Now this is some good writing! Beastly Beauty is fantastically crafted, with some sharp prose and an enrapturing tale. While it definitely leans toward the younger side of the YA scale, it’s a creative and absorbing story fit for all ages. Arabella labors under a curse placed upon her as a youth by a furious…
Kiss the Girl is book three of Disney’s Meant to Be line. The series is connected thematically, with every volume placing a love story from one of their popular animated films in the modern world, although the novels themselves are stand-alone stories. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two tales If the Shoe Fits (Cinderella) and…
I thrive on Beauty and the Beast retellings, but my, is Beauty Reborn a just-okay trip through the same story beats. The Beauty here annoys, the Beast is mediocre, and the story doesn’t do that much to differentiate itself from every other take I’ve seen on the material. Beauty wants anything but to fall in…
One of the most interesting things about fairytale retellings is seeing how authors use predictable elements in unpredictable ways, and Sarah Pinborough’s Poison is one of the best in that regard. The first in the Tales of the Kingdoms trilogy, it can be read as a standalone, but a twist in the ending is likely…
Jasmine Guillory’s sweet, charming new novel, By the Book, is a modern-day retelling of a beloved fairy tale that is sure to delight fans of the author – and make her some new ones. This novel is listed as the second in the Meant to Be series which are novels based on various fairy tales….
Big Bad Wolf is a deliciously sexy take on Little Red Riding Hood that held up pretty well for me. There’s a mansion overlooking the Maine woods and its owner, Wolf Trevelyan, is pretty much the local bogeyman. Rumor has it he killed his first wife on their wedding night, and he’s stayed safely away from Maine ever…
Narrated by Greg Boudreaux The Demon’s in the Details is a riff on Rumpelstiltskin that hits the basic beats of the original without being an exact reproduction of it, transforming the passive main character into a brave, fiercely protective individual who can look out for himself, the king – who is, let’s face it, a pretty nasty piece…
Once More Upon a Time is a completely captivating, charming and comedic fairy tale novella about what happens after you find what is supposed to be your happily ever after. Imelda is one of the twelve dancing princesses. Contrary to popular belief, she and her sisters had good cause to wear their slippers out every…
A Spindle Splintered, Alix E. Harrow’s wonderful retelling of Sleeping Beauty, stands the fairytale’s premise on its head while managing to hit the right familiar notes to evoke emotions in its readers. Zinnia Gray suffered through a rare industrial accident that has given her a fatal disease which will kill her before the age of…
I’m not a big fan of fairytale retellings, so I struggled a to come up with something for this month’s Challenge prompt and was almost at the point of just picking up a random book instead. But then I remembered Aster Glenn Gray’s Briarley – an m/m version of Beauty and the Beast – that I’d come across at…
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