Once upon a time, in a world of fantasy and wonder, there were tales as old as time, handed down from generation to generation. Stories of princes and princesses, wicked witches and fearsome dragons, enchanted forests and mysterious castles. These stories, known as fairy tales, have captivated our imaginations for centuries, transporting us to far-off lands where dreams come true and the impossible becomes possible.
But what if these tales were given a modern twist? What if familiar characters were reimagined in new and unexpected ways? Welcome to the enchanting world of fairy tale retellings, where classic stories are spun anew, adding a fresh and exciting spin to age-old favorites.
One of the joys of fairytale retellings is seeing how authors play with the familiar elements of the original stories and put their own creative spin on them. They may subvert gender roles, reimagine villains as heroes, or explore alternate endings. These fresh takes breathe new life into well-known stories and keep readers guessing until the very end.
While fairytale retellings may start with familiar storylines, they often take unexpected twists and turns that keep readers on the edge of their seats. Authors play with the original plots and add their own unique elements, creating thrilling adventures that will leave you guessing what happens next.
Fairytale retellings also provide an opportunity for authors to bring diversity and representation to these classic tales. Authors often reimagine characters from diverse backgrounds, incorporating different cultures, races, and identities into the stories. This allows readers to see themselves reflected in the narratives and promotes inclusivity and acceptance. So, let’s jump right in and discover some classic fairytales that have been reimagined.
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For The Wolf
by Hannah Whitten
The first daughter is for the Throne.
The second daughter is for the Wolf.
As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose-to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he’ll return the world’s captured gods.
Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can’t control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can’t hurt those she loves. Again.
But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn’t learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood-and her world-whole.
The Witch And The Vampire
by Francesca Flores
Francesca Flores’s The Witch and the Vampire is a queer Rapunzel retelling where a witch and a vampire who trust no one but themselves must journey together through a cursed forest with danger at every turn.
Ava and Kaye used to be best friends. Until one night two years ago, vampires broke through the magical barrier protecting their town, and in the ensuing attack, Kaye’s mother was killed, and Ava was turned into a vampire. Since then, Ava has been trapped in her house. Her mother Eugenia needs her: Ava still has her witch powers, and Eugenia must take them in order to hide that she’s a vampire as well. Desperate to escape her confinement and stop her mother’s plans to destroy the town, Ava must break out, flee to the forest, and seek help from the vampires who live there. When there is another attack, she sees her opportunity and escapes.
Kaye, now at the end of her training as a Flame witch, is ready to fulfill her duty of killing any vampires that threaten the town, including Ava. On the night that Ava escapes, Kaye follows her and convinces her to travel together into the forest, while secretly planning to turn her in. Ava agrees, hoping to rekindle their old friendship, and the romantic feelings she’d started to have for Kaye before that terrible night.
But with monstrous trees that devour humans whole, vampires who attack from above, and Ava’s stepfather tracking her, the woods are full of danger. As they travel deeper into the forest, Kaye questions everything she thought she knew. The two are each other’s greatest threat—and also their only hope, if they want to make it through the forest unscathed.
Beauty
by Robin McKinley
Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in appearance, she can perhaps make up for in courage.
When her father comes home with a tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must travel to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father insists that he will not let her go, but she responds, “Cannot a Beast be tamed?”
A Spindle Splintered
by Alix E. Harrow
It’s Zinnia Gray’s twenty-first birthday, which is extra-special because it’s the last birthday she’ll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no one has lived past twenty-one.
Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia’s last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.
The Stolen Kingdom
by Bethany Atazadeh
How can she protect her kingdom, if she can’t protect herself?
Princess Arie never expected to manifest a Jinni’s Gift. When she begins to hear the thoughts of those around her, she hides it to the best of her ability. But to her dismay, the forbidden Gift is growing out of control.
When a neighboring king tries to force her hand in marriage and steal her kingdom, discovery becomes imminent. Just one slip could cost her throne. And her life.
A lamp, a heist, and a Jinni hunter’s crew of thieves are her only hope for removing this Gift–and she must remove it before she’s exposed. Or die trying.
THE STOLEN KINGDOM is a loose Aladdin retelling. Set in a world that humans share with Mermaids, Dragons, and the elusive Jinni, this isn’t the fairytale you remember…
A Taste of Poison
by Tessonja Odette
A runaway princess wanted for murder.
A deadly huntsman who’s after her heart…
Half-fae Astrid Snow is used to being disliked. With magic that makes her mirror back one’s worst qualities, she has more enemies than friends. And when she’s accused of poisoning her father, her stepmother—the formidable Spring Queen—becomes her greatest enemy yet. Forced into hiding, she finds solace at the Seven Sins Hotel. It provides the perfect subterfuge she needs. For who could ever find an outlaw in a hotel famed for sin?
Bear shifter Torben Davenport lost everything to the gambling halls. To pay off his debts, he serves the fae royals as their personal Huntsman, locating hard-to-find fugitives with his scent-based magic. When the Spring Queen offers him a bargain that will erase his debts for good, he’s willing to do what it takes—even if it means finding the queen’s runaway stepdaughter and cutting out her heart.
Astrid won’t go down without a fight, even if her assailant is a strikingly handsome Huntsman. If she can evade the bear-shifter’s claws, maybe she can make him an ally. It’s easier said than done, especially after she accidentally gets herself handcuffed to her infuriating captor.
Can Astrid cut through Torben’s icy demeanor and convince him to help her find the real killer? Or will she lose her heart in more ways than one?
