All the Fairy Tale Retellings I Have Reviewed

Not only do I write fairy tale retellings, I love to read them!  And I have reviewed quite a few of them over the years.  So here is a list of all the fairy tale retellings I have reviewed, along with what I rated them and what fairy tale(s) they are retelling.

I've grouped books that belong to a series together, and then have the stand-alones or single titles at the end here.

The Austen Fairy Tales series by Kendra E. Ardnek

Rose Petals and Snowflakes (PG) -- Snow White and Rose Red

Crown and Cinder (PG) -- Cinderella

Emmazel (PG) -- Rapunzel

Snowfield Palace (PG) -- The Snow Queen

Thornrose Estate (PG) -- Beauty and the Beast

A Little Persuaded  (G) -- The Little Mermaid

The Christmas Chronicles (multi-author series)

The Midnight Blizzard by Mary Mecham (PG) -- Cinderella

The Silent Night by Sarah Beran (G) -- Sleeping Beauty

The Evraft series by Jenni Sauer

Wait Until Tomorrow (PG) -- The Steadfast Tin Soldier

Rook di Goo (PG-13) -- Cinderella

Yesterday or Long Ago (PG -- Aladdin

A Little Beside You (PG-13) -- Snow White and Rose Red

Kling Klang Gloria (PG-13) -- Sleeping Beauty + King Thrushbeard

Collections/Anthologies

Blind Beauty and Other Tales of Redemption by Meredith Leigh Burton (PG) -- Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and something else I couldn't identify

Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde (PG) -- Little Red Riding Hood (multiple short story retellings)

Five Enchanted Roses (anthology) by Kaycee Browning, Savannah Jezowski, Jenelle Schmidt, Dorian Tsukioka, Hayden Wand (PG-13) -- Beauty and the Beast

Five Poisoned Apples (anthology) by Skye Hoffert, Jenelle Hovde, Cortney Manning, Maddie Morrow, Rachael Wallen (PG/PG-13) -- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Once (omnibus) by Elisabeth Grace Foley, Rachel Heffington, J. Grace Pennington, Emily Ann Putzke, Suzannah Rowntree, and Hayden Wand (PG-13) -- Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestiltskin, The Little Match Girl, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel

Stand-alone Novels

Beauty by Robin McKinley (G) -- Beauty and the Beast

Befriending the Beast by Amanda Tero (PG) -- Beauty and the Beast

Corral Nocturne by Elisabeth Grace Foley (G) -- Cinderella

Enchanted by Alethea Kontis (PG-13) -- lots and lots of fairy tales blended together

A Flame Shall Spring from the Embers by Heidi Pekarek (PG) -- Sleeping Beauty

The Goblin and the Dancer by Allison Tebo (PG) -- The Steadfast Tin Soldier

January Snow by Hayden Wand (PG-13) -- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Lady and the Lionheart by Joanne Bischof (PG-16) -- Beauty and the Beast

Lost Lake House by Elisabeth Grace Foley (PG) -- Twelve Dancing Princesses

The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson (PG-13) -- Beauty and the Beast

The Midnight Show by Sarah Pennington (PG-10) -- Twelve Dancing Princesses

The Reluctant Godfather by Allison Tebo (G) -- Cinderella

Snow White by Matt Phelan (PG) -- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

With Blossoms Gold by Hayden Wand (PG-13) -- Rapunzel

This list is another contribution to my We Love Fairy Tales Week that I am hosting on my other blog, Hamlette's Soliloquy :-)

Top Ten Tuesday: Ever After

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is a Valentine's freebie -- anything about romance, basically.  I'm choosing to share my top ten favorite romantic couples from fairy tale retellings!

I've linked each retelling title to my full review of that book in case you are curious about it, and also provided my movie-style rating and what fairy tale it is retelling.

