Mystery at the Midnight Ball: A Cinderella Fairy Tale


Kristen Niedfeldt - 2021
    . .Ellie bid farewell to her childhood friend Prince Alexander eight years ago and never thought their paths would ever cross again. After all, the two of them lived in separate worlds. He was a prince and she was a humble servant. Surely it was better for her to leave their old friendship in the past and accept her dreary fate.But when she impulsively dons a mask to catch a better glimpse of a ball, their worlds collide, and a mystery at the palace soon pulls them even closer together. Drawn into the intrigue, Ellie must find the traitor lurking in the castle’s shadows before all hope of peace is lost—and before she completely loses her heart.A sweet and clean Cinderella retelling

Charming: A Cinderella Prequel (The Dark Woods, #1)


Laura Briggs - 2012
    Warty, buck-toothed, crooked-lipped, long-nosed. Plump, squinty, thin-haired, or squat...So what was Jode? Not beautiful. Not plain; no, plain would have been a mercy, a boon. A mere pity is plain for one as young and poor as he....Homely, awkward farmboy Jode Lintwich has always longed for adventure and greatness: two things which can't be had in his humble village and which don't happen often to anyone like himself. But desperation can change anyone's destiny–and Jode is desperate enough to try. A visit to a local witch, a few coins, and an inadvertent promise transforms Jode into something beyond his wildest imaginings; and also causes him to be cast out of his own village for good. A wanderer turned loose in the world, Jode must learn the truth about the magic upon him and embrace a destiny greater than any ever before conceived by his mind. If he wants to survive, he must find the one key to his ultimate happiness and escape the danger inflicted upon him by the two-sided coin of the witch's magic.From a pirate ship to the sands of the desert, from a mercenary knight to a monarch's deceptive pawn, the adventures of Jode-turned-Handsome-Jack are as a varied as his namesake's tales ... and as far from his true fate as he could possibly imagine.Book One of Hawthorne and Ander's retelling of CINDERELLA spins a tale of multiple threads as varied as their characters' fates: an awkward boy spun into a hero by magic, an unhappy orphan girl languishing in a house filled with secrets, a homely witch of unexpected powers and a coldblooded noblewoman of mysterious past. A tale of magic makers and fortune tellers, of con artists and criminals, bandits and sultans, artists and peasants, servants and monarchs, all bound by the common thread of one boy's existence.Other Books in The Dark Woods Series:Cindermaid First Bite: The Wicked Queen's TaleGingerbread HouseSnow White's Knight and Magic MirrorThorns

Once: Before Midnight / Golden / Wild Orchid


Cameron Dokey - 2012
    Before Midnight revisits Cinderella's story in France, Golden puts a new spin on Rapunzel's romance, and Wild Orchid reimagines the Chinese tale of Mulan. With so much real-life drama in today's busy world, Once allows readers to escape into whimsical realms where every story has a happily ever after.

The Snow Child


Eowyn Ivey - 2012
    Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

The Peddler's Reward


Carrie Anne Noble - 2019
    But when he and his ailing guardian Scarff park their wagon with the Gaskins, things go downhill fast. Scarff is growing sicker by the day, and if that isn’t bad enough, O’Neill soon finds himself unwittingly engaged to the Gaskin king’s daughter—a dangerous girl who doesn’t care one fig that he’s already devoted to another. With Scarff in dire need of a rare swampland remedy, O’Neill plunges into the magic-tainted Floridian wilds with three goals in mind: to rescue the runaway Gaskin princess, to obtain the cure for the only father he’s ever known, and to remain alive so he can return north to his true love. Simple. What could possibly go wrong in an enchanted swamp? In the O'NEILL AND THE GRIGGIN, O’Neill discovers what he thinks is a baby left in the woods to die. Bound by magic to care for the feisty faerie creature until he locates its mother, he faces more perils and pitfalls than the average young papa. Can he survive a week of parenting a shape shifting griggin, or will the wee beast’s insatiable appetite and hot temper do him in? Revisit (or meet for the first time) the beloved characters of Scarff, O’Neill, and others from THE MERMAID'S SISTER in this pair of adventure-filled stories by Carrie Anne Noble, set during the timeline of the beloved original novel.

Fairy Tales from the German Forests


Margaret Arndt - 1912
    "Well-I never! what a dunderhead I am!" he said to himself-"fancy sleeping like that, why such a thing has never happened to me before! I had meant to go to have supper and stay the night at the new hotel in Elm. I have heard the landlord's daughter is an uncommonly pretty girl!" "Heigho!" he went on, stretching himself, "there's nothing for it, but to walk home. I might wait a long time before a motor-car came to pick[...].

