FTF Radar – Upcoming Fairy Tale Retellings

Getting excited about upcoming books is a thing of beauty, if you ask me. Staring at the cover and wondering what the author has in store for you is one part of the pleasure. The other is finally getting your copy in the mail and moving to the couch with a blanket and the book with an invisible “do not disturb” sign over your head. For the fairy tale fans out there, here are a few books coming out this year or early next year that we can all look forward to together.

R.C. Lewis – Stitching Snow

14th October 2014

I am so excited because I have a review copy of this on my Kobo and I can’t wait to get started. The plot sounds a lot like someone was trying to hop on Marissa Meyer’s bandwagon, what with sci-fi mixed with fairy tales, but I’ll give this a fair shot. If you’d asked me a while ago, I would have said my favorite fairy tale was The Snow Queen, but I seem to be reading a lot more Snow White retellings than any others. So maybe my subconscious is telling me something here…

Princess Snow is missing.

Her home planet is filled with violence and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his wife as they attempt to punish her captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back—but that’s assuming she wants to return at all.

Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines.

When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid. With the galaxy’s future—and her own—in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival.

Claire Legrand – Winterspell

30th September 2014

IT’S THE NUTCRACKER! Now there’s a story that I never particularly liked in book-form. But, oh, how I loved the animated movie set to Tchaikovsky’s music. I watched it over and over and over, to the point that my old tape is broken and nearly unwatchable. Seeing how I don’t love the original by Hoffman, I have very high hopes for any retelling. And with this cover, I’m already half sold.

The clock chimes midnight, a curse breaks, and a girl meets a prince . . . but what follows is not all sweetness and sugarplums.

New York City, 1899. Clara Stole, the mayor’s ever-proper daughter, leads a double life. Since her mother’s murder, she has secretly trained in self-defense with the mysterious Drosselmeyer.

Then, on Christmas Eve, disaster strikes.

Her home is destroyed, her father abducted–by beings distinctly not human. To find him, Clara journeys to the war-ravaged land of Cane. Her only companion is the dethroned prince Nicholas, bound by a wicked curse. If they’re to survive, Clara has no choice but to trust him, but his haunted eyes burn with secrets–and a need she can’t define. With the dangerous, seductive faery queen Anise hunting them, Clara soon realizes she won’t leave Cane unscathed–if she leaves at all.

Inspired by The Nutcracker, Winterspell is a dark, timeless fairy tale about love and war, longing and loneliness, and a girl who must learn to live without fear.

Alethea Kontis – Dearest

3rd February 2015

*squee* Alethea Kontis has stolen my heart with the Woodcutter family. Friday, the quite, caring, loving sister is a perfect fit for retelling The Wild Swans and The Goose Girl (The Wild Geese?). I shouldn’t have gobbled up the first two books so quickly because now I have to wait soooo long.

In her third book about the delightful Woodcutter sisters, Alethea Kontis masterfully weaves “The Wild Swans,” “The Goose Girl,” and a few other fine-feathered fairy tales into a magical, romantic companion novel to Enchanted and Hero.

Readers met the Woodcutter sisters (named after the days of the week) in Enchanted and Hero. In this delightful third book, Alethea Kontis weaves together some fine-feathered fairy tales to focus on Friday Woodcutter, the kind and loving seamstress. When Friday stumbles upon seven sleeping brothers in her sister Sunday’s palace, she takes one look at Tristan and knows he’s her future. But the brothers are cursed to be swans by day. Can Friday’s unique magic somehow break the spell?

Stacey Jay – Princess of Thorns

9th December 2014

This blurb contains some deal breakers (using Game of Thrones’ fame as bait, romantic adventure, warrior princess, ugh) but it also caught my attention with certain buzz words (girls dressing up as boys, sisters saving their brothers, hell yes!) so I’m approaching this neutrally and hoping for a great novel.

Game of Thrones meets the Grimm’s fairy tales in this twisted, fast-paced romantic fantasy-adventure about Sleeping Beauty’s daughter, a warrior princess who must fight to reclaim her throne.

Though she looks like a mere mortal, Princess Aurora is a fairy blessed with enhanced strength, bravery, and mercy yet cursed to destroy the free will of any male who kisses her. Disguised as a boy, she enlists the help of the handsome but also cursed Prince Niklaas to fight legions of evil and free her brother from the ogre queen who stole Aurora’s throne ten years ago.

Will Aurora triumph over evil and reach her brother before it’s too late? Can Aurora and Niklaas break the curses that will otherwise forever keep them from finding their one true love?

It seems that fairy tales are alive and kicking because there are a ton more retellings coming out next year. I thought I’d keep the list short and only add books that come out in the near-ish future. Expect another post like this around the end of the year – 2015 looks to be an excellent year for the fairy tale retelling.