense that something could have happened without her and Ariel's joint intervention. Just a heads up.
Review:
Ok! Now, without further preamble, the review itself!
CORAL BONES by Foz Meadows, is a novella which follows Miranda, from Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST**, after her return to Europe. Miranda sails away, marries Ferdinand, and that's supposed to be happily ever after, yes? But what if no. What if being raised by a form-switching fairy on an isolated island steeped in magic leaves Miranda with an altogether different understanding of the world and of herself.
What if the reason she left the island in the first place is not, precisely, because she was madly in love with Ferdinand?
What if there is more than one brave new world out there for Miranda to explore? What if there is more than one brave new Miranda for Miranda to explore?
For Miranda, all of these are questions of gender, and all of these are questions of role expectations, and all of these are questions of agency all at once. It's really a story about self-determination and self-acceptance, which is very much my jam. But Miran-Miranda (as she comes to refer to herself) is extremely smart, and her allies--Ariel and Puck***--are clever and helpful and respectful. They are both so well-drawn; each are utterly recognizable within the frames of their Shakespearean origins but have been brought to life again as more realized and more weathered creatures. They have worries. They have entanglements.
Truly, I wish this novella was longer. Let me clarify that I don't think it needed to be longer; the story was well-paced and well-developed. It had a complete arc. I just want more! It ended, and my heart wasn't ready to move on. But what happens next? What happens now that Miran-Miranda is at Titania's court? What happens next?
FOR FOZ MEADOWS TO WRITE A SEQUEL TO THIS NOVELLA. TELL ME MORE STORY, PLEASE.
I wanted it to be longer partly because here is a main character that thinks and feels and reflect on gender, who embodies gender and experiences it, so very much like I do. And that is incredibly rare. In describing her fluctuating experience of gender to Puck, Miran-Miranda says:
I don't know that I've ever read anything that captures my experience as a genderqueer/genderfluid person as honestly or with as much poetry as this. (This also gives a sneak peek at Meadows' writing, which has lovely Shakespearean flourishes and wordplay throughout).
Beyond that, while CORAL BONES is essentially Miran-Miranda's coming-to-terms tale (coming-out-to-self? Is there a better term for this narrative?), the ending is so full of promise and action that I am desperately curious about the adventures that Miran-Miranda is sure to have after the final line. Just as in THE TEMPEST the ending posits that this is a new, exciting chapter for her. And I would love to witness it.
I am kind of a Shakespeare nerd. And I'm genderqueer. And I used to work at Renaissance Faires where, as a child, I dressed as a Puckish type fairy. Literally I am *the* target audience for this novella. But, truly? I don't think you have to be any of these things to love this book. Miran-Miranda's tasks and journey to the fairy court have tension and stakes. The plot moves. The writing is clever and not overly Shakespearean, just enough to give nods. You don't even have to be familiar with THE TEMPEST or MIDSUMMER. The novella presumes no prior familiarity with the source material; you can simply pick it up and go, which I think is one of its great strengths. If you are at all interested in feminist fantasy or in trans/non-binary fantasy, or in really cool fairies, I strongly recommend this fabulous short read.
____
*Miran-Miranda uses female pronouns throughout.
**I remember Meadows tweeting about an idea for a genderqueer Miranda story and I BASICALLY LOST IT because a) I adore Foz Meadows and b) THE TEMPEST is my favorite Shakespeare play. I'm a little obsessed with it.
***Puck's reworking here is especially ingenious given the way it ties THE TEMPEST and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM together. I loved him here and generally dislike him in the play, but he was true to form. I got the sense from the novella that he has a peculiar and idiosyncratic sense of loyalty that fits so well with the idea of him.
Ah, it's like this book was written just for me! A FAAB genderqueer protagonist!
IT ME.
UGH. ALL MAH FEELS.
So, yeah, Miranda is genderqueer (genderfluid might be a better word for her*?). And Ariel, too! Which I always felt like was probably true, actually, Shakespeare.