Undercover Princess


Connie Glynn - 2017
    Due to a series of lies and coincidences, 14-year-old Lottie finds herself pretending to be the princess so that Ellie can live a more normal teenage life.Lottie is thrust into the real world of royalty - a world filled with secrets, intrigue and betrayal. She must do everything she can to help Ellie keep her secret, but with school, the looming Maradovian ball and the mysterious new boy Jamie, she'll soon discover that reality doesn't always have the happily ever after you'd expect...A thrilling world of parties, politics and bad ass princesses, this is the first book in the brand new series THE ROSEWOOD CHRONICLES.

Cinderella's Secret Slipper


Alinka Rutkowska - 2015
    D., Award-winning Children's AuthorCinderella's Secret Slipper is a story of our favorite princess who more than anything else wants to wear her famous glass slippers to her son's birthday party. But she can't because her four-year-old smashed one of them in an attempt at killing a mosquito on the wall. Where is she going to get a glass slipper now?

Cold Spell (Fairytale Retellings, #4)


Jackson Pearce - 2013
    Now they’re seventeen, and their relationship has developed into something sweeter, complete with stolen kisses and plans to someday run away together.But one night, Kai disappears with a mysterious stranger named Mora–a beautiful girl with a dark past and a heart of ice. Refusing to be cast aside, Ginny goes after them and is thrust into a world she never imagined, one filled with monsters and thieves and the idea that love is not enough.If Ginny and Kai survive the journey, will she still be the girl he loved–and moreover, will she still be the girl who loved him?

Vergence (Vergence Cycle Book 1)


John March - 2015
    He sets out to find a place for himself, travelling to Vergence city, where he hopes to be accepted amongst his own kind. But Ebryn doesn't know he carries a dangerous secret with him. A secret which threatens to overturn the delicate balance between the factions vying for dominance in the city, the heart of a great trading empire. Orim, a skilled warrior, is sent by the ruler of Vergence to discover the truth. Opposing Orim is a deadly assassin, tasked with permanently burying the past. As the struggle for control of the city starts to unfold Ebryn finds he's not the only one with a hidden history. Vergence is the first book in the Vergence cycle. 143 000 words.

Rose and the Monster: A Modern Retelling of Beauty and the Beast


M. Lowry - 2014
    Upon meeting the secretive inhabitants, she must face the realization that something unnatural is happening. But why? In this modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Rose must ask herself, “Who is the real monster?"

The Bitches of Everafter


Barbra Annino - 2014
     These are not the mild-mannered maidens of your childhood. These are fallen princesses and fierce women with no recollection of who they are, where they came from, or how they arrived in a mysterious town called Everafter. All they know is that they've been sentenced to a stretch in a half-way house by a malicious judge with an ax to grind. They've been stripped of their freedom, their kingdoms, and their true loves. Now, they have nothing left to lose. Snow White is the newest parolee to arrive at Granny's House for Girls. It isn't long before she learns that her housemates harbor secrets, and that the mansion itself is a meandering enigma. She stumbles upon forbidden doorways, ghostly passages, and walls that seem to breathe. Determined to find out what’s really happening inside those old walls, Snow embarks on a dangerous discovery mission. Not everyone is thrilled about her nosing around. In fact, there are some who would kill to keep the secrets that the house—and its occupants—hold.

Of Bees and Mist


Erick Setiawan - 2009
    Soon, they marry, and Meridia can finally escape to live with her charming husband’s family—unaware that they harbor dark mysteries of their own. As Meridia struggles to embrace her life as a young bride, she discovers long-kept secrets about her own past as well as shocking truths about her new family that push her love, courage, and sanity to the brink.Erick Setiawan’s astonishing debut is a richly atmospheric and tumultuous ride of hope and heartbreak that is altogether touching, truthful, and memorable.

The Dragon King and I


Adrianne Brooks - 2013
    When a man is killed while trying to bring her an umbrella, she realizes that her condition isn't going away on its own and she’ll need to find a cure if she ever wants to live a normal life.So when her "Fairy Godmother" sends her on a quest to cure the curse that’s been plaguing her, Alex is doubtful but willing. Together with her beastly Prince Charming, she starts gathering all 6 ingredients that make up the cure. Everything was going smoothly...Until the last ingredient involves the heart of the one person she has learned to love: A dragon’s heart.

Undermajordomo Minor


Patrick deWitt - 2015
    He is a compulsive liar, a sickly weakling in a town famous for begetting brutish giants. Then Lucy accepts employment assisting the majordomo of the remote, foreboding Castle Von Aux. While tending to his new post as undermajordomo, he soon discovers the place harbours many dark secrets, not least of which is the whereabouts of the castle's master, Baron Von Aux. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery, and cold-blooded murder.Undermajordomo Minor is an ink-black comedy of manners, an adventure, and a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behaviour, but above all it is a love story. And Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing.