Book picks similar to
Cinders: Necessary Evil by Sky Sommers


fantasy
retellings
read-indie-authors
fairy-tale

Traitor's Masque


Kenley Davidson - 2015
    The promise of a new life, in exchange for her help. Simple, right? After all, the old woman has only asked for one night. One night, one beautiful gown, one dance… and one message to be delivered to a mysterious recipient.It should be easy. Maybe even fun. Especially when she can slip away into the night after the dance, leaving no clue as to her identity.But before she can escape the ball, Trystan makes a shocking discovery that leaves all her hopes in ruins. She will be forced to confront two very different princes—and choose whether to betray her kingdom… or her heart.If she’s lucky, maybe she’ll even survive to tell about it later.A thrilling, suspenseful retelling of Cinderella, Traitor’s Masque is the first book of the Andari Chronicles, a series of interconnected but stand-alone fairy tale retellings that feature strong heroines, romance, mystery, and deeply satisfying happily ever afters.

Kitsune: A Little Mermaid Retelling


Nicolette Andrews - 2015
    Falling in love was unthinkable. Because to save her own life, she has to destroy his.Rin is an immortal kitsune, or at least she was until a witch’s curse turned her human. To regain her yokai powers and avoid being turned into a fox, she must make the lord’s son fall in love with her before the next full moon. Her kind has been seducing humans for centuries, and it should be easy, as long as he doesn’t find out she’s a kitsune… except that the curse also took her voice.Hikaru is betrothed to the daughter of a rival lord, and he will fulfill his duty, protecting his clan from others and from the yokai. But when he’s saved by a mysterious red-haired woman, he can’t forget her, try as he might. Then she turns up at his door… Only it can’t be his savior, because this woman has ebony hair, but there’s something inexplicably bewitching about her. Yet his father’s treaty depends on his marriage to another, and even an innocent dalliance could ruin everything. Falling in love is dangerous for them both. Not only are they from different worlds, but their time together can only end in heartache. Hikaru’s marriage means security for his clan, and Rin must destroy it or be turned into a fox. And truly loving Hikaru means revealing she’s one of the hated yokai and an immortal. Will they risk it all for love? Or will their two worlds rip them apart for good?Fans of fairy tale retellings, anime, and manga love Kitsune: A Little Mermaid Retelling, an old tale retold from a fresh perspective.

Curses


Lish McBride - 2021
    She will be forced to live as a beast forever, unless she agrees to marry a man of her mother's choosing before her eighteenth birthday.Tevin Dumont has always been a pawn in his family's cons. The prettiest boy in a big family, his job is to tempt naïve rich girls to abandon their engagements, unless their parents agree to pay him off. But after his mother runs afoul of the beast, she decides to trade Tevin for her own freedom.Now, Tevin and Merit have agreed that he can pay off his mother's debt by using his con-artist skills to help Merit find the best match . . . but what if the best match is Tevin himself?

Drown


Esther Dalseno - 2015
    Discovering music, a magnificent palace of glass and limestone, and a troubled human prince, she is driven by love to consult the elusive sea-witch who secretly dominates the entire species of merfolk. Upon paying an enormous price for her humanity, the little mermaid begins a new life, uncovering secrets of sexuality and the Immortal Soul. As a deadly virus threatens to contaminate the bloodstreams of the whole merfolk race, the little mermaid must choose between the lives of her people, the man she loves, or herself.A complete reinvention of Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale, this is a magical-realist fable that captures the essence of sacrifice and the price of humanity.

Dark Breaks the Dawn


Sara B. Larson - 2017
    The light looks brighter, the air is sharper, and the energy she can draw when fighting feels almost limitless.But while her mother, the queen, remains busy at the war front, in the Dark Kingdom of Dorjhalon, the corrupt king is plotting. King Bain wants control of both kingdoms, and his plan will fling Evelayn onto the throne much sooner than she expected.In order to defeat Bain and his sons, Evelayn will quickly have to come into her ability to shapeshift, and rely on the alluring Lord Tanvir. But not everyone is what they seem, and the balance between the Light and Dark comes at a steep price.

