I first heard of George MacDonald from his appearance in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, serving a guide role similar to Virgil in Dante's Inferno. Years later, I caught some clips of MacDonald's own writing on a Facebook group (now disbanded) dedicated to him, Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton. When I found one of his two stories I could name in a Little Free Library, I finally gave him a try. It helped that at a mere 201 pages with frequent chapter breaks, I could easily finish the book right before my beach vacation.

( Cut for length )

Speaking of dark fantasies, I've picked up The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport. So far, it has an angry tone.

In German lore, a kobold is a mostly household sprite.
It’s apt to do domestic chores for those who treat it right,
But if it feels insulted, it will soon resort to pranks
Or worse, so folks would often leave it milk to give it thanks.

This kobold is invisible until it takes a form.
A little human figure with a sharp red cap’s the norm,
But sometimes it’s an animal, especially a cat,
Explaining why the feline race is mischievous like that.

Some kobolds make a shop, a ship, or underground their home.
The last type is conflated with an older term for “gnome.”
Our cobalt gets its name from kobolds spoiling silver mines.
(And “nickel” meant a goblin, as derived along such lines.)

The English-speaking world adopted “kobold” rather late,
In print in 1830. Its reception wasn’t great,
Until the rise of RPGs, which call for lots of foes
From fantasy, including ones not everybody knows.

To make them more distinctive from a bunch of other races,
The games made kobolds canine-like, not least within their faces.
The later D&D type’s more a lizard or a dragon.
If you see one of those, it’s on the D&D bandwagon.

Indeed, the modern reptile’s gotten popular these days.
At least among the nerds like me, it almost is a craze.
The kobold may be wicked, but it’s made to look so cute,
In contrast to the ogre, goblin, orc, and other brutes.