Paid with a Kiss

Love and Sex in Fairy Belief

by Morgan Daimler

Paid with a Kiss gives a wide-ranging look at fairies, sex, gender, and human belief through history in Western Europe, focusing primarily on Irish, UK, and French evidence. By examining mythology, folklore, literature, and anecdotes, this book answers common questions of what we know about sex and sexuality among fairies and how they interact with humans, including human-fairy relationships and offspring. Aiming to answer an array of questions on humans, fairies, and intimacy that the author has been asked over the years, Paid with a Kiss is a deep dive into nearly two millennia of folk belief.

REVIEW

5 out of 5

Tl’dr if you enjoy fairies and romance, and want to learn more about the lore that laid the foundations for some of the more modern stories, you want to read this book. That said, if you read modern, spicy romantasy, chances are you’ve run into your fair share of fairies and sex. Daimler has done quite a bit of research, and this book is very well organized. Although I was familiar with some of the fae and older literature referenced in this book, I also learned some new things. Some of the ones I was already familiar with were a few of the ones mentioned from the Fairies Who Love Humans and Literary Lovers sections, particularly Shakespeare. I was delighted to see references to Peter Pan and Tolkien included as well, and I must admit they are the ones I’m most familiar with out of everything I recognized in the book. The most interesting chapter for me was Marriage to the Other, and as familiar as I am with some of the general lore, this definitely filled in some major gaps I had. I absolutely intend to use the included bibliography to do some further reading of my own, as well.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR