This image is the cover for the book Desdemona and the Deep

Desdemona and the Deep

A girl ventures into a dark world to undo a troubling legacy in this thrilling fantasy novella from the award–winning author.

A Locus Award finalist for Best Novella

“So compelling. . . . A gripping tale from beginning to end, Desdemona and the Deep is a great read for anyone who loves a good fairy story.” —BookPage

A steep drop into an uncanny, richly painted underworld, Desdemona and the Deep tells the story of the spoiled daughter of a rich mining family who must retrieve the tithe of men her father promised to the world below.

On the surface, her world is rife with industrial pollution that ruins the health of poor factory workers while the idle rich indulge themselves in unheard-of luxury. Below are goblins, mysterious kingdoms, and an entirely different hierarchy.

C. S. E. Cooney

C.S.E. Cooney lives and writes in the Borough of Queens, whose borders are water. She is an audiobook narrator, the singer/songwriter Brimstone Rhine, and author of World Fantasy Award-winning Bone Swans: Stories (Mythic Delirium 2015). Her short fiction can be found in Ellen Datlow’s Mad Hatters and March Hares: All-New Stories from the World of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Jonathan Strahan’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 12, Paula Guran’s 2016 The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas, five editions of Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, Mike Allen’s Clockwork Phoenix Anthology (3 and 5), Lightspeed Magazine, Strange Horizons, Apex, Uncanny Magazine Black Gate, Papaveria Press, GigaNotoSaurus, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, and elsewhere.

Tor.com