Once Upon a Summer - Various Authors - ★★★

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AUTHORS: Various
GENRE: Fantasy Anthology
RATING: 3.05 stars.

In a Nutshell: A decent anthology set around the theme of summer. Some really good stories herein, but overall, this wasn’t as delightful as the earlier collection of ‘winter’ stories.


This book is the second of a planned four-book anthology series, based on the four seasons. The first book, ‘Once Upon a Winter’, came out in November 2021 and had seventeen stories set in winter. Now we get this summer-themed anthology with fifteen stories. Spring and Autumn will be the remaining two seasons in the series.

Summer is my least favourite season. A tropical summer drains out all my energy and leaves me longing for the refreshing Indian monsoon. However, as I had enjoyed the winter-based anthology so much, I decided not to let my bias against the season affect my potential reading pleasure. 😉

The introductory note by editor and contributor H.L. MacFarlane sets the right tone for this collection. While her entire note was brilliant, I especially loved this line: "Winter may be a time to listen to stories, but summer is the time to live them." Quite true. (Except if you live in a tropical country and summer just bakes you.🔥)

The stories cover a range of genres ranging from fantasy to romance to dystopian, and each offers a distinct feel. There was no point at which I had a feeling of déjà vu. The rep is also diverse, with many stories featuring LGBTQIA+ protagonists. Some of the stories are retellings of fairy tales and lore. Don’t expect a light Disney-style collection though. Just as the original fairy tales have always been grim, these stories too tend to follow the darker side of worldly and otherworldly folk.

As always happens in an anthology, some stories were outstanding and some left me a bit dissatisfied. But one story that truly puzzled me with its appearance here was “Love, Pride, Virtue and Fate”. This story was a narration of the Hindu God Krishna’s early life, beginning with his parents’ troubles under Kansa and going on to Krishna’s childhood years. This is neither a folk tale nor a fairy tale but a mythological tale and based on one of the gods from an active and widely-practised religion. It didn’t feel right to have a story about Krishna in a ‘fantasy’ collection. I would have been as horrified had I seen a tale about Jesus in a fairy/folk-themed anthology.

I rated the stories individually as I always do. Of the fifteen stories, only five stories reached or crossed the four-star mark. The rest were mostly clustered in between. My top favourites were:

🔥The I Scream Van - Caroline Logan – Loved the monster narrator. Enjoyed the story development. Would have rated it higher had there been more background to the narrator and why they had to visit that village annually. The details were vague. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

🔥It Is Written - S. Markem – Such an innovative and a witty story! Laughed all the way from start to end. To be honest, this could go either way in terms of its humour. But I like quirky, and hence I loved this. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

🔥These Burning Bones - Laila Amado – Again a story with an unusual narrator. Loved this retelling of ‘The Firebird’. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

🔥The Last Roses of Summer - Kate Longstone – Loved the protagonist who is so unlike usual folktale FMCs. The only reason why this fell short was because it started one way and ended up in a totally different direction. The disparity between the beginning and the end was too much. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

🔥Contract with a Mermaid - M.J. Weatherall – An interesting story using mermaids as well as another fantastical creature. A retelling of a selkie legend, but with some new elements. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

(S. Markem and Laila Amado also had appeared in my favourites list for the first collection.)


All in all, I did like this collection, but it was not as memorable to me as the first one had been. That said, it still ought to make for an enjoyable read to fairy tale and folktale fans.

3.05 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each story.

My thanks to MacFarlane Lantern Publishing and BookSirens for the DRC of “Once Upon a Summer”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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