Long Ago and Far Away: Six Fantasy Novels Inspired by Fairy Tales, Myths, Legends, Folklore, & Magic


Christine Pope - 2020
    Rhianne Menyon has dreams of being a painter, but her world changes forever when a single moment of sacrifice brings her to Black's Keep as the Dragon's latest Bride. As she attempts to adjust to her new life - and to know something of the monster who is now her husband - she begins to see that the curse is far crueler than she first believed. Unraveling the mystery of what happened to the Dragon's Brides is only the beginning...Jennifer Blackstream - Before Midnight (Blood Prince #1)An alpha wolf fighting a powerful curse...The werewolf prince Etienne is turning into a human. A fierce and loyal pack, Etienne and his family have protected their kingdom with tooth and claw - literally - for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, the spell of a well-meaning witch is slowly stealing the beast from inside him. Only the bite of a cursed werewolf - one who was not born with the beast inside - can save him from losing everything. He has no time for anything that will not lead him to a cure for the curse. Not even the beautiful maiden whose gentle nature soothes his soul even as she tempts him into primal pursuits of an entirely different nature…A maiden enslaved by her stepfamily, who dares to reach for more...Loupe lives in terror. Terror of the bloodthirsty stepfamily who treats her like a slave, and terror of the beast trapped inside her. Bitten by a werewolf while dealing with the illegal gains of her step-family’s poaching, Loupe’s dreams of a strong husband who would take her away from her servant-like existence are over. A woman who becomes a mindless beast on the night of the full moon has no place in a marriage bed. Not even if that bed belongs to a prince with the manners of royalty and the hungry eyes of a wolf.Nothing will stand between an alpha wolf and his mate...A grand ball. The stroke of twelve. A magic “slipper.” All kinds of things can happen when you don’t leave the ball... Before Midnight.Laura Greenwood - Spindles And Spells (Grimm Academy #1)Briar doesn't believe in Once Upon A Time...Her whole life, Briar has been told about her fate, but she doesn't believe a word. Now she's forced to go to Grimm Academy along with all the other fairy tale characters trying to avoid their tales.When she finds a spindle in one of the tallest towers, she begins to believe, but is it already too late?Welcome to Grimm Academy, where fairy tale characters go to escape their foretold fate.Kat Parrish - Bride Of The Midnight King (Grimm Blood Tale #1)And the story begins with... once upon a timeThe land was called Eindar, and those who lived there called it “home,” but those who lived beyond its borders called it “The Divided Kingdom” because it was a place where humans and vampires shared the land but divided the day’s hours into sunlight and shadow, and there were only a few whose lives were lived in both realms.Eindar had once been ruled by a royal house of humans, but that era ended when the last human king - Lorant the Third - took a vampire wife and died, leaving the kingdom in her care. Queen Isix abdicated in favor of her son Adraxus, and the sons of his line had occupied the throne of the Shadow Palace ever since.By custom, the vampire kings choose human consorts to rule by their side. A king chose his consort for any number of reasons, but rarely was love involved. Or so it was until the last consort of King Idrax died, leaving behind a most unusual bequest. Lady Judita’s final gift to the kingdom and the king she’d loved was a complete surprise, and it changed… everything.Jenna Elizabeth Johnson - Faeborne (Otherworld #9)Brennon Roarke is cursed. Stolen from his family at the age of sixteen and forced to use his glamour in the service of Eilé’s most malevolent goddess, Brenn has little room for warmth in his heart. For seven long years, he endured hardship and pain, only to escape and find his parents and sister murdered, his nephew left blind and broken. With the stain of dark magic on his soul, Brennon perseveres for the sake of his young ward, always worrying that one day the evil infecting his spirit will destroy him for good.Seren is an outcast among her own kind, ridiculed and ostracized by all but her mother. Born to the Fahndí tribe of the Weald, Seren’s glamour allows her to transform into a deer, but it also grants her the power to heal grave wounds. When she reveals this gift to her peers, jealousy and hatred drive them to murder, forcing Seren to either flee or fall victim to their malice. Taking on her animal form, Seren leaves her old life behind hoping to find a safe haven in a world that has only ever offered her hardship.Despite being worlds apart, Seren and Brennon are brought together in a single life-altering moment. When the doe Brenn shoots turns into a young woman before his very eyes, he has no choice but to bring her home with the hope that she’ll recover. What he doesn’t realize, however, is that Seren is quite capable of healing herself with glamour that may be able to cure his wounds as well, and not only the ones that run skin deep.Julia Crane - Down The Rabbit HoleDown the Rabbit hole is a twisted tale of two sisters bound by blood and separated by magick.Alice is not the lovable girl the stories depict. A lifetime of pain and illusion has left her disturbed. Unpredictable. Dangerous.For years, she’s watched her twin sister - a girl born into light and destined for power – with great envy. According to the prophecy, only one of them will rule. Only one of them will survive.What will Alice sacrifice? The sister she hates, the man she loves, or the innocent lives caught in her twisted web of magick?

