Guest Post: Petticoats and Poison Apples – Romance and Fairy Tales

This guest post is from Ellen, who studied folklore and mythology and has Many Thoughts about the myriad intersections between romance fiction and fairy tales. This is a longer entry that covers a brief history of fairy tales and how they’ve evolved, and then moves on to a bounty of fairy tale retelling romances to recommend. Thanks, Ellen!


 

Few phrases are more culturally loaded than “Once upon a time.” It’s the universal cue in the Western world: a fairy tale is about to begin.

In today’s world, the fairy tale is indelibly associated with a kind of pop-cheesy conception of romance: a prince and a princess triumphing over all odds, riding off into the sunset and living happily ever after. The entire concept of a “fairy-tale wedding”—an eternal boon to the wedding industrial complex—is rooted in the identification of the bride and groom with the fairy tale princess and prince. We probably have Disney to thank for the robustness of the association between tales and commercialized romance (scholar Jack Zipes has gone on about this subject at length). They gave visual life to the original pouting damsels and dashing noblemen making love-at-first-sight heart eyes at each other, after all.

But the truth is, fairy tales haven’t been all that romantic for much of their history. Go back in time to the Grimms and Perrault and even earlier and you’ll see Sleeping Beauty waking up from labor pains (!) and then having to protect herself and her children from her mother-in-law who is literally an ogre (!). Instead of giving the frog prince a kiss to wake him, the princess throws him against the wall because she finds him so repulsive. Marriages certainly happen, but they are usually incidental to the real resolution, which is the gruesome punishment of the antagonist. Snow White’s stepmother is made to dance in hot iron shoes. The Goose Girl’s imposter is rolled through town in a barrel lined with nails.

Anne Anderson, illustration for “the Frog Prince”
Anne Anderson, illustration for “The Frog Prince”

It was only by degrees that fairy tales became the tame provenance of children in picture books and animated films, beginning and ending in duets between the princess and the prince. While they did little to tone down the violence of the tales, the brothers Grimm did remove most of the sexual content (pre-Grimm, Rapunzel’s prince is discovered by the witch when Rapunzel reveals her pregnancy). The Grimms ultimately marketed their collection as a set of educational morality fables for children, laying the foundation for the Victorian-and-onward conception of fairy tales as a childhood indulgence.

The most famous fairy tale collection was assembled by two men and aimed at children. Modern commercialized conceptions of romance often rely on a tame and defanged fairy tale that does nothing to fight the infantilization of the tales or of women—these Bachelor roses have no thorns.

But since the ‘70s, there has been a feminist push to re-examine the fairy tale and its original connection to the adult lives and desires of women. After all, the history of the fairy tale, while recently eclipsed by men like the Grimms and Walt Disney, hinges on female tale-spinners.

Once Upon a Time
A | BN | K | AB
Before they were written down, fairy tales were delivered as oral folktales. Tellers—mostly women—would tell them to each other to pass the time while working on repetitive household tasks like spinning and weaving. It’s no coincidence that the phrase “spinning a yarn” means “telling a tale.” Though Charles Perrault has become the most well-remembered adaptor of his time, many of his cohort of literary fairy-tale writers were French noblewomen, who used the tales as a way to express the trials and tribulations of womanhood (for more on this topic, see Once Upon a Time by Marina Warner).

The most famous written version of Beauty and the Beast—the one most retellings today rely upon—is by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, an eighteenth-century writer and member of the bourgeoisie. And let us not forget that most of the Grimms’ informants were women. In the modern era, writers like Angela Carter, Anne Sexton, Emma Donoghue, and others have examined and re-told tales in the continued tradition of female tellers, using the bones and building-blocks of tales to give voice to the female experience.

Edmund Dulac, illustration for “the Little Mermaid”
Edmund Dulac, illustration for “the Little Mermaid”

Resurfacing the female reality of the fairy tale reveals a natural connection to the romance genre. In many ways, fairy tales were the original women’s fiction, and romance is often termed the so-called “women’s fiction” of today. Both genres rely on the combination and recombination of symbols and tropes to communicate their messages and reward female ingenuity and resourcefulness, giving voice to various modes and concerns of womanhood.

In her amazing essay “The Mirror Broken” in Fairy Tales and Feminism ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), Elizabeth Wanning Harries describes how fairy tales, and specifically their symbols, can be a huge part of women’s identity creation. She calls them “stories to think with.” The bloody key of the Bluebeard story shows the terror and violence of desire and carnal knowledge, and the perils of marriage. Rapunzel’s long hair speaks to how beauty can trap and oppress us, and how we can trade on it. The poison apple and the magic mirror show us the conflict between generations, the fraught nature of the mother-daughter relationship, the pressure to stay young at all costs or be replaced. With their polyvalent nature, symbols both obscure and deepen meaning, giving flexibility and texture to the messages in tales.

