Alternative Fairytales

Do you like your fairytales a bit darker, or a bit twisted? Try these recommendations!

Updated December 11, 2024
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This wicked fate
Bayron, Kalynn
Paper Book
An instant New York Times bestseller! Would you tempt even the most dangerous fate to save the ones you love? Briseis has one chance to save her mother, but she'll need to do the impossible: find the last fragment of the deadly Absyrtus Heart. To...
Ironside : a modern faery's tale
Black, Holly
Paper Book
In the realm of Faerie, the time has come for Roiben's coronation. Uneasy in the midst of the malevolent Unseelie Court, pixie Kaye is sure of only one thing -- her love for Roiben. But when Kaye, drunk on faerie wine, declares herself to Roiben, he sends her on a seemingly impossible quest. Now...
Tithe : a modern faerie tale
Black, Holly
Paper Book
In the realm of very scary faeries, no one is safe. Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces the sixteen-year-old back to her childhood home. There, amid the...
Three dark crowns
Blake, Kendare
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller * New York Public Library Best Book of 2016 * Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2016 * Kirkus Best Book of the Year Fans of acclaimed author Kendare Blake's Anna Dressed in Blood will devour Three Dark Crowns, the first book in a dark and inventive...
The little match girl strikes back
Carroll, Emma
Paper Book
It only takes one strike . . . A powerful, beautifully illustrated feminist reworking of the classic fairy tale, from award-winning creators Emma Carroll and Lauren Child "You've got a lot to say for a little match girl." On the streets of Victorian London,...
The bloody chamber and other stories
Carter, Angela
Paper Book
Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, Kelly Link, and other contemporary masters of supernatural fiction. In her masterpiece, The Bloody Chamber which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan's...
Beastly beauty
Donnelly, Jennifer
Paper Book
*"A dreamy, sublimely written tale." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review From New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Jennifer Donnelly comes a revolutionary, gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast that will forever change...
Rapunzella, or, Don't touch my hair
McLeod, Ella
Paper Book
Selected for the ALA 2025 Rise: A Feminist Book Project list! Rapunzella is a genre-bending novel that weaves together a young girl's ordinary life and a wildly dangerous fairytale universe, celebrating Black hair and the power of coming into your...
Cinder
Meyer, Marissa
Paper Book
Soon to be adapted into major motion picture! The first book in the #1 New York Times- and USA Today-Bestselling Lunar Chronicles series by the "Queen of fairytale retellings," Marissa Meyer! See where the futuristic YA fairytale saga all began, with the tale of a teenage...
Heartless
Meyer, Marissa
Paper Book
For fans of Wicked: Don't miss this #1 New York Times-bestselling romantasy of Wonderland's most notorious villain: the Queen of Hearts. Long before she was the terror of Wonderland, she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love. Catherine may be...
Scarlet
Meyer, Marissa
Paper Book
Soon to be adapted into a major motion picture! The second book in the #1 New York Times- and USA Today-Bestselling Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer! Our cyborg heroine teams up with two new characters, Scarlet and Wolf, to defend Earth against a wicked space...

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