AND. Foz Meadows includes in her portrait of the fairy realm many fairies of color, even as they are described in fantastical ways. Moth might have skin like a moth's wings--"whites and browns in a calico patchwork"--but her kinky black and silver hair clearly signal she is a person of color. Queen Titania, likewise, has kinky hair and her "skin is the colour of burnished copper." That's right, the most powerful person in the story, the fairy queen herself, is coded as Black. Puck, too, has horns but is also brown-skinned. The preponderance of brown fairies normalized the idea of fairies of color within the story itself.
First a very small spoiler and content warning:
If you are triggered by incest, you may want to tread carefully with this book. Meadows is careful to state that nothing actually happened between Prospero and Miranda, but that that island was desolate and lonely, and that when she came into adolescence his looks lingered. She definitely felt unsafe. There was definite squick (none of it, course, any fault of Miranda's; the text is clear on this point). There was a definite sense that something could have happened without her and Ariel's joint intervention. Just a heads up.
Review:
Ok! Now, without further preamble, the review itself!
CORAL BONES by Foz Meadows, is a novella which follows Miranda, from Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST**, after her return to Europe. Miranda sails away, marries Ferdinand, and that's supposed to be happily ever after, yes? But what if no. What if being raised by a form-switching fairy on an isolated island steeped in magic leaves Miranda with an altogether different understanding of the world and of herself.
What if the reason she left the island in the first place is not, precisely, because she was madly in love with Ferdinand?
What if there is more than one brave new world out there for Miranda to explore? What if there is more than one brave new Miranda for Miranda to explore?
For Miranda, all of these are questions of gender, and all of these are questions of role expectations, and all of these are questions of agency all at once. It's really a story about self-determination and self-acceptance, which is very much my jam. But Miran-Miranda (as she comes to refer to herself) is extremely smart, and her allies--Ariel and Puck***--are clever and helpful and respectful. They are both so well-drawn; each are utterly recognizable within the frames of their Shakespearean origins but have been brought to life again as more realized and more weathered creatures. They have worries. They have entanglements.
Truly, I wish this novella was longer. Let me clarify that I don't think it needed to be longer; the story was well-paced and well-developed. It had a complete arc. I just want more! It ended, and my heart wasn't ready to move on. But what happens next? What happens now that Miran-Miranda is at Titania's court? What happens next?
FOR FOZ MEADOWS TO WRITE A SEQUEL TO THIS NOVELLA. TELL ME MORE STORY, PLEASE.
I wanted it to be longer partly because here is a main character that thinks and feels and reflect on gender, who embodies gender and experiences it, so very much like I do. And that is incredibly rare. In describing her fluctuating experience of gender to Puck, Miran-Miranda says:
My heart is a moon, and some days I am full and bright within myself, a shape that fits my name, and then I fade, and mirrors show only a half-light shared with a silhouette, an absence my form reflects; and then, in the dark, I am dark altogether, until I regrow again. Why should such a thing be any more difficult to grasp than the fact that some think me dead, and yet I live? The contradiction is only in their perception of what I am.
I don't know that I've ever read anything that captures my experience as a genderqueer/genderfluid person as honestly or with as much poetry as this. (This also gives a sneak peek at Meadows' writing, which has lovely Shakespearean flourishes and wordplay throughout).
Beyond that, while CORAL BONES is essentially Miran-Miranda's coming-to-terms tale (coming-out-to-self? Is there a better term for this narrative?), the ending is so full of promise and action that I am desperately curious about the adventures that Miran-Miranda is sure to have after the final line. Just as in THE TEMPEST the ending posits that this is a new, exciting chapter for her. And I would love to witness it.
I am kind of a Shakespeare nerd. And I'm genderqueer. And I used to work at Renaissance Faires where, as a child, I dressed as a Puckish type fairy. Literally I am *the* target audience for this novella. But, truly? I don't think you have to be any of these things to love this book. Miran-Miranda's tasks and journey to the fairy court have tension and stakes. The plot moves. The writing is clever and not overly Shakespearean, just enough to give nods. You don't even have to be familiar with THE TEMPEST or MIDSUMMER. The novella presumes no prior familiarity with the source material; you can simply pick it up and go, which I think is one of its great strengths. If you are at all interested in feminist fantasy or in trans/non-binary fantasy, or in really cool fairies, I strongly recommend this fabulous short read.