Romance novels of all subgenres have their own language of symbols and signs as well that provide semi-coded messages on identity and relationships. The manor house of historical romance represents concerns of class, romantic suitability and economic compatibility. The hero and heroine (or heroine and heroine, or hero and hero, etc) getting caught in a storm, a classic trope of many genres, lends a visual to the conflicts and tumults of desire, and of love as a potential sanctuary. Physical injuries stand in for or act in concert with emotional ones and must be healed by the ministrations of the lover, showing how emotional baggage can be uncovered and overcome. Just as in the fairy tale, these are guidebooks for living and loving, labs where we can play out our fears and wants in safety as we anticipate the happily ever after that is endemic to both genres.

Franz Juttner, illustration for “Sneewittchen”
Franz Juttner, illustration for “Sneewittchen”

East of the Sun and West of the Moon
A | BN
Romance novels and fairy tales also share in common the general concept that good prevails and villainy is thwarted. Except what is “good” is not necessarily tied to morality but instead to such traits as cleverness, wit, and grit. Elizabeth Bennet is not a beloved heroine because she has the most moral rectitude of the Bennet sisters but because she is smartest and boldest. The heroines of Lisa Kleypas, Courtney Milan, Eloisa James, and other well-loved authors are cherished for their spirit and ingenuity. In fairy tales, the heroine of East of the Sun and West of the Moon prevails because she tricks the Troll Princess; Cap’o’rushes attracts the attention of the prince and proves her father wrong via a series of disguises and ruses; the heroine of Fitcher’s Bird and her sisters trick the sorcerer into giving them gold and then into his death.

The best-loved fairy tale princesses have a knack for survival through all things (Snow White survives poisoning three times, Sleeping Beauty a hundred years of sleep), for force of will (Beauty’s tears reviving the dying Beast, the sister of the Six Swans knitting the shirts of nettles), for ingenuity. “Goodness” in romance and in fairy is rooted not so much righteousness as it is in traits that are good to have as a woman in the world. To the extent that heroines are rewarded with a happily ever after, it is not presented as a karmic payout but as a genuine, hard-fought achievement, and their exploits serve as a kind of guidebook to how to navigate the female experience.

Anne Anderson, illustration for “the Six Swans.”
Anne Anderson, illustration for “the Six Swans.”

In many ways, then, romance and fairy tales are both about how the Happily Ever After is achieved—how a woman moves into that space. At their core, the genres share the theme of transformation—from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to experience, from victimization to self-actualization. So we can see how a marriage between the two kinds of story is natural, and their joining provides an especially rich language for describing women’s lives, dreams, fears, desires and identities.

The most well-known authors in fairy-tale romance are probably Robin McKinley, Mercedes Lackey, and Juliet Marillier. Each has written multiple books that are romantic fantasy fairy tale retellings. If you haven’t explored them, it’s a great place to start.

I highly recommend Spindle’s End by McKinley ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) as a point of entry; the novel uses Sleeping Beauty to examine themes of belonging, families born and created, and the burdens and joys of being unusual. Since so many people are aware of McKinley/Lackey/Marillier, I’m going to focus more on some less-travelled paths as I offer some further recommendations.

A Kiss at Midnight
A | BN | K | AB
Just like fairy tales themselves, fairy-tale romance runs the gamut from frothy and sweet to dark and brooding. On the frothy-and-sweet side of things is Eloisa James. I just finished A Kiss at Midnight and the best word to describe it is CHARMING. The fairy-tale trappings were mostly superficial (no magic, for example), and there were a few nudge-nudge wink-wink nods to Disney. Still, the book was delightful and I have already requested the next in the series from the library.

That said, I find the best fairy tale romances have some more bitter to their sweetness. Fairy tales tend to take us to the dark places of our fears and ourselves: the deep woods, the belly of the wolf, the dankest dirtiest kitchen floors swirling with ash. And then they bring us out again. So, as a reader, I like to get a little grimy and curse-struck before everything works out and our main duo kiss and go back to their castle.

