P. Kristen Enos’ “Creatures of Grace” is a series of short stories set in a magical world full of magic and sorcery, royalty and jousting, and pirates and holy knights.  To add depth and a unique twist to the stories, this fictional world is also filled with many of our modern real world problems:  rape, domestic abuse, slavery, and bigotry.  From the start of the book, I knew that this book would be both an interesting and a complex read.  While the stories were in part for entertainment purposes, they were quite thought provoking as they took on the issues of gender roles and stereotypes.

The protagonist of each story was a woman, some strong as steel, some with endearing weaknesses.  Each woman showed that it takes all types to be a true heroin in a story.  I was pleasantly surprised that in such a short set of stories, the author does a great job of character development, giving us insight into the emotions and the flaws of the women she is portraying.  I was expecting a series of short stories that were not inter-related, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the reappearance of characters throughout the book.  Knowing the past of these women added depth to each story that they made an appearance again in a seemingly completely different story.  The reader can see how they have developed throughout the series and how lives can intertwine.

While I have read numerous stories with LGTB characters, this is the one of the first books that I have read that makes these issues a central theme.  I respect the use of literature to raise awareness and understanding of these themes and I believe that this book would have benefit for anyone that reads it.  However, as I sometimes find with romance writers, the sexual orientation of the characters was such a central theme that at times I think it took away from the story development.  I would have appreciated seeing more of the other aspects of these women’s lives.

Overall, I found the themes to be intricate and interesting, while the fantasy aspect of the stories took me away to another magical world.  Weaving issues of the real world into this magical fictional world worked well for the author, and Enos did a great job in doing so. The writing style, unlike the topics, was not too complex and made the book easy to read.   I would read further works by this author.