____
*Miran-Miranda uses female pronouns throughout.
**I remember Meadows tweeting about an idea for a genderqueer Miranda story and I BASICALLY LOST IT because a) I adore Foz Meadows and b) THE TEMPEST is my favorite Shakespeare play. I'm a little obsessed with it.
***Puck's reworking here is especially ingenious given the way it ties THE TEMPEST and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM together. I loved him here and generally dislike him in the play, but he was true to form. I got the sense from the novella that he has a peculiar and idiosyncratic sense of loyalty that fits so well with the idea of him.
February 22, 2016
This novella is so seamlessly woven with the world of The Tempest that I think it will shade all my future experiences of that play. Coral Bones extends wildly beyond its source material—Miranda struggles with her budding genderqueerness and undertakes a journey to the court of the Faerie Queen Titania and begins a romantic friendship with puck—and all of it feels natural and true to the original characters.
I particularly love the way Coral Bones portrays Miranda's relationship with Ariel, who serves as teacher, friend, companion, and fellow captive. Their scenes together, both past and future, contain the danger of Faerie but also a real sense of love.
Prospero is unspeakably sinister in this reading, but thinking back on The Tempest... yeah.
There's a strong undercurrent of anger in this story, which I found refreshing and freeing. There's also a sense of wonder and the idea that things can be set right after all.
Miranda's past experiences inform her current actions in a psychologically astute way. She goes on an adventure I'd love to have.
This is one of a series of novellas set in the world of Shakespeare, and with a start this good, I'll be looking for more. I'm also going to be reading more by Foz Meadows in the future.
I particularly love the way Coral Bones portrays Miranda's relationship with Ariel, who serves as teacher, friend, companion, and fellow captive. Their scenes together, both past and future, contain the danger of Faerie but also a real sense of love.
Prospero is unspeakably sinister in this reading, but thinking back on The Tempest... yeah.
There's a strong undercurrent of anger in this story, which I found refreshing and freeing. There's also a sense of wonder and the idea that things can be set right after all.
Miranda's past experiences inform her current actions in a psychologically astute way. She goes on an adventure I'd love to have.
This is one of a series of novellas set in the world of Shakespeare, and with a start this good, I'll be looking for more. I'm also going to be reading more by Foz Meadows in the future.
February 6, 2019
What a great. Story. So beautiful. Starts out dark but goes on to promise hope and healing. I adored it. Wonderfully queer too.
May 6, 2025
Loss, stolen potential and the undertone of paternal threat of abuse - Poor Thing. I feel like I've read something by Foz before - turns out I haven't, the prose is just familiar in that warm blanket and hot chocolate kind of way.
This short feels like a memory and I'm recalling bits and pieces. Curious, because memories are such an important element to the story. It is the story of identity, self preservation and embracing the whole instead of cherry picked parts. This is a story about the many slights against the feminine.
Plot and Themes: Maybe don't go bargaining with the Fey but in this case each bargain saved her life. From Ariel, on the island and the threat of abuse to the miscarriage and the spell that leads her to Puck - some Fae-bargains are lifelines. Can't deny the theme is surviving in a feminine form in a masculine world that takes everything at face value. It's about finding comfort in both forms not just straddling both worlds - not an androgynous existence but becoming each form at will
Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
There's a Puck and an Ariel - the real enigma is Miran-Miranda flaming redheaded former Princess of Naples and the Duke Prosperos daughter.
Favorite/Curious/Unique Scene:
It's not a key scene but I love it. A fey trying to empathize with the one who straddles both worlds
Puck’s silence is an alchemical thing, as though his very presence transmutes the air. Softly, he says, “I sometimes forget how young you humans are. How brief your lives, and how very perilous their various inceptions. Should I be sorry for you? Or sorry with you? Or should I be something else?”
