The best fairy tale books

A modern-day fairytale with a science fiction twist. Aliens live among us. Their purpose: to protect and nurture their greatest mistake—mankind.

Abhithian. Caedan doesn’t believe humans will evolve to see the magic, much less control it. Even so, he has two months to marry one or face the wrath of the High Council. Bitter about a responsibility he thinks prevents him from marrying for love, he figures any human girl will do. Then his soul mate stumbles into—and right out of—his arms.

Human. Ryanne might be Caedan’s one shot at happiness while still fulfilling his duty. Unfortunately, she’s determined to push Caedan away to protect him from her past and a dark secret.

As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh’s doctor prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. But she comes to see that what she has always been told is an affliction of nature might in fact be one of nurture – and one, therefore, that she can beat. She throws away her laudanum and seeks refuge at her cousin’s London home. Suddenly wide awake to the world but utterly unprepared, Anne must decide what matters more: society’s approbation, or the pull of her newfound sense of self.

An extraordinary tale of one woman’s liberation, The Heiress reveals both the darkness and light in Jane Austen’s world, with wit, sensuality, and a deeply compassionate understanding of the human heart.

“What if our understanding of dreams is just a poor reflection of another place… a real place?” During a storm, a man who calls himself Zoofall has barricaded himself inside an attic. He has only seven candles worth of time to reveal his extraordinary secrets. How, when he was a boy, he discovered a wild other world, where Reality and Mythology meet, beyond the limits of Lucid Dreaming.

There he found a group of other young dreamers, and together they tried to unravel the terrifying mysteries of this dream world. He must finish his story before the candles run out, then face the nightmarish demons of his past, and the question which has haunted him for most of his life: “What really happened to Steggie Belle?”

Orphan Elizabeth Somers’s malevolent aunt and uncle ship her off to the ominous Winterhouse Hotel, owned by the peculiar Norbridge Falls. Upon arrival, Elizabeth quickly discovers that Winterhouse has many charms―most notably its massive library. It’s not long before she locates a magical book of puzzles that will unlock a mystery involving Norbridge and his sinister family. But the deeper she delves into the hotel’s secrets, the more Elizabeth starts to realize that she is somehow connected to Winterhouse. As fate would have it, Elizabeth is the only person who can break the hotel’s curse and solve the mystery. But will it be at the cost of losing the people she has come to care for, and even Winterhouse itself?

Christophe and his family are asylum-seekers in the UK. Christophe has a story inside him - and this story wants to be told. But with a new country, a new school, and a new language to cope with, Christophe can't find the right words. He wants to tell the whole school why he had to leave Rwanda, why he has a scar made by a bullet from a soldier's gun, and what happened to his baby brother, but has he got the courage to be a storyteller? Christophe must find a way to break through all these barriers so he can share his story with everyone.

As a child, Rose was fed fairy stories by her brother, and then her teacher. Her favourite was The Fisherman and His Wife, about the magic fish and the woman who rejects all that her wishes bring. But it is Rose who faces rejection, from her parents, her teacher, her lover the dancer, her stolen child, her husband. Her strange, exotic neighbour Paedic is a fantasist, and in their shared stories and dreams Rose finds a kind of fulfillment. As their stories become darker and more disturbing she begins to lose touch with reality.

Slipper is the history of a poor orphaned stepchild, a would-be princess, whose search for one true love or another takes her all over 17th-Century England, France, and the Low Countries. Born under mysterious circumstances, she grows up to be a dreamer, a cinder sweep, a runaway, a camp follower, a kisser of frogs, a beggar, a mother, and an artist. Along the way, she finds a mentor, Charles Perrault, the original author of the world's most beloved fairy tales, and tells him her story. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that hers is a fairy tale come true.

Slipper is the history of a poor orphaned stepchild, a would-be princess, whose search for one true love or another takes her all over 17th-Century England, France, and the Low Countries. Born under mysterious circumstances, she grows up to be a dreamer, a cinder sweep, a runaway, a camp follower, a kisser of frogs, a beggar, a mother, and an artist. Along the way, she finds a mentor, Charles Perrault, the original author of the world's most beloved fairy tales, and tells him her story. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that hers is a fairy tale come true.

When Emma gets some very (very) bad health news, she heads to a bar, intent on having her first-ever one-night stand. There she meets Dean, whose life is all about ‘just one night’ and zero commitment. The next day, Emma sneaks away and they both assume that’s it: neither expects to see the other again. 

A month later, a chance encounter brings them back into each other’s lives, along with their private secrets and fears. It also brings together their groups of friends: Dean’s ex-military buddies and Emma’s girlfriends supporting her through her medical crisis. As they all grow closer, the realization comes to every one of them that truth, forgiveness, and love can arise from even the most horrible, life-altering events.

Twelve-year-old Gracie is living a normal life, but she is haunted by the fact that she is actually a character from a story, an unpublished fairy tale she's never read. When she was a baby, her parents learned that she was supposed to die in the story, and with the help of a magic book, took her out of the story, and into the outside world, where she could be safe. Despite her mother's warnings, Gracie seeks out the story's author, setting in motion a chain of events that draw her back into the forgotten tale. Inside the story, Gracie struggles to navigate the blurred boundary between who she really is and the surprising things the author wrote about her.