Spoilers ahead!
Fairy tales are truly as old as time, but that doesn’t mean people will ever get tired of them.
Most of the prominent fairy tales have been retold a million different ways in the modern era.Sometimes these remastered versions simply focus on one tale and follow the well-known story in a new setting with new people.
Other times, it’s the other way around, and authors will take those beloved characters and change their stories. One way of doing this is taking a whole bunch of fairy tales and connecting their stories together in one big magical world.
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To Kill a Kingdom
“To Kill a Kingdom” is one of those books that hooks the reader right away with its first line: “I have a heart for every year I’ve been alive. There are seventeen hidden in the sand of my bedroom.”
Instead of the story of a little mermaid, author Alexandra Christo tells the tale of a not-so-little siren, the daughter of the Sea Queen. Princess Lira is beloved by her people and skilled at luring men to their deaths.
But when she disobeys her mother, she is transformed into a human as punishment and cannot regain her tail until she obtains the heart of Prince Elian without the help of her song. Elian may be the crown prince of a powerful land kingdom, but he much prefers to be sailing the ocean on his ship with his crew hunting mankind’s greatest enemy: sirens.
This violent sea adventure full of pirates and dangerous quests is a dark, bloody retelling of “The Little Mermaid,” much closer to Hans Christian Andersen’s original than Disney’s version.
Entwined
Another simple retelling, Heather Dixon Wallwork’s “Entwined,” is based on “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” from the Brothers Grimm.
Before the tragic death of her mother, the Princess Royale Azalea Kathryn Wentworth enjoyed numerous balls full of gorgeous gowns and intricate dances. Now, she and her 11 younger sisters are trapped in the palace in mourning, only allowed to wear black dresses and forbidden from dancing.
One night, Azalea discovers a passage leading to a secret forest and a dancing pavilion where they meet the Keeper, a being trapped within the pavilion. They visit every night to dance, and their father eventually begins inviting suitors to the palace in an attempt to discover where they disappear to.
Whoever succeeds gets to marry one of the oldest princesses, but as one suitor after the other fails, Azalea becomes less sure they can trust the Keeper.
“Entwined” is a beautiful story of familial love, between Azalea, her sisters and their father as they grieve the loss of their queen. That’s not to mention the rollercoaster romances of the three eldest sisters.
The Lunar Chronicles
Marissa Meyer’s “Lunar Chronicles” is an impressive combination of a simple retelling and building a world full of fairy tales.
Each book follows the plot of its own fairy tale, but as the series progresses, they become intertwined. In order, they are: “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Rapunzel” and “Snow White.”
“Cinder” introduces a futuristic world of cyborgs and androids facing the pandemic of a highly contagious and deadly plague. The country of Luna, which was established on the moon, waits for Earth to succumb.
“Cinder” is set in New Beijing on a futuristic Earth. Cyborgs are considered second-class citizens, and Linh Cinder is no exception. However, the soon-to-be emperor Prince Kai has yet to realize she is anything other than a beautiful mechanic.
“Scarlet” takes place in France, opening on a farm on the outskirts of Rieux. In search of her missing grandmother, Scarlet Beniot has to travel to Paris with a street fighter named Wolf. Cinder is also in search of Scarlet’s grandmother, who might have valuable information.
Crescent “Cress” Moon Darnel is a Lunar girl who grew up in a satellite which orbits the moon. She uses the satellite to spy on Earth for the Lunar queen. After a botched rescue attempt from Cinder and Scarlet, Cress ends up stranded on Earth and on the run with only Captain Carswell Thorne to guide her.
“Winter” introduces Princess Winter Hayle-Blackburn, reluctant stepdaughter of the evil Lunar queen. When her personal guard Jacin Clay is ordered to kill her and instead helps her escape, Winter must make her way to the outskirts of Luna. This is where Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Winter finally come together to attempt to take Queen Levana down.
The Land of Stories
Chris Colfer created a world that exists parallel to ours containing every fairy tale character and their stories. At the time of book one, “The Wishing Spell,” all the stories that Alex and Conner Bailey grew up reading in books have run their course.
When the twins fall through their grandmother’s book of fairy tales, they are trapped in a dimension and have to be face-to-face with their favorite childhood characters.
Alex and Conner embark on a mad dash across each of the fairy tale kingdoms, searching for the ingredients of a spell that can send them home. All the while, they must avoid villainous characters and the infamous Fairy Godmother who’s searching for them.
Little do they know, home is closer than they could have imagined.
The Wide-Awake Princess
E.D. Baker is known for his fairy tale retellings. “The Wide-Awake Princess” follows the storyline of the classic fairy tale, “Sleeping Beauty,” by the Brothers Grimm, specifically Sleeping Beauty’s younger sister, Princess Annie.
When Annie was born, her parents begged her fairy godmother to protect her from the kind of magic that cursed her sister, Gwen. As a result, no magic of any kind works on her. When Gwen turns 16 and pricks her finger, the entire castle falls into the dreaded hundred-year slumber – everyone except Annie.
Desperate to save her family, Annie sets out to find her sister’s true love to end the curse or get the fairy who cast it to take it back, whichever comes first. Accompanied by Liam, one of her father’s guards , they travel the continent collecting every prince they can find who could be her sister’s true love.
The Ever Afters
“The Ever Afters” is an entirely different sort of fairy tale. Instead of retelling one or even multiple fairy tales, Shelby Bach explores what it would look like if fairy tales existed in the real world, hidden from regular people.
In the first book, “Of Giants and Ice,” Aurora “Rory” Landon is recruited into an after-school program called Ever After School, and discovers she is a character.
Characters are people who will one day be the star of their own fairy tale. Most of the time, these Tales repeat, and characters can use the stories of characters who came before them to guide their path.
EAS is a place characters can go to train for the Tale and learn how to survive whichever one they might end up in.
In “Of Giants and Ice,” Rory helps her friend Lena LaMarelle survive her Tale as the new Jack, travelling up the beanstalk to confront a giant. Unfortunately for Rory, her Tale’s already begun. As the bearer of an “untitled” Tale, Rory must find her own path and somehow save the world from the Snow Queen.
These days there are remastered fairy tales for all ages and in different genres. Even those who think they’re satisfied with the originals could find something to enjoy.