1. Cori and Bender in A Little Beside You by Jenni Sauer (PG-13) -- Snow White and Rose Red

2. Princess Holly and Dominic Klaus in The Silent Night by Sarah Beran (G) -- Sleeping Beauty

3. Emmazel and Night in Emmazel by Kendra E. Ardnek (PG) -- Rapunzel

4. Snow and Chase in "Falling Snow" by Skye Hoffert (PG-10) -- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

5. Rosanna and Grik in The Goblin and the Dancer by Allison Tebo (PG) -- The Steadfast Tin Soldier

6. Beauty and Beast in Beauty by Robin McKinley (G) -- Beauty and the Beast

7. Rue and Robbie in Wait Until Tomorrow by Jenni Sauer (PG) -- The Steadfast Tin Soldier

8. Ella and Burndee in The Reluctant Godfather by Allison Tebo (G) -- Cinderella

9. Enna and Anthony in A Little Persuaded by Kendra E. Ardnek (G) -- The Little Mermaid

10. Ellie and Cole in Corral Nocturne by Elisabeth Grace Foley (G) -- Cinderella

As well as being my entry for the Top Ten Tuesday linkup this week, this post is also one of my contributions to We Love Fairy Tales Week, a blog party I am hosting on my other blog.  Check out this post for more details, a fun blog tag, and links to all the posts from other participants!  Plus, I'm running a fairy tale-themed giveaway as part of the event, and you are welcome to enter that if you're a fairy tale fan too :-)

Top Ten Tuesday: Look What I Found!

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Bookish Discoveries I made in 2025."

Here are ten authors I read for the first time in 2025!  I've put them in alphabetical order by last name because I don't have the emotional energy today to rank them by favorites.  After each name is the title of the first book I read by them, and that title links to my review.  I've also included what I rated those particular books, and a little something about them.

Sarah Beran -- The Silent Night (G), a fantasy Christmas fairy tale retelling

Elisabeth Aimee Brown -- What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball (PG-13), a humorous fantasy fairy tale retelling

Carrie Brownell -- The Golden Hour (G), a Christmas fable picture book

Erle Stanley Gardner -- The Case of the Glamorous Ghost (PG-13), a mystery plus courtroom drama starring Perry Mason

Emily Golus -- Crack the Stone (PG-13), a fantasy retelling of Les Miserables

B. R. Goodwin -- Forget Me Knot (PG-16), a clean Christian romcom involving a bakery

Amber Lambda -- Comets Fade with Summer (PG-13), a clean Christian YA magical-realism teen romance

Catherine Louisa Pirkis -- The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective (PG), a collection of classic Victorian detective stories

Toni Shiloh -- A Run at Love (PG), a clean Christian romcom involving horse racing

Jaime Jo Wright -- The Souls of Lost Lake (PG-16), a dark Christian suspense mystery with a dual timeline

Have you read any books by these authors?  Did you share a Top Ten Tuesday post this week?  Please share!

"The Silent Night" by Sarah Beran

This is EXACTLY the level of romanceyness that I like in a book.  We did not spend several sentences every chapter or two rhapsodizing over what it might be like to kiss the love interest.  No one stared at the other person's lips.  No one daydreamed about touching their love interest's velvety skin or running a hand through their hair.  The main characters fell in love via letters.  Theirs was absolutely a slow-burn, friends-to-more story, and I am HERE FOR IT.

The Silent Night is a Sleeping Beauty retelling, plus a Santa Claus origin story, and you had better believe I am also very much here for a romance between Sleeping Beauty and Santa Claus.  Though they're named Princess Holly and Dominic Klause here, and Dominic has sled dogs instead of a sleigh with reindeer.  Every chapter has a snippet of "The Night Before Christmas" as a header, and I loved how those got worked into the story.

Particularly Good Bits:

Take a look around you and see what there is that you can do in small ways... Can you offer encouragement or a kind smile?  Find the ways that you can serve, and do them.  You may not be able to change the financial and economic state of the kingdom, but you can do something even more powerful: You can bring hope and love (p. 74).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's clean, it's bright, it's lovely.  No smut, gore, violence, cussing, or anything else objectionable.

"The Happy Prince and Other Stories" by Oscar Wilde

When I found this book in the children's section at a bookstore sometime within the last year or so, my first instinct was, "This must be mis-shelved."  Oscar Wilde?  In with the books for kids?  But lo and behold, he wrote fairy tales that are totally kid-friendly.  They remind me a lot of Hans Christian Andersen's stories -- most of them are poignant or even melancholy, but also lovely and often funny.