Mildred Lyon, illustration for “Cinderella,” from Journeys Through Bookland, 1922
Mildred Lyon, illustration for “Cinderella,” from Journeys Through Bookland, 1922

A recent New Adult release that hits all those buttons is A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). This Beauty and the Beast retelling reminds me a lot of a sexier Robin McKinley novel; the heroine is a true ass-kicker and her connection with the hero is both very tender and very hot. The world building is amazing and her version of the tale is very innovative.

Warwick Goble, illustration for “Beauty and the Beast,” 1913
Warwick Goble, illustration for “Beauty and the Beast,” 1913

It bears mentioning that the YA section is also a place that is periodically flooded with fairy tale adaptations. If you are a die-hard fairy tale lit fan like I am, it can be a fruitful avenue.

( A | BN | K | G | AB )If you’ll allow me a brief moment in Teen-land, I would like to direct your attention to Francesca Lia Block’s fairy tale poetry collection, The Rose and the Beast. The poems retell different tales in a modern Los Angeles.

Block has a gift for modernizing the tales while keeping the essential core of the story. The collection feels both fresh and timeless. But be forewarned—short as the book is, it’s an emotionally exhausting reading experience because the language is so psychologically charged and resonant. I cried.

Kay Nielsen, illustration for “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” 1914
Kay Nielsen, illustration for “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” 1914

For another emotionally exhausting reading experience, you could try my favorite fairy tale novel ever. The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) is a retelling of the twelve dancing princesses set in the Jazz Age. This one keeps much of the magic and the romance(s) spare and shadowed, which makes it all the more poignant. Every word of this novel seems significant. The relationships between the sisters are well-drawn and moving; female companionship is the most important theme of the novel, with the mysteries of romantic compatibility as a close second. If you have a taste for something subtle yet heavy, that will stay with you a long time, it’s a great choice.

As with any genre, fairy tale lit also has its share of wackiness, good, bad, and strange. A true hidden gem I found while researching was this:

Award-winning author Jennifer Blackstream introduces book one of a magical new series with this twisted Cinderella tale of a maiden cursed to be a loup garou and the werewolf prince whose fate lies in her hands.

Before Midnight
A | BN | K | AB
You are reading this right—it’s a werewolf Cinderella romance novel. AND IT IS A SERIES, PEOPLE. Please tell me one of you has read it and can give me some thoughts. Is this the mash-up I never knew I needed??

I could go on with fairy tale recommendations literally forever and ever, but I’ll stop myself with a few final suggestions. If you want to learn more about fairy tale origins, I suggest Once Upon a Time by Marina Warner for an overview of fairy tale history and the various issues at play in fairy tale scholarship today; the annotated Brothers Grimm, ed. by Maria Tatar, for a good dose of Grimm history; and the Classic Fairy Tales, also ed. by Maria Tatar, for a slightly more global overview. (In the interest of full disclosure, she was my college professor, but her books are amazing and she has no idea I’m writing this post.)

So there you have it: a brief fictional journey through the place where fairy tales and romance meet. The real beauty of fairy tales—and romance novels—is in their flexibility and versatility. Scholars like the Grimms captured and pinned down the tales like butterfly specimens, but as they were originally passed along orally, primarily from woman-to-woman, they are meant to be a malleable medium. In the hands of a master storyteller, something new is revealed with each re-telling.

What are your favorite fairy tales, or retellings? What fables or stories have stayed with you long after you heard or read them?


 

Ellen McCammon is a graduate student by day, a writer/poet by night, and a romance-novel reader all the time. You can find more of her work in Bi Women Quarterly, Illumen Poetry, and Exponent II.

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  1. Natalie says:

    As a dyed in the wool fairy tale lover very much in the vein of FAIRY TALES WERE WOMEN’S TALES then compiled by men and pushed out as morality tales for women and children, ANGELA CARTER FOR EVERYTHING person, THIS WAS HEAVEN TO READ!!!!! Thanks for this post!!

    I absolutely adored the mention of The Girls at the Kingfisher Club! I read that at the start of this year and it is one of the best fairy tale retellings I’ve ever read because it captures the essence of the fairy tale even though it completely spins off into the jazz age. Absolutely compelling, moving stuff.

    I must say, it’s been an absolute HIKE trying to find good fairy tale retellings, I’ve read so, so, so many disappointing ones. The only truly good ones that I would wholeheartedly recommend are basically everything by Kate Forsyth, particularly Bitter Greens. Bitter Greens is a retelling of Rapunzel but also tells the story of one of the original writers of the Rapunzel tale, Charlotte-Rose, who led a colorful life in Louis XIV aka The Sun King’s court with a ton of intrigue. The Rapunzel tale is retold too, from the point of view of Rapunzel and the witch. The witch’s story is the best part of the novel, and is absolutely heartbreaking and spellbinding.

