Ha looks closely at the sordid underbelly of suburbia in Bluebeard's First Wife, the latest from one of Korea's preeminent authors.

Maria Tatar analyses the many forms the tale of Bluebeard's wife has taken over time, showing how artists have taken the Bluebeard theme and revived it with their own signature twists.

Tara's husband has never shared a fantasy with her, or even masturbated--that she knows of. However, this curious wife discovers a phone bill full of phone calls to sex lines and realizes her husband has been living a double life! Instead of getting mad, Tara's curiosity leads her to begin listening in on John's steamy conversations in hopes of finding out what he really wants in the bedroom. After several failed attempts at bringing fantasy to reality, however, a frustrated Tara turns to her much more adventurous best friend, Kelly, for help. A quick psychology 101 diagnosis from Dr. Kelly marks John as having a classic "madonna/whore" complex, and she quickly sets about making plans to rectify this situation. Tara goes along for the ride, hoping that Kelly may have the answer to bridging the seemingly ever-growing gap in her marriage?----------Warnings: This title contains erotic situations, graphic language, sex, ménage a trois (MFF threesome), lesbian sex and some naughty daddy/daughter role play, too!----------EXCERPT:“Seeing you dancing out there with Kelly—you don't know how sexy you are, do you?” he asked, leaning over to me, his hand running up from my knee to my thigh. His breath was warm on my face, and I could smell the 7&7's he'd been drinking all night. My own head was still swimming with wine.“You two rubbing up against each other, seeing your red little dress riding up and up,” he whispered, his hand pushing my dress up further as he sought higher ground on my leg. “You looked just like you do when you come, with your eyes half closed and your mouth open and your legs quivering.”I moaned, tilting my face up to him, and then he was kissing me, his tongue forcing its way past my teeth, down my throat, as he pressed me into the door. “I wanted to fuck you right there on the dance floor,” he growled against my neck, biting and sucking at my flesh. “I wanted to fuck you both.”I gasped, his hands groping me in the dark, everywhere at once. My dress was pushed up to my waist now, his fingers rubbing fast and hard between my legs. We kissed, our mouths meshing together as he leaned over the gearshift to get to me. When he pulled my panties aside and plunged his fingers into me, I hissed, putting one foot up onto the dashboard to give him better access.He was trying to climb over onto me but there wasn't enough room—not in his little Roadster. When I whispered that fact to him, he grunted, pulling his hand away from me and moving to open his door. A moment later, he was opening mine, and I was still sitting there with my panties askew, my heels off, and my dress shoved up to my waist, struggling with the seatbelt.He leaned over me and popped the button, pulling me out of the car and crushing me to him, his tongue digging deep into my mouth. I clung to him, wrapping my arms around his neck, feeling his hands roaming over my ass, squeezing and lifting me, pressing my crotch to his. I could feel how hard he was through his trousers.Then he was turning me around, pressing me over the hood of the car, shoving my dress up higher on my waist. His hands moved over my ass, my thighs, and I heard his zipper and the felt his cock pressing against my panties. He shoved those aside, his fingers finding me again, moving in and out of my wetness—and I was wet, soaking wet, my panties moist with my heat.He didn't bother to take them off, he just replaced his fingers with his cock, shoving himself deep inside me with a growl. I moaned, pressing my cheek to the metal, the engine still ticking as he started to fuck me, my hands out in front of me, just letting him take me. I could see the Christmas lights of the neighbor's house across the street, a blurred red and green glow as he rocked me against the Beemer's electric blue hood.

By turns humorous and warm, stark and frightening, Bluebeard's Egg infuses a Canada of the 1940s, '50s and '80s with glowing childhood memories, the harsh realities of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty that men and women inflict on each other. Here is the familiar outer world of family summers at remote lakes, winters of political activism, and seasons of exotic friends, mudane lives and unexpected loves. But here too is the inner world of hidden places and all that emerges from them—the intimately personal, the fantastic and the shockingly real...whether it's what lies in a mysterious locked room or in the secret feelings we all conceal.

Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year This “witty, engaging analysis” of female monsters in pop culture offers “provocative and incisive” commentary on society’s fear of female rage and power (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her) Women have always been seen as monsters. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures, capable of immense destruction. Maybe they are. And maybe that’s a good thing. Sady Doyle, hailed as “smart, funny and fearless” by the Boston Globe, takes readers on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula’s Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein’s “domineering” mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, who starved herself to death to quell her demons; author Mary Shelley, who dreamed her dead child back to life. These monsters embody patriarchal fear of women, and illustrate the violence with which men enforce traditionally feminine roles. They also speak to the primal threat of a woman who takes back her power. In a dark and dangerous world, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers asks women to look to monsters for the ferocity we all need to survive. “Some people take a scalpel to the heart of media culture; Sady Doyle brings a bone saw, a melon baller, and a machete.” —Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once

Rare edition with unique illustrations. Along with the collections of Andersen, Lang, and the Brothers Grimm, the Fairy tales of Charles Perrault is among the great books of European fairy tales. These stories have been enjoyed by generation after generation of children in many countries, and are here, waiting to be enjoyed again. "Blue beard" is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passe. The tale tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of one wife to avoid the fate of her predecessors.