Favorite/Curious/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Will I ascend to death?” (how fascinating - not descend into death, but rising into it like winged birds to the sky)
🖤 “My island was not wild, compared to this. There are such monsters in a palace” (Court and all its livery is hell)
Favorite/Curious/Unique Concepts:
♣The glass shard and the red gem
♣Votaries
♣The Boon of Youth
♣The Boon of Shifting
GR Rating:3.5⭐
CAWPILE: 7
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2027
Challenge Prompt: 150 Novella Books by 2027
This short feels like a memory and I'm recalling bits and pieces. Curious, because memories are such an important element to the story. It is the story of identity, self preservation and embracing the whole instead of cherry picked parts. This is a story about the many slights against the feminine.
Plot and Themes: Maybe don't go bargaining with the Fey but in this case each bargain saved her life. From Ariel, on the island and the threat of abuse to the miscarriage and the spell that leads her to Puck - some Fae-bargains are lifelines. Can't deny the theme is surviving in a feminine form in a masculine world that takes everything at face value. It's about finding comfort in both forms not just straddling both worlds - not an androgynous existence but becoming each form at will
Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
There's a Puck and an Ariel - the real enigma is Miran-Miranda flaming redheaded former Princess of Naples and the Duke Prosperos daughter.
Favorite/Curious/Unique Scene:
It's not a key scene but I love it. A fey trying to empathize with the one who straddles both worlds
Puck’s silence is an alchemical thing, as though his very presence transmutes the air. Softly, he says, “I sometimes forget how young you humans are. How brief your lives, and how very perilous their various inceptions. Should I be sorry for you? Or sorry with you? Or should I be something else?”
Favorite/Curious/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Will I ascend to death?” (how fascinating - not descend into death, but rising into it like winged birds to the sky)
🖤 “My island was not wild, compared to this. There are such monsters in a palace” (Court and all its livery is hell)
Favorite/Curious/Unique Concepts:
♣The glass shard and the red gem
♣Votaries
♣The Boon of Youth
♣The Boon of Shifting
GR Rating:3.5⭐
CAWPILE: 7
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2027
Challenge Prompt: 150 Novella Books by 2027
February 18, 2016
Coral Bones leads the charge in the Monstrous Little Voices series, telling the story of what happened to The Tempest‘s Miranda after marrying the first man she ever met and being taken to a foreign court.
Miranda is even more oppressed at court than she ever was on the island. Instead of being manipulated (and made to sleep and forget against her will) by her father, she is now neglected by Ferdinand and mocked by his court for her unworldliness. Fortunately, Ariel is still her friend.
Between flashbacks showing their relationship, and Miranda’s present escape towards Illyria in the company of Puck, Meadows explores concepts of identity: both those imposed by others’ expectations and the struggle to express one’s own often changing and even fluid sense of self.
Meadows’ command of language in this story is gorgeous. It has cadences of Shakespeare without ever feeling like pastiche or at all clumsy. There’s elegance and beauty, humour and heartbreak, throughout. The wider negotiations of faerie, and the eternal torrid clashes between Tatiana and Oberon inform the plot, but for once, Miranda gets to make her own choices.
It’s a splendid start to Monstrous Little Voices.
Miranda is even more oppressed at court than she ever was on the island. Instead of being manipulated (and made to sleep and forget against her will) by her father, she is now neglected by Ferdinand and mocked by his court for her unworldliness. Fortunately, Ariel is still her friend.
Between flashbacks showing their relationship, and Miranda’s present escape towards Illyria in the company of Puck, Meadows explores concepts of identity: both those imposed by others’ expectations and the struggle to express one’s own often changing and even fluid sense of self.
Meadows’ command of language in this story is gorgeous. It has cadences of Shakespeare without ever feeling like pastiche or at all clumsy. There’s elegance and beauty, humour and heartbreak, throughout. The wider negotiations of faerie, and the eternal torrid clashes between Tatiana and Oberon inform the plot, but for once, Miranda gets to make her own choices.