    Forsyth has also written The Wild Girl which is about Dortchen Wild, the girl next door to the Grimm Brothers and knew and loved Wilhelm Grimm all her life, but they would only marry in her late 30s after Dortchen and Wilhelm go through a lifetime and an absolute river of war and suffering and starvation and poverty (as this takes place during the Napoleonic wars). It’s a really tough book to read but very worth it as Forsyth weaves in various famous fairy tales throughout the story as Dortchen tells them to Wilhelm, often related to her own state of mind/life at the time. Very heartbreaking and bleak at times but it always holds to the power and hope of storytelling.

    And her latest novel is The Beast’s Garden which was inspired by the author’s research into WW2 history and the German women and men involved in the resistance and the story follows the threads of The Singing, Springing Lark which is a variant of Beauty & the Beast. It’s a war story more than anything and really moving as it follows the POV of the heroine Ava and sometimes follows the POV of her best friend Rupert who is Jewish and gay.

    She’s doing a Sleeping Beauty inspired novel next, following the lives of the women who were wives and muses of the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Georgie Burne-Jones, who was married to Edward Burne-Jones, that painted the series of Legend of Briar Rose paintings.

    Other good fairy tale retellings: the Snow, Glass, Apple short story by Neil Gaiman, The Sleeper & the Spindle also by Neil Gaiman, The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh. Most of the YA fairytale retellings that are super popular have generally been just mediocre for me. The Wrath & the Dawn which I actually discovered via Smart Bitches (through the podcast) is the only one that has really stood out to me.

  2. Gillian B says:

    I adored the “Storyteller” videos in the 1980s, with John Hurt as the Storyteller. Quite often, the women in those (Sapsorrow, the True Bride, the Princess with the Three Ravens) got themselves out of the situation through hard work, using their brains, and not giving up even when your heart would break and your soul die inside you.

    (It’s also cool seeing all those now-famous actors and actresses. Honestly – Miranda Richardson – of COURSE she’s a … no – that would be telling).

  3. Hazel says:

    Angela Carter’s collection of tales, The Bloody Chamber was a real favourite of mine. I particularly liked the Bluebeard story. I haven’t read the collection recently, but it includes The Company of Wolves which led to the movie adaptation by Neil Jordan in the early 1980s.

  4. Squimbelina says:

    I loved Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales for simple straightforward tellings of the tales.

    For contemporary fairy tales, I love John Connolly’s Book of Lost Things was wonderful (though not a romance) and so was The Stolen Child by Keith Donoghue (about changelings). Not contemporary but recently written; Susannah Clarke’s The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories.

    There was also a collection of short stories that was released in the 90s and I can’t remember the author or the title – only the cover (silver and black, with a stylised photo of two women). Full of modern day strange and odd and wonderful fairy tales. I’ll find it when I get home and post the author/title.

  5. Rachel says:

    Thank you for sharing your insight and suggestions! I cannot get my hands on a copy of The Girls at the Kingfisher Club soon enough– I was making grabby hands as soon as you said Jazz Age.

  6. Squimbelina says:

    Impossible Saints by Michele Roberts! Not two women on the cover, a man and a child. And not quite short stories – one story, interspersed with short fairy tales. Anyway – I haven’t read it in a while but it’s eerie and wonderful.

  7. You can probably find fairy tale analogies for most romance novels—Sleeping Beauty for Balogh’s A Summer to Remember, Beauty and the Beast for The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie or Lord of Scoundrels, Cinderella for a gazillion Harlequin Presents. But I think the most important similarity, and the reason I loved fairy tales as a child, is that the heroine isn’t passive. She doesn’t just watch, she does stuff.

  8. cotterpinx says:

    I think readers who are interested in fairy tale-inspired stories may want to check out Alethea Kontis. She has a YA series about the Woodcutter sisters. I haven’t finished them, but there’s a *lot* of different tales reworked and put back together in really interesting ways.

  9. MirandaB says:

    While not a romance (although there is some), Seanan McGuire’s Indexing series is an awesome urban fantasy about incursion of fairy tales into the modern world.

  10. Malin says:

    One of my favourite Cinderella retellings is An Offer from a Gentleman by Julia Quinn.

  11. Samantha Schafer says:

    This post is everything I never knew I needed! (I just added so many books to my to-read list!)