Alrin


Kyle King - 2016
    Our insatiable desire for greatness is shadowed only by our overwhelming hatred for complacency. Whether for fame or fortune, aware of it or not, we strive for the highest rung only for our grasp to instantly crave the next ladder. Yet still we reach, for the void must always be filled. Seventeen-year-old Alrin Turner lives in a place where power is everything, and pursuing it is the only thing that seems to ebb the burning desire. Each person is born with three numbers on their hand that show the might of their strength, magic and intellect, so seeing the full extent of one’s power is as simple as glancing in the mirror. In a world teeming with such illustrious competition, qualities like kindness and humility are in short supply, and Alrin knows it all too well. He cares nothing of power and holds firm to the belief that there is more to life than what is found on your hand, despite the relentless insults he receives for it. While hunting in the woods with his brother, a selfless act forces Alrin off the edge of a cliff only for him to stop feet above the ground by a flash of brilliant light and a mysterious symbol that appears over his hand. The source of this power intrigues a sudden benefactor, who takes Alrin under his wing to train him in his magic guild—an honor never before given to someone so insignificant. When mighty warriors start to appear in his town, Alrin not only learns that the power that saved him has been sought out for thousands of years, but like it or not, he has fallen into a story much larger than himself. Everyone he loves is either taken or cursed and Alrin is faced with an impossible task: delve deeper into the realm of power to unlock the riddle of the void and save his family, yet somehow cling to the part of himself that was worthy of power at the start.

Hunted


Meagan Spooner - 2017
    Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them. So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance. Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

Tiger Lily


Jodi Lynn Anderson - 2012
    Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.

The Earl of Highmott Hall: A Regency Cinderella


Nina Clare - 2020
    And when the new earl takes up residence on the neighbouring estate, things only get worse. Now she is forced to aid her stepsister in catching the earl for a husband, while falling into a romantic entanglement of her own.A sweet romance, and a charming Regency Cinderella retelling.

Cruel Beauty


Rosamund Hodge - 2014
    And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her.As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

The Healer's Apprentice


Melanie Dickerson - 2010
    One Hope.Rose has been appointed as a healer's apprentice at Hagenheim Castle, a rare opportunity for a woodcutter's daughter like her. While she often feels uneasy at the sight of blood, Rose is determined to prove herself capable. Failure will mean returning home to marry the aging bachelor her mother has chosen for her—a bloated, disgusting merchant who makes Rose feel ill.When Lord Hamlin, the future duke, is injured, it is Rose who must tend to him. As she works to heal his wound, she begins to understand emotions she's never felt before and wonders if he feels the same. But falling in love is forbidden, as Lord Hamlin is betrothed to a mysterious young woman in hiding. As Rose's life spins toward confusion, she must take the first steps on a journey to discover her own destiny.

Bitter Greens


Kate Forsyth - 2012
    At the convent, she is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens...After Margherita's father steals parsley from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off, unless he and his wife relinquish their precious little girl. Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death. She is at the center of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.Locked away in a tower, Margherita sings in the hope that someone will hear her. One day, a young man does.Award-winning author Kate Forsyth braids together the stories of Margherita, Selena, and Charlotte-Rose, the woman who penned Rapunzel as we now know it, to create what is a sumptuous historical novel, an enchanting fairy tale retelling, and a loving tribute to the imagination of one remarkable woman.

So This is Love


Elizabeth Lim - 2020
    However, when Cinderella finds herself witness to a grand conspiracy to take the king - and the prince - out of power, she is faced with questions of love and loyalty to the kingdom. Cinderella must find a way to stop the villains of past and present... before it's too late.

Ella, The Slayer


A.W. Exley - 2015
     Except it wasn't flu, and death gave them back.Seventeen-year-old Ella copes the best she can; caring for her war-injured father, scrubbing the floors, and slaying the undead that attack the locals. Vermin they're called, like rats they spread pestilence with their bite. Ella's world collides with another when she nearly decapitates a handsome stranger, who is very much alive.Seth deMage, the new Duke of Leithfield, has returned to his ancestral home with a mission from the War Office -- to control the plague of vermin in rural Somerset. He needs help; he just didn't expect to find it in a katana-wielding scullery maid.Working alongside Seth blurs the line between their positions, and Ella glimpses a future she never dreamed was possible. But in overstepping society's boundaries, Ella could lose everything - home, head and her heart...

Dorothy Must Die


Danielle Paige - 2014
    I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little bluebirds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still a yellow brick road—but even that's crumbling.What happened? Dorothy.They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.My name is Amy Gumm—and I'm the other girl from Kansas.I've been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.I've been trained to fight.And I have a mission.