My favorite stories were:

"The Remarkable Rocket" -- a firework thinks he's the coolest thing ever and ends up a total dud.  It's so slyly funny!

"The Young King" -- a new king goes through a series of lessons to become wise and good.

"The Star-Child" -- a fallen star is rescued in the form of a human baby, grows up thinking he's awesome, and eventually learns a really important lesson about appearances and pride.

As I typed those out, I just noticed that all three of those have a very strong common theme.  Huh!

Most of the stories were a bit sad or almost-sad, but most of them also had really funny things in them, as you might expect from Oscar Wilde.

Particularly Good Bits:

"But I have imagination, for I never think of things as they really are; I always think of them as being quite different" ("The Remarkable Rocket," p. 47).

They did not understand a single word of what he was saying, but that made no matter, for they put their heads on one side, and looked wise, which is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier ("The Birthday of the Infanta," p. 105).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some really sad bits.

This has been my 45th classic read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.

Two Bookish Summer Events You Don't Want to Miss

First of all, I'm participating in the Clean Fairytale Summer event again this year!  During all of June and July, the Clean Fairytales Group on Facebook is celebrating no-spice fairy tale retellings.  There are door prizes for anyone who joins right away and reads the introductory posts on June 1 and 2.  There will be giveaways, reading challenges, games and prizes, free downloads, and lots of chances to hang out with fairy tale retelling authors like me.

In fact, I'll be taking over the group on June 10 from 7 to 9 pm (EST) to chat about my books.  I'm working on some fun games for people to play, and there will be prizes!  If you don't want to miss all that fun, and you aren't a member yet of the Clean Fairytale Group, follow this link for more details.

But that's not the only bookish event I'm participating in this summer.  A group of my fellow Christian authors have gotten together to host a massive giveaway (I'm talking more than 90 books for the prizes).  

To enter the giveaway, you first need to check out this list of books written by participating authors.  You then request one or more of them from your local library.  Then, you enter the giveaway right here -- though the giveaway doesn't technically start until Monday.  But you can get a head start on reading over the list and figuring out how to request books from your local library today!  And then start entering the giveaway tomorrow.  

This promotion runs through June 29, and the person in charge of it (Brianna Lynn Campbell) will choose the winner and so on, on June 30.  The link to the list of books and the link to the giveaway both provide more info, if you have questions.

A Realm Awards Finalist? Yes! It's True!

I'm not even joking.  My book A Noble Companion is a finalist for this year's Realm Awards!!!  

This little Ugly Duckling retelling was such a challenge to write.  For one thing, it was the first time I had been part of a multi-author project.  For another, I had never written fantasy before, so I struggled with that aspect of the book a lot.  And also, every book in this series focuses on a side character of the fairy tale being retold, not the usual main character, but... there aren't any other named characters in The Ugly Duckling.  In fact, even the main character is only referred to by that description.  That made figuring out who to focus on pretty tricky.

I freely admit that I'm not a fantasy writer, I'm a historical fiction writer.  I did a lot of praying that God would help my imagination and writing skills grow and change to suit this new project.  And I did find ways to make it truly a fantasy book, but the story rests solidly on a foundation of historical research for the setting. 

I never really expected that it could compete against more obvious fantasy books for the Realm Awards, which are for Christian fantasy and sci-fi.  The fact that it made the long list last month felt like a really amazing honor, and I really didn't even hope that it would go farther.  But it did!  It's a finalist now!  Wow.

If you want to see who all the finalists are, you can find the official list here.  If you want to know more about A Noble Companion, check out my page about it.

"What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball" by Elisabeth Aimee Brown

This book is an absolute hoot!  Also, it made me hungry, particularly for cheese.  Repeatedly.  I already eat a lot of cheese, but I definitely was craving it more often than usual while reading this.  I hear this is a common side-effect of reading this book.  Brown probably should get a subsidy from the American Dairy Association for it or something.

This is basically a screwball Cinderella story.  Hester doesn't want to go to the Commoner's Ball to dance with one of the princes, she just wants to go so she can attend the banquet and get a really solid meal for once.  She's loving life in her country's capitol city, aside from the way everything costs way more than it did back home on her family's pig farm, how many rude and unpleasant people are around, and the fact that her only job prospects tend to involve sewing for hours and hours and hours.  But she's gradually saving up enough money to move her aging parents to the big city so they can stop working hard on their pig farm and start enjoying city life too.