    As far as retellings, I love Seanan McGuire’s Indexing series. Both are Amazon serials. They’re about a bureau of fairy-tale characters who keep fairy tales from coming alive in the real world. The main characters are a Snow White, an Evil Stepsister, a shoe-making Elf, a Pied Piper, and a Rose Red. They use the Aarne-Thompson index as a way of identifying and cataloging ‘memetic incursions’ aka a fairy tale coming alive.

    The series also addresses things like gender identity, family, fate vs choice, and the idea of a monomyth, and there are some secondary romances (of all sexualities!).

  12. Mary Harlos says:

    One of my favorite fairy tale retellers, but maybe not modern enough for some, is the British author Eleanor Farjeon. Her “Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard” is one of my favorite books of all times.

  13. Dee says:

    I took a Children’s Lit class in university and we studied fairy tales. It was surprising how different the original stories were, especially Little Red Riding Hood. Ever since then I’ve had an interest in fairy tales and retellings. Thanks for the great article!

  14. Eva says:

    I grew up in Germany in the late 80s and early 90s, and back then I was still raised with the old fairy tales. The first time I watched Disney’s Cinderella, little me was rather relieved to find that the two stepsisters weren’t actually going to cut off their toes/heel on screen…
    One of my favorite fairy tales is Beauty and the Beast. My favorite retellings are Entreat Me by Grace Draven, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, and Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher, in that order.
    Thanks for this article! I’ll definitely bookmark it for the great recommendations.

  15. Courtney says:

    My TBR pile just doubled. Thanks for all the great recommendations!

  16. Kay Sisk says:

    My romance novel, One Year Past Perfect, is based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. One’s too old, one’s too young, but one is just right!

  17. Vlada says:

    Besides Mercedes Lackey and her beautiful renditions (serpent’s shadow which is kind of like snow white is a regular reread) Cameron Dokey (Golden is her sleeping beauty tale) does some great work as well. 🙂

  18. Katie says:

    My favorite adaptations of fairy tales have been Judith Ivory’s Beast and Sleeping Beauty.

  19. I love fairy tale re-tellings. LOVE! One of a my favorite series, which did not make your list, is a YA by Marissa Meyer called The Lunar Chronicles. It is a gritty, futuristic series which starts as a Cinderella tale and goes through a few others as the series progresses. It is wonderful with beautiful world building and themes of humanity, love, loyalty, socio-economic classes. The first one is Cinder.

  20. I love Laura Florand’s books, and a lot of them have pretty explicit fairy-tale underpinnings.

    I think this is most explicit in “The Chocolate Kiss” where the hero’s mother is a university professor specializing in myths and fairy-tales. It’s only mentioned in passing, but the tropes come up throughout the story.

    There are some great rec’s in the comments and in the article itself, and a few that are new to me. I’ll have to check them out!

  21. Pamala says:

    Excellent post! I love fairy tales and especially a good twist/retelling of one.

    I see that Natalie already mentioned one of my favorite of retelling authors, Kate Forsyth and her awesome BITTER GREENS but looks like no one has mentioned Tanith Lee’s RED AS BLOOD, THE SISTERS GRIMMER and all the tales within.

    My favorite collection of fairy tales are the ones curated by Andrew Lang (the Coloured Fairy Tales: The Green Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, etc.) which hold many great childhood memories for me.

    I’ve also recently finished THE WRATH AND THE DAWN and that too, is excellent. Think Sheherezade’s revenge :).

  22. Pamala says:

    Oh! I forgot to add SIX-GUN SNOW WHITE by Catherynne M. Valente. The VOICE, OMG the voice of the character. So good 🙂

  23. Xandi says:

    So many things mentioned, I love – especially the Indexing series (please let there be more)! I would also mention Bill Willingham’s graphic novel series Fables and all spin off series, thereof. For a dark fairy tale, try Robin McKinley’s Deerskin. Great post & luscious artwork!

  24. Alex says:

    Yes yes yes to Laura Florand!

    I really like Jessica Day George’s books, particularly Princess of the Midnight Ball (a hero that knits!).

  25. Nicci says:

    I second the recommendation for the Beauty and the Beast retelling of Entreat Me by Grace Draven, and I also highly recommend Ember by Bettie Sharp for a darkly delicious twist on Cinderella.

  26. moonviolet says:

    I think “Ember” by Bettie Sharpe is a very good (very unsusal, but very good) fairy tale adaptation.

  27. Rowan Worth says:

    I always loved Robin McKinley’s BEAUTY (re-released in 2014). Alethea Kontis also has fairytale themed books, like her Woodcutter Sisters series.

