With its melancholy shading, Lee's new twist on an old tale is sure to engage fans of dark fantasy. Lee casts the evil queen in a sympathetic light, depicting her as a tortured soul who in later years begins to question her dark fate. She later bears him a girl, Candacis, whom she immediately shuns as an incarnation of evil, mumbling death spells as the infant tries to suckle her. Draco forces Arpazia to travel with him and his barbaric army. Soon after he has her sister, Lilca, hanged because Lilca betrayed the castle. The evil queen, Arpazia, first appears as an innocent princess of 14, who is terrified when Draco, a rising new leader, conquers her father's castle and rapes her. Valente setting the story in The Wild West.

Six-Gun Snow White (2013), a novella by Catherynne M. Beauty (2005), a retelling that shifts focus to the dysfunctional relationship between the queen and her daughter. Drawing on the sex and violence implicit in the original fairy tale, Lee gives a modern, introspective angle to the classic story. White as Snow (2001), a novelization by Tanith Lee with elements of Greek Mythology.

Horror and fantasy veteran Lee, author of such adult fairy tale collections as Red as Blood and Forests of the Night, offers an enticingly dark and seductive reworking of ''Snow White'' that echoes the macabre ambience of the Brothers Grimm. Once upon a time there was a mirror.So begins this dark, unusual retelling of the story of Snow White by the writer reviewers have called 'the Angela Carter of the fantasy field'a whole novel based on a beloved story, turning it into a dark and sensual drama full of myth and magic.Arpazia is the aging queen who paces the halls of a warlords palace.

Tanith lee snow white