SOLVED. Short story - Modern retelling of the Snow Queen [s]

[Jessica]

I read this short story in a fantasy anthology in the early 1990's. It may have been a Year's Best Sci fi and Fantasy anthology. It was a retelling of the Snow Queen, but in a modern setting and very much for adults. The main character and her husband go to a cocktail party, and he's unhappy with the way she looks because her dress makes her look young and school girlish. At the party he meets the Snow Queen, who seduces him and he leaves with her, not even remembering his wife. She's mugged on the way home, and offers to give the thief her fur coat and jewels, the thief takes pity on her and they go into a diner to get some coffee. Since a never-ending winter has gripped the city now that the snow queen is in power, they decide to open a flower shop together to bring some brightness to the world. Those are the elements that stand out to me . . . she reconnects with her husband at another cocktail party, wearing the same dress, but now she's confident and doesn't care, and that attracts him.

[Nathalia]

This by any chance: With the Snow Queen?

[Jenna]

Could it be Patricia A. McKillip's short story "The Snow Queen"? It was in the fairy tale retelling collection Snow White, Blood Red in 1993 and collected in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventh Annual Collection in 1994. I read the story a while ago and don't remember as many details as you recalled! But I do remember it's very adult. It seems to fit!

[Mir]

Jenna wrote: "Could it be Patricia A. McKillip's short story "The Snow Queen"? It was in the fairy tale retelling collection Snow White, Blood Red in 1993 and collected in The Year's Best Fan..."</i>

The OP sounds exactly like McKillip's story to me. There is also a guy named Foxx in it, if that sounds familiar, Jessica. This story is also included in her collection [book:Harrowing the Dragon.

[Jessica]

YES! It must be McKillip's The Snow Queen! I had the Snow White, Blood Red collection, but got rid of it because most of the stories were too disturbing, but I really liked that one! (I would have been only fifteen or so at the time.) Thank you!

[Jessica]

That is definitely it, I just looked it up online! YAY! Such a great story! And I've always been a big McKillip fan. I got a sudden hankering for various versions of the Snow Queen after I saw the new Disney movie, Frozen!

[Mir]

Have you read Breadcrumbs? That's also a retelling of the Snow Queen.

[Jessica]

No! I will have to read that!