  28. Karin says:

    I got the Grimm’s fairy tales when I was very young, and Hansel and Gretel was the scariest.

  29. Vasha says:

    The very fine novella “The Bone Swans of Amandale” by C.S.E. Cooney is based on “The Pied Piper” and some others. The narrator is a snarky rat-shifter in love with a swan-shifter.

    I’ll second the recommendation upthread for T. Kingfisher, author of rather dark YA. She has done Bryony and Roses (“Beauty and the Beast”), The Seventh Bride (“Bluebeard”), and The Raven and the Reindeer (“The Snow Queen”). Under the name Ursula Vernon, the same author has a series of online stories based on American folklore and starring pragmatic, tough-minded elderly witches: “Jackalope Wives”, “Pocosin”, and others.

  30. Susan says:

    Edith Pattou’s East was a very well-done version of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan was a fascinating, extremely dark version of Snow White and Rose Red.

  31. Katie Lynn says:

    Some more votes for Alethea Kontiss’s Woodcutter sisters books, though I confess to only having read the first. They were very expensive last I checked ($10 in ebook, if I recall correctly, past my allowed ebook amount), but I’m going to work on getting them again.

    My favorite fairy tale has always been Beauty and the Beast. Robin McKinley’s done it a few times, but my favorite historical version is Teresa Medieros’s Yours Until Dawn. The Vixen and the Vet by Kate Regnery is an excellent contemporary version. Entreat Me by Grace Draven is a better representation of the original story, as the magic is still a major part of the tale. I am always on the lookout for more Beauty and the Beast!

  32. […] Smart Bitches, Ellen discussed the intersections between romance and fairy tales, including a few recommendations for good modern fairy tale […]

  33. Ruthg says:

    The fary tale anthologies edited by Teri Windling and Ellen Datlow have some really great retelling of fairy tales. Along with the not at all romancey Briar Rose by Jane Yolen, part of Tor’s fairy tale series.

  34. Elle says:

    ASH by Malinda Lo is excellent. It’s a lesbian retelling of Cinderella and it’s just mind-numbingly sweet. I loved Ash and Kaisa’s relationship so much. I also really enjoy T. Kingfisher’s BRYONY AND ROSES, a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Kingfisher’s heroines are all so no-nonsense and practical and I love them.

  35. Alibata says:

    Patricia Mckinley writes beautiful fairy-tale like stories, with amazing, lyrical prose. While not strictly speaking retellings of popular fairy tales (at least none that I can recall at the moment), there are common themes in her novels that give them a magical, once-upon-a-time feel

  36. shoregirl says:

    I loved the Andrew Lang “color” fairy tales – and I liked that there were so many non-European and non traditional stories. If people haven’t read much Mercedes Lackey, it is the Fairy Godmother series that plays with Traditional fairy tales. I would suggest Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber for its use of Carribean folk tales.

    This was great, thank you!

  37. shoregirl says:

    Also, it is really scary that you have access to my B&N search history and know that about a month ago I was doing a search for retellings of fairy tales. (I’m guessing it was because I read the Labyrinth review). These posts are much, much better than my search results.

  38. Michele says:

    Youth Services Librarian and lifetime folklore lover here! THANK YOU FOR THIS!!! Robin McKinley can do no wrong, but I’d also like to recommend the Faerie Tale series that Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling selected and edited for TOR Books back in the day. While all are not strictly romance almost all have romantic elements and are compelling and clever retellings:

    The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars by Steven Brust
    Jack the Giant-Killer by Charles deLint (the first urban fantasy I ever read)
    The Nightingale by Kara Dalkey
    Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia Wrede
    Tam Lin by Pamela Dean (my favorite in the series)
    Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
    White as Snow by Tanith Lee
    Fitcher’s Brides by Gregory Frost

    I also enjoyed Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner, Thornspell by Helen Lowe, The Goose Girl and Rapunzel’s revenge both by Shannon Hale, Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher, and Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli. And, of course, The Robber Bride by the incomparable Margaret Atwood. 🙂

  39. shoregirl says:

    Mary Harlos, yes!!! I have read Martin Pippin, but over 30 years ago. My mother bought out her favorite children’s library in Connecticut in the 1970s, and I grew up reading British and American young adult fiction from the 1930s to the 1950s.
    (My mother read the books in the 50’s and then bought pretty much the whole library at a sale in the 1970s.)

  40. Ellen says:

    So glad you all enjoyed this post!! There were approximately a bajillion more books I wanted to include but I had to restrain myself, haha.

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