ACOTAR meets Kingdom of the Wicked in this standalone fairytale retelling of Snow White. If you like brooding heroes, just one bed, and grumpy sunshine romances, then you’ll love this swoon-worthy story in the Entangled with Fae series.
*NOTE this book is upper YA/NA featuring mature situations, moderate violence and gore, and some adult language. The romance is slow burn but leads to moderate steam.
Ashes To Glass
by Carmen Black
One upon a time there was –
A charming prince.
Two wickedly cruel step brothers.
And a pair of magical glass slippers.
But this isn’t the story you know.
Because in my story, love comes at a price.
And when it comes time for that price to be paid,
I find out that the prince, as well as my step brothers, all want a piece.
A piece of me.
The Sea Witch
by Rebecca F. Kenney
When Averil saves a young man from a shipwreck, she thinks she feels the Soul Echo–the sign that the young human male is her one true mate. And the malevolent Sea Witch is all too happy to offer a deal that could make all her dreams come true. He wants her to win the prince’s heart–even coaches her in the art of seduction. But what is the real price of the Sea Witch’s help? Why is he more brutally beautiful–and charming–than Averil expected?
Darling Girl
by Liz Michalski
In this beautiful dive into the world of J. M. Barrie’s classic, one woman must take on the infamous Peter Pan—who is not the innocent adventurer the fairy tales make him out to be—to save her daughter’s life. . . .
Life is looking up for Holly Darling, granddaughter of Wendy—yes, that Wendy. That is, until she gets a call that her daughter, Eden, who has been in a coma for nearly a decade, has gone missing from the estate where she’s been long tucked away. And, worst of all, Holly knows who must be Peter Pan, who is not only very real, but very dangerous.
Holly is desperate to find Eden and protect her son, Jack, from a terrible web of family secrets before she loses both her children. And yet she has no one to turn to—her mother, Jane, is the only other person in the world who knows that Peter is more than a story, but she refuses to accept that he is not the hero she’s always imagined.
Darling Girl brings all the magic of the classic Peter Pan story to the present, while also exploring the dark underpinnings of fairy tales, grief, aging, sacrifice, motherhood, and just how far we will go to protect those we love.
Heartless
by Marissa Meyer
Long before she was the terror of Wonderland—the infamous Queen of Hearts—she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love.
Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland, and a favorite of the unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next queen.
Then Cath meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the king and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans.
The Pinocchio Project
by Emily Fluke
From the streets of San Francisco to a new world of virtual reality, where not even immortality and planning can save her.
Mari is officially The Keeper of Stories but is she the only one? When she meets a young man who wants to be real, she’s pulled into his game, the same place the mysterious Johnson may be hiding. This alternate reality offers answers and a threat to Mari’s life just when she wanted to have another baby.
Will Mari’s desperation to prove she isn’t a failure be the death of her?
Sea Witch
by Sarah Henning
Everyone knows what happens in the end. A mermaid, a prince, a true love’s kiss. But before that young siren’s tale, there were three friends. One feared, one royal, and one already dead.
Ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned, Evie has been an outcast in her small fishing town. A freak. A curse. A witch.
A girl with an uncanny resemblance to Anna appears offshore and, though the girl denies it, Evie is convinced that her best friend actually survived. That her own magic wasn’t so powerless after all. And, as the two girls catch the eyes—and hearts—of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at her own happily ever after.
But her new friend has secrets of her own. She can’t stay in Havnestad, or on two legs, unless Evie finds a way to help her. Now Evie will do anything to save her friend’s humanity, along with her prince’s heart—harnessing the power of her magic, her ocean, and her love until she discovers, too late, the truth of her bargain.
Court of Ice And Ash
by LJ Andrews
She chose him. He chose revenge. But some choices have deadly consequences.
When Elise agreed to break a vicious curse over the man she loved, she never imagined he was a lost fae prince. But Valen left her to carry out vengeance for his slaughtered family. So when she joins the outlaw fae in their uprising against her own sister, all Elise wants is to forget the prince who holds her heart.
But fate has a different plan.
Reunited in the rescue of a mutual friend, Elise and Valen are forced to decide where they stand in the battle of crowns. As their passion reignites, so too do the dangers threatening to pull them apart for good: a strange magical blight infecting the land, betrayal by one of their own, and a devastating secret not even a fae prince saw coming.
The wicked game for the right to rule has begun. But who will save Elise and Valen from a dark magic with the power to destroy their love forever?
For fans of The Cruel Prince and The Shadows Between Us, this tale of a rebellious princess and a seductive prince is wickedly romantic. Part Viking, part fairy tale, one-click to preorder a dark, swoon-worthy romance with the perfect amount of sweet and steam.
Curiouser And Curiouser
by Melanie Karsak
To save the Hatter, Alice must work with the one man she despises so much that she might still love him.
Alice thought she’d turned over a new leaf. No more working for Jabberwocky. No more making deals with the ruthless Queen of Hearts. No more hanging around The Mushroom with tinkers, tarts, scoundrels, and thieves in London’s criminal underbelly. But she’d been bonkers to dream.
Hatter’s reckless behavior leads Alice back to the one person she never wanted to see again, Caterpillar. Pulled into Caterpillar’s mad schemes, Alice must steal a very big diamond from a very royal lady. The heist is no problem for this Bandersnatch. But protecting her heart from the man she once loved? Impossible.
Sometimes love is mad.
See how NY Times bestselling author Melanie Karsak reimagines Lewis Carroll’s classic fairy tale, Alice in Wonderland, with a steampunk twist! Join us at The Mushroom in Gaslamp Victorian London.
