Gods at the front desk, a stairwell beneath the bed.
Laura reads her own stories: fairy tales, including one she calls halfway between a fix-it retelling and an original, plus 'Hotel Olympus', a chaptered urban fantasy about Charlie, a front-of-house manager whose guests are literal gods. Episodes point to a linked transcript for anyone who wants to read along.
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Patchwork Fairy Tales is the work of a storyteller who introduces herself simply as Laura. She writes the stories and reads them aloud, and each one begins with the same offer: a story, if you like. Episodes also point to a transcript linked in the description, so the tales can be read as well as heard. Two strands stand out. The first is 'Hotel Olympus', an urban fantasy told in numbered chapters. Its heroine, Charlie, is a hospitality major and the only child of a firefighter and an event planner, and she lands a front-of-house manager job almost too easily. The interview is strange in small ways. The manager is the biggest man she has ever seen, with a voice to match, and he wants to know whether she is allergic to grapes or pomegranates, and whether dogs, birds or hay fever bother her. She takes the job anyway. What follows is a workplace comedy with gods on the guest list. Nobody uses the manager's name, the stables carry a plaque reading 'Mares of Thrace not allowed', and some rooms are labelled 'Deities only'. At reception, Cassandra scribbles an M beside certain reservations, for mortal, and then someone other than the name in the register turns up to claim the room. Charlie copes by treating the whole building as hers to run smoothly. One chapter tests that approach. She has made minding her own business into an art form, but she will not ignore a goddess carrying an unconscious young man through the lobby. Laura puts a brief content warning at the top of that chapter. The second strand is the fairy tales. 'The Singing Princess' starts with a king, the only daughter he dotes on, and a bedroom that is locked and barred every night. The princess is described as plumper, pleasanter and prettier than any maiden who ever wore a crown. She puts on her finest jewels and slips down a stairwell that appears where her bed had been, and a young father follows at a careful distance. Laura introduces it as the one with the princess, the fae and the young father, and calls it halfway between a fix-it fairy tale and an original. Its send-off has a folk-tale practicality: close your curtains, carry some iron, and be safe. An episode titled '2026 update' steps outside the stories. In it, Laura thanks listeners who kept playing old episodes when nothing new was coming out. She explains that she left Spotify to keep her moral rights over her work. She also lists what she is working on: more 'Hotel Olympus', original fairy tales held up by lockdown and life, and a full recording of her urban fantasy romance novella, 'Coffee and Fairy Cakes'. She says she is glad the podcast can be a comfort listen. What a listener gets is original stories read by the person who wrote them, with the text there to follow along.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes fantasy read aloud by the person who wrote it, and who enjoys mythic figures dropped into ordinary places like a hotel lobby. It also suits someone who likes to read along, since episodes point to a linked transcript.
What sets it apart: Every story is Laura's own work, from a fairy tale she describes as halfway between a fix-it retelling and an original to 'Hotel Olympus', a serialized workplace comedy where the guests are gods and the receptionist marks mortals with an M. The linked transcripts mean the stories can be read as easily as heard.
Welcome to Patchwork Fairy Tales! A podcast and collection of inclusive fairy tales and fantasy stories written and recorded to spread old magic in a new way. You want single fathers, pansexual princesses, found families, sapphic dragons, sword wielding ladies and asexual heroes? Then you've come to the right place!
House rules for werewolves and vampires: your fairy-tale comfort has found a flatshare.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A warm supernatural flatshare tale where house rules matter as much as species.
An awkward request at Tomek's store opens into a cozy supernatural flatshare, as a werewolf seeks help with something for vampires and later settles into a home with a vampire and a human.
A gentle woodland fairy tale where a golden ring leads a merchant's son toward an unexpected happily ever after.
The Fox at the Window shapes its dark wood, golden ring, and capable merchant's household into a soft fairy tale about love arriving in an unfamiliar form. At its center is the merchant's son, who meets a fox-youth at the window night after night.