It’s a splendid start to Monstrous Little Voices.
January 9, 2016
I really enjoyed this feminist take on what happens to Miranda when she decides to escape her life at Ferdinand's court. I particularly enjoyed the flashbacks to her childhood spent with Ariel, the fairy. The ending was satisfying (I wouldn't mind a whole book dedicated to what happens after!).
February 16, 2016
Alas, it was not such a brave new world after all! (When is it ever?) It was a delight to watch Miranda wise up, and Ariel can come visit anytime!
July 3, 2018
Being honest, I've only read two Shakespeare plays. (Well, I listened to Julius Caesar.) The Tempest was the first one, mostly because I watched a tv show where these high school students were putting on the play and I was kind of infatuated by Ariel. (Who was also the scene stealer in the play, for me.) So, besides my general fascination with The Tempest, I love and adore Foz Meadows' writing. So I knew I'd read this book eventually and probably none of the others in the series. And this book is kind of totally awesome. I had to be in the right mindset to read it because the first two times I tried I wound up putting it down after a handful of pages, but it's a lovely story. (With feminism and two characters that are genderqueer and I personally would call both genderfluid, specifically.) I always thought Miranda was a limp dishrag, personally, and I adore this depiction of her. (Ferdinand is still as unpleasant as I always thought he was.) (As an added bonus, Puck and the king and queen of the fairies from A Midsummer Night's Dream show up and, btw, I have always found Puck so fun. This version is a little...nicer than most I've run across.)
January 10, 2026
“I wish I could say it was just the skirts, that I chafed only at the expectations of manners, but it wasn't that Puck, it was language, the words, the feel of them. I never knew words could be so sharp, until the wrong ones cut me. But they weren't always wrong, that's the worst of it; some days I revelled in being called lady, but then that day would pass, the sun would rise and fall again, and the same name felt like a collar, bringing me to heel; or else a corset, squeezing me into wrongish shapes for the adoration of strangers.”
Poor Miranda goes through it! But I enjoyed witnessing her development even in such a very short, short book.
February 21, 2022
I don't think I've ever gone so fast from hearing about a book to buying it to finishing it. This novella expands on one of my favorite subjects (Shakespeare's fairies, surprise surprise), providing a perfectly logical answer to a perfectly logical question left dangling at the end of the Tempest: what happens when a child raised in isolation by fairies moves to the center of civilization and becomes a princess?
Ariel was always my favorite part of Tempest, and Puck my favorite part of Midsummer, and I love their characterization here.
Ariel was always my favorite part of Tempest, and Puck my favorite part of Midsummer, and I love their characterization here.
May 4, 2018
This is a beautiful, wonderful story.
January 27, 2018
Genderfluid Ariel teaches Miranda on the island, & later visits her in Naples. And then . . . .
Delightful (with disturbing bits).
Delightful (with disturbing bits).
February 16, 2024
Novella that follows up on Miranda in Milan post Tempest? Throw in a dash of a crossover with Midsummer Night's Dream while you're at it? Make Miranda and Ariel huge lesbians? I only wish it was longer than a novella. Excellent dialogue and turns of phrase, and just a lovely quick read from the library.
July 30, 2017
This story used elements from the Bard's world to create a short yet layered and insightful tale of identity. The prose took a bit of getting used to, it is quite poetic and includes a lot of shifts, but about a quarter through the story I was completely hooked. What I greatly appreciated was that Miran-Miranda's genderqueerness is central to the story without being sensationalized, the story is didactic but in a way that left me, as a reader, smiling and nodding and hopeful. A delightful, magical story told with the care and understanding of an #ownvoices author.
March 1, 2017
This novella made me happy cry. It was so affirming to me as a nonbinary person, and Meadows' writing was just delightful. If I could buy a physical copy I'd cuddle it while I slept.
July 22, 2016
Rating: 5* of five
Probably my favorite of the five novellas.
Probably my favorite of the five novellas.
March 27, 2017
Reviewed collection here.
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