Fairytale


Maggie Shayne - 1996
    Now he is a sober and serious adult. And memories have faded of a childhood event that could not possibly have occurred...could it?Brigit Malone is on a mission — a dangerous, larcenous quest that leads the mysterious lovely into Adam Reid's home...and heart. For sparks fly when her warm ebony gaze meets his sapphire stare — and a passionate enchantment binds them with invisible chains. But it would be insane for Adam to believe Brigit's arrival had been foretold — or that the sensuous minx is truly half-fairy — even as they travel together down an impossible path toward a dire peril only the magic of love can overcome...

Undraland


Mary E. Twomey - 2015
    With her heart set on college life, Lucy’s dreams of medical school are dashed when a rabid bear attacks her in the middle of suburbia. When Jens, a handsome yet irritable stranger, saves her life, Lucy’s gratitude is cut short when he abducts her, taking her to a land filled with people and creatures she remembers from bedtime stories she assumed were just Scandinavian folklore. Jens takes Lucy to a world she never expected, and cannot escape. Undraland is teeming with oversized garden gnomes, warrior elves, Nøkken, Fossegrimens, and worst of all, Sirens. Lucy goes further and further down the rabbit hole until she signs up to join a band of thieves bent on taking down Pesta, the last Siren.

Daughter of the Red Dawn


Alicia Michaels - 2012
    Yet, Selena has always felt as if she doesn’t belong and is counting the days to graduation and her freedom from the small town that makes her feel so out of place, when the arrival of a stranger turns her world upside down. Selena will learn just how different she is and the truth of where she comes from. A lost princess, they call her, the catalyst for a war involving a world that she was taken from as a child. An evil queen obsessed with her own beauty with a plan to enslave the human race.…the notion seems so silly, yet Selena knows in her heart that it is true. Then there is Titus, the shape shifter whose blue eyes and claims of destiny hold her heart captive. Can Selena find the strength to do what she must while following her heart?

Soulbound


Bethany Adams - 2016
    After all, Arlyn had promised her mother she’d go. The problem? Her father's people are myths and legends, and he doesn't even live on Earth. But despite a long journey through the mysterious mists of the Veil, finding him turns out to be the easy part. A dream long-buried After five hundred years, Kai has given up on finding his soulbonded. So when he stumbles across Arlyn after returning from his latest mission and recognizes her as his mate, Kai starts their bond in haste. But he never could have imagined that his bonded is his best friend’s newfound daughter. Whoops. A hidden conspiracy sparked to life Though the sight of Kai makes Arlyn’s heart pound, she isn’t sure she can forgive him for starting their bond without her permission. But her love life is the least of her problems. Her father is an elf lord, and his sudden acknowledgment of a half-human heir reignites the same conspiracy that took him away from her mother in the first place. Now Arlyn and her family must face iron wielding assassins, bigotry, and her newly awakened magical abilities if they hope to come through in one piece. Arlyn thought she would return to Earth after meeting her father. Now she must fight to save the family she never knew she wanted.

The Faerie Guardian


Rachel Morgan - 2012
    Seventeen-year-old Violet Fairdale knows this better than anyone—she’s about to become the best guardian the Guild has seen in years. That is, until a cute human boy who can somehow see through her faerie glamor follows her into the Fae realm. Now she’s broken Guild Law, a crime that could lead to her expulsion.The last thing Vi wants to do is spend any more time with the boy who got her into this mess, but the Guild requires that she return Nate to his home and make him forget everything he’s discovered of the Fae realm. Easy, right? Not when you factor in evil faeries, long-lost family members, and inconvenient feelings of the romantic kind. Vi is about to find herself tangled up in a dangerous plot—and it’ll take all her training to get out alive.[This novel was originally published in four separate parts: Guardian, Labyrinth, Traitor and Masquerade. It includes bonus scenes at the end that were not published in the individual parts.]

Dark Waters


Shannon Mayer - 2011
    . . And doomed to face the unimaginable.An everyday vacation quickly turns into a nightmare of epic proportions. Two sisters must struggle to find the strength within themselves to survive as well as to save one another. When the world of Fae emerges on a rocky shore far from the Emerald Isle, all hell breaks loose. Two factions vie for the sister’s loyalties, one light, the other dark. Neither honest.A series of events are set into motion that will not only test the bonds of sisterly love, but will defy belief and reality. Then you have found yourself deep in . . . “Dark Waters”.