A wandering folktale turns generous trades into a warm, gently comic case for kindness.
After seven years as an apprentice, Marie asks for his wages and heads down the road, convinced luck is already working in his favor. What follows is a run of generous choices and comic trouble, including a trade that turns a difficult milk cow into a pig meant for the butcher…
A lindworm prince story about fear, brotherly loyalty, and careful kindness.
Prince Lindworm opens on a tender royal marriage, then lets one wish for a child become painfully tangled. A responsible queen and her princess consort are loved by their country, but sorrow follows when hope does not turn into a family.
A road-worn soldier rebuilds her life near a princess kept behind copper walls.
The soldier at the center of this fairy tale has survived war before finding anything like a home, and peace gives her little more than life and limbs.
A wintry fairy tale where a vow, a window, and the northern wind reshape one girl's world.
A bright wedding day sends three noisy children into the garden, where the story drifts into winter, vows, and a girl visited by the northern wind at her window.
Grim fantasy at mud level.
Fantasy rereads with jokes sharpened into arguments.
Charlie, a hotel employee trained to ignore odd guest behavior, confronts a goddess carrying an unconscious man through the lobby.
Charlie, a hospitality major, navigates the bewildering and unexplained phenomena at Hotel Olympus, a hotel for gods and mortals.
Charlie starts her first day at the strange Hotel Olympus, where she takes charge of the front office and deals with a stressed receptionist.
A woman named Charlie interviews for a front-of-house manager position at a mysterious hotel called Hotel Olympus.
Podcaster Laura gives an update on her life and upcoming episodes, including a new urban fantasy story 'Hotel Olympus' and other projects.
Laura opens "Patchwork Fairy Tales" with a werewolf asking Tomek for "anything for vampires," and the answer turns out to be hot water bottles.
Patchwork Fairy Tales’ “The Fox at the Window” follows a merchant’s son who meets an auburn fox that becomes a young man at night.
["Laura opens Fix-It Fairytales by promising \"more kindness, more consent, and more inclusivity\" in a retelling of Grimm's Hans in Luck.", "Marie, a young apprentice, finishes seven years of work, asks for his wages, and leaves with a \"magnificent lump of gold.\"", "On the road to see Olivia, Marie keeps swapping the gold for a horse, then a cow, then a pig, because each person he meets has a stronger need for the item than he does.", "The episode stays comic and gentle, with Marie repeatedly calling himself lucky as Laura narrates the chain of bargains in plain, direct language."]
Laura's Patchwork Fairy Tales retells "The Lindworm Prince" around two queens, a witch in a black robe with a green sash, and a garden ritual involving two roses.
Patchwork Fairy Tales' "The Soldier, the Princess and the Tinderbox" turns Laura's fix-it retelling into a story about a drafted soldier, a hollow tree, and a brass tinderbox.
Patchwork Fairy Tales presents “The Girl Engaged to the Northern Wind,” a fairy tale about a childhood vow that draws a young woman into a winter romance.
Patchwork Fairy Tales retells “The Stolen Lilac,” a story about Lilac, a youth whose grief over autumn flowers leads them into a witch’s garden.
Laura’s Patchwork Fairy Tales retells Rumpelstiltskin by turning the miller’s boast that his daughter can spin straw into gold into a story about coercion, consent, and family responsibility.
A narrator tells an original fairy tale about a young man who encounters a changeling and a fairy queen under a hawthorn tree.
A young man builds his own house at the edge of a village and observes mysterious marsh fires as autumn arrives.
A mother advises her two daughters to learn trades they love, and the eldest becomes a dancer while the youngest becomes a seamstress, with the mother secretly planning to leave the house to the less successful one.
A narrator introduces an inclusive fairy tale about two siblings, Noonlight and Dawnlight, raised by a village, with themes of curiosity and adventure.
A woman travels to help her brother and encounters a river sprite in this inclusive fairy tale.