Never Fall In Love With The Fey

Miriam Aster made a big mistake: she fell in love with the Queen of the Fey.

All this was ten years ago, when Miriam was an up-and-coming homicide detective and fairies were things out of fairy tales. Miriam met the queen of the fey in a bar, felt a rush of attraction, and soon they were head-over-heels in love (or as close to as they fey get).

Then the favours started, trying to keep the fey’s existence a secret.

Could you ignore some details from this case?

Could you take care of this rogue fey?

Hey Miriam, could you stop this unicorn from going on a rampage before people get killed?

Never Fall In Love With The Queen Of The Fey

It ends badly for everyone. Miriam Aster fell in love with the Queen of the Fey, and then her life fell apart. She made mistakes and quit her job. She ignored an order and paid the consequences. She ended up dead, and found herself coming back because the Queen demanded it.

Now Miriam’s an ex-cop, eking out a living as a PI, and she drinks to forget the pain. She has one rule—no fey—and she sticks to it.

Right up until her ex-partner in Homicide calls and asks for her help, and Aster realises the past—just like Aster herself— won’t stay dead on the autopsy table.

Welcome to Unicorns, Fey, & A Hardboiled Dame: The Miriam Aster Omnibus

Three reasons you might love this book

#1. It’s Grimdark Urban Fantasy

I wrote the Aster stories in response to trends I saw in Urban Fantasy, which used a lot of pulp PI tropes without the hardboiled grittiness of writers like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Micky Spillane. The world Miriam passes through is amoral, dark, and violent, and she struggles with her sense of being an honourable person in a dishonourable system.

Among the fey, promises are magic with enormous power. They’re also tools they use to manipulate mortals, and Aster’s promised more than most.

#2. You’ll never look at unicorns the same way again

I wrote the first draft of Horn at a writing workshop, warned the instructor absolutely hated “fantasy stories about unicorns and fourteen-year-old girls” and we should avoid submitting anything in that vein.

“Challenge accepted,” I said to myself, and wrote the meanest, most confronting horror story I could, starting with the autopsy of a young girl whose encounter with a unicorn ended messily.

The result was a unicorn story even avowed unicorn haters could love, and there’s definitely nothing nice about the horned horses in Aster’s universe

#3. They’re Notorious (and Maybe Good?)

When the first Miriam Aster book came out, it spread via a strange word-of-mouth. People would hand it to friends with the warning: “This is seriously fucked up – you’ll love it”

It was also shortlisted for two awards (Best Fantasy Novel and Best Horror Novel) despite not technically being eligible for them as a novella, appeared on the Locus Recommended Reading list for the year, and got an honourable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Horror. It also got some great reviews:

“It’s possibly the best paranormal fiction I have read all year, possibly ever. It will be confronting, it will take some of you close to edge. But I think Ball crafts a delightfully dark little tale, revealing a more honest portrayal of the Fae, the sex, lust and double edged devious nature.”

“Peter M. Ball has got it right. This book is smart, funny, nasty, and wicked as hell. He gets the noir-ish tone spot on, delivers with action a-plenty, kick-ass characters, intelligent plotting, and good, clean evocative writing. Best of all, he takes a turgidly overused fantasy trope out behind the backyard toilet and puts a dum-dum bullet through its brain, after which he whips out his tackle and pisses all over the steaming corpse.”

Miriam Aster made a big mistake when she fell in love with the Queen of the Fey, and the fallout from that mistake reverberates through the stories in Unicorns, Fey, and a Hardboiled Dame.

These books aren’t for everyone, but the folks who love them really love them.