Just like a fairy tale

Fairy tales are so hot right now...even if Snow White does have a taste for forbidden fruit. Never trust a girl who flats with seven guys.
 
There's Once Upon a Time, Camelot and Grimm on TV, not to mention two Snow Whites on the screen, and a whole crop of Beauty and the Beasts.

In honour of this trend, I have hunted down some of the latest titles based on fairy tales. Sorry if it's a bit girly, this one - but if there are any males out there in cyberspace, try the Fables or Grimm Fairy Tales series. There's plenty for guys in graphic format! And Jim Butcher's Small Favour has a fantastic showdown with some oversized Billy Goats Gruff. If you haven't read his Dresden Files series yet, DO. This from someone who seldom reads fantasy, but I recognise great story and characters when I see them.

Moving on, every girl secretly wants a fairy tale ending  (unless it's a Hans Christian Andersen one, or you're the witch). So this is for you.

Kill Me Softly - Sarah Cross. Mirabelle's past is shrouded in secrecy, from her parents' tragic deaths to her guardians' half-truths about why she can't return to her birthplace, Beau Rivage. Mira runs away a week before her sixteenth birthday—and discovers a world where nothing is what it seems. The strangely pale girl with a morbid interest in apples, the obnoxious playboy who's a beast to everyone, and the guy who has a thing for damsels in distress. In Beau Rivage, ancient stories are played out again and again. But fairy tales don't always end in happily ever after. Mira is drawn into the lives of two brothers with curses of their own...And she'll find that love, just like fairy tales, can have hidden thorns.

Lustfully Ever After: Fairy Tale Exotic Romance. Fairy tales with a liberal amount of kink. I know an early Red Riding Hood used to cannibalise her grandmother, and Rapunzel was knocked up by the prince (honestly, read the original!), but...

If you loved Fifty Shades of Grey, you'll adore this. Do not read to your children.

The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey. Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. 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, 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, 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.

Fiona Goble's Fairy Tale Knits - Fiona Goble. A selection of patterns for charming knitted creatures, including Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the Three Little Pigs.






Utterly Charming - Kristine Grayson. Mysterious, handsome wizard Aethelstan Blackstone hires beautiful, hardworking attorney Nora Barr to get a restraining order to protect Sleeping Beauty from her evil stepmother. But if Sleeping Beauty is supposed to be his soul mate, then how come Aethelstan is becoming bewitched by Nora?




Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer - Maureen McGowan. Second in the Twisted Tales series, following Cinderella: Ninja Warrior. In this twist on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, Princess Lucette, cursed as a baby by her evil vampire aunt, discovers as she grows older that the only way to protect herself and her kingdom is to train as a vampire slayer. The reader is given chances throughout the text to choose the direction of the plot.


The Wilful Eye Short stories inspired by favourite folk tales, such as The Snow Queen and Beauty and the Beast. This collection carries universal themes of envy and jealousy, deception and abandonment, control and power, courage and sacrifice, violence and deception. Characters are enchanted, they transgress, they yearn, they hunger, they hate and sometimes, they kill. Some of the stories inhabit a traditional fairytale world, while others are set in the distant future. Some are set in the present and some in an alternative present. Open the covers and submit to their enchantment.

Mermaid - Carolyn Turgeon. Princess Margrethe has been hidden away while her kingdom is at war. One morning as she stands overlooking the icy sea, she witnesses a mermaid emerging from the waves, a nearly drowned man in her arms. As Margrethe nurses the handsome stranger back to health, she learns that not only is he a prince, he is also the son of her father's greatest rival. Sure that the mermaid brought this man to her for a reason, Margrethe devises a plan to bring peace to her kingdom. Meanwhile, the mermaid Lenia longs to return to the human man she carried to safety. She is willing to trade her home, her voice, and even her health for legs and the chance to win his heart. A surprising take on the classic tale, Mermaid is the story of two women with everything to lose.
Don't Expect Magic - Kathy McCullough. Delaney Collins doesn't believe in fairy tales. And why should she? Her mom is dead, her best friend is across the country, and she's stuck in California with "Dr. Hank," her famous life-coach father—a man she barely knows. Happily ever after? Yeah, right. Then Dr. Hank tells her an outrageous secret: he's a fairy godmother—an f.g.—and he can prove it. And by the way? The f.g. gene is hereditary. Meaning there's a good chance that New Jersey tough girl Delaney is someone's fairy godmother. But what happens when a fairy godmother needs a wish of her own?

Beauty and the Werewolf - Mercedes Lackey. The eldest daughter is often doomed in fairy tales. But Bella vows to escape the usual pitfalls. She dons a red cloak and ventures into the forbidden forest to consult with "Granny," the local wisewoman. On the way home she's attacked by a wolf-- who turns out to be a cursed nobleman! Secluded in his castle, Bella is torn between her family and this strange man who creates marvelous inventions and makes her laugh-- when he isn't howling at the moon.

...and the two best fairy tale-esque films ever:

The Princess Bride Possibly the most perfect film ever made. If you haven't seen it yet, where have you been? Inconceivable.







Stardust When you wish upon a star...La la la la la la la... Whatever, it's good.