Forbidden Forest


Tenaya Jayne - 2012
    Cast from society. Shape Shifter/Elf hybrid, Forest must fight for any respect she can get. Targeted in her youth by a vampire noble who placed an illegal slave mark on her, she is forced to obey him, no matter what.Slipping the grip of her master and abandoning the prejudice of Regia, her native world, Forest takes a job on Earth, guarding the portal, using her skills as a warrior to enforce Regia's laws. Now, called home for a black ops mission, Forest must put aside her own prejudice to transport the vampire prince, Syrus, through enemy territory in a time of war. Prince Syrus, mage and master of the Blood Kata, wants Forest more than he's ever wanted anything. In spite of their mutual mistrust, their attraction cannot be denied. Through the danger of their mission, and the secrets they both keep, it doesn't matter what they feel. Forest is forbidden.

Cursed


Casey Odell - 2012
    But legends sometimes forget the true history of things and Claire’s eyes are soon opened to a world she never knew. One that has been kept from her for most of her life. All Claire wants to do is return home and start looking for her mother, the only family she ever had. But the elves have different plans. The mysterious mark that appeared on her arm isn’t a curse, at least not to them anyway, and before she knows it, she is whisked away on a mission she never agreed to, unless they help her in return.Now she is stuck on an adventure with the perverted elf, Aeron, and one with an attitude, Farron. But there is more to this adventure than she’d ever hoped for.

Initiate


Tara Maya - 2010
    A DETERMINED GIRL Dindi can't do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi's clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan... AN EXILED WARRIOR Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn't commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don't kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father's wars and his mother's curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her... assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.

Faelorehn


Jenna Elizabeth Johnson - 2012
    It was like the day the gnomes chased me all over again, but this time I was not escaping some horrible little creatures, I was fleeing from an incredibly good-looking guy who could very well understand me completely. I was either saving myself from that serial killer I always imagined lived down in the swamp, or I had finally gone over the deep end . . .Meghan Elam has been strange her entire life: her eyes have this odd habit of changing color and she sees and hears things no one else does. When the visions and voices in her head start to get worse, she is convinced that her parents will want to drag her off to another psychiatrist. That is, until the mysterious Cade MacRoich shows up out of nowhere with an explanation of his own.Cade brings her news of another realm where goblins and gnomes are the norm, a place where whispering spirits exist in the very earth, and a world where Meghan just might find the answers she has always sought.

Agent of Enchantment


C.N. Crawford - 2017
    And one of them is a serial killer. I thought this would be a simple profiling case. Just another Jack-the-Ripper wannabe, prowling London’s streets, searching for easy kills. I was wrong. This killer is fae, and he’s as elusive as smoke on the wind. But I’m an FBI profiler, and it’s my job to track him down. It doesn’t matter that one of the main suspects--a lethally alluring fae--is trying to seduce me… or kill me, I’m not sure which. I won’t be stopped, not even when panic roils through the streets of London, or when the police start to suspect me. As I close in on the killer, I follow him to a magical shadow realm that’s like nothing I ever expected, where I’m hunted like prey. Fine. Bring it on. I’m an FBI Agent. And it turns out I have magical powers of my own. A new adult urban fantasy with romance, perfect for fans of Karen Marie Moning and Ilona Andrews.

Vampire Shift


Tim O'Rourke - 2011
    Investigating a series of horrific murders, grave desecrations, and missing persons, Kiera uses her unique ability of seeing, and soon realizes her own life is in danger. When Kiera falls for police officer Luke Bishop, not only are her mind and heart opened to a terrifyingly new world, she comes to suspect that Luke might be involved in the killings. In a race against time to unearth the truth, Kiera must discover the identity of who - or what - is behind the gruesome deaths on her Vampire Shift. "Vampire Shift" is Book One of The Kiera Hudson Series One.

Frey


Melissa Wright - 2011
    But a tiny spark starts a fury of changes and she finds herself running from everything she's ever known. Hunted by council for practicing dark magic, she is certain she's been wrongfully accused. She flees, and is forced to rely on strangers for protection. But the farther she strays from home, the more her magic and forgotten memories return and she begins to suspect all is not as it seems.

Memory's Wake


Selina A. Fenech - 2011
    All versions of the book (ebook, paperback, hardcover) include 44 interior black and white illustrations by the author and artist.In a culture of cravats and corsets, a troubled sixteen-year-old stands out in her t-shirt and torn jeans. She takes the name “Memory” because hers are stolen, and she’ll do anything to get them back. Lost in a world not her own, where magic and monstrous fairies are real, Memory has enough to handle just trying to stay alive.Chased by wizard hunters, hunted by a dragon, stalked by a strange, handsome savage, despised by the fae and wanted by the king himself – everyone is after Memory, and she suspects it’s not just for her eye-catching outfit. Her forgotten past holds dangerous secrets that will change everything.Memory will fight to get back to a family and home she can’t remember but desperately desires, even at the cost of new friendships and romances. On the run with no name and no memories, she thinks she has nothing left to lose. She couldn’t be more mistaken.