But, of course, she ends up running into both Prince Hughbert and Prince Lucas at the ball.  And being pursued by both of them, though she's really not interested in either one.  At least, not at first.  It's pretty obvious which one she does like, and who she will end up with, but the fun comes in getting there.  

And it definitely is fun.  This is a quirky book that made me laugh aloud repeatedly, sometimes in public.  

However... I hated Prince Hughbert.  Loathed him.  It took me rather a long time to finish this book because, every time he showed up, I would have to put the book down.  Hugh is a trickster character, and I do not do well with tricksters.  Loki in the MCU?  It took me 5 movies to stop hating him, and then his Disney+ show ruined everything and made me hate him again.  Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation?  I avoid his episodes like the plague.  Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream?  I would gladly fast-forward through all his scenes.  I Do Not Like Characters Who Make Things Difficult For Other People Just Because They Think It Is Funny.

This is not a judgment on Brown's writing!  This is purely a personal bugaboo that I have with a character archetype.  Most people do not have this issue with tricksters, judging by Loki's legions of fangirls.  So most people will probably gobble this book up in like 5 hours instead of taking more than a week to read it.  Despite me wanting to slap Hugh, throttle him, and duck tape his mouth shut, this will still get 5 stars from me.

Particularly Good Bits:

"People were meant to rely on each other.  Life is more than bargains" (p. 193).

"How did you fit all of those in one pocket?" I ask.  That's the sort of coat I need.  My cloak's pockets are irritatingly small (p. 252).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some innuendo involving repeated jokes and mentions of the fact that Hester's landlady thinks she intends to seduce one of the princes at the boarding house.  No actual smut, no bad language, no gore, no real violence.  But that running gag makes me not rate this totally family friendly.

Interviewed on Almost an Author

Want to read an interview with me that Donna Jo Stone shared today on her blog, Almost an Author?  Here's a link.  We chatted about the unique challenges and strengths of writing fairy tale retellings and writing for a YA audience.  Hope you enjoy it!

"The Midnight Blizzard" by Mary Mecham

Awwww, this was exactly what I wanted to read during the week between Christmas and New Year's.  Sweet, funny, upbeat, and cozy.  And with lovable dogs galore!

Noelle has no intention of trying to get the prince to fall in love with her.  She wants to spend the week of the future-wife-finding-balls and parties searching the castle for any trace of her father's will, which has disappeared.  She's quite sure her father would have left her his estate so he could continue his work helping mages get more equal rights.  

In this kingdom, mages are people who can do magic, and ordinary people are suspicious and distrustful of mages.  Mages and non-mages can't marry, and mages aren't even able to attend most schools.  Noelle and her father were working together to change all that, but his death may have derailed all of that.

Noelle's stepmother ditches Noelle and her dog Kodiak in the middle of the forest, where they're attacked by wolves.  Kodiak is injured protecting Noelle, but they're both rescued by a handsome mage named Jack and his team of sled dogs.  After getting Kodiak to a healer, Jack takes Noelle to the castle.  While he helps her try to find her father's will, the two of them start falling in love, but marriage between mages and ordinary humans is forbidden, a law Noelle's father was trying to get reversed before he died.

This is a Cinderella retelling with a Christmasy twist, though it's really more wintery than Christmasy.  It's the first thing I've read by Mary Mecham, but I am sure it won't be the last.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some kisses and yearning.  No smut, no real cuss words (just fake ones like "by holly"), little violence (there's that wolf attack, and at least one slap).  I let my 13-yr-old read it as soon as I finished it, and she thought it was really fun, though it did have a bit more romance than she prefers.  That makes sense, since it's a young adult book, and she's not a young adult yet.

My New Book is Out Now!

My third new release for 2024 is here at last!  A Noble Companion retells Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling," but by focusing on side characters from the original fairy tale, not the ugly duckling himself.  

A Noble Companion is part of a multi-author project called The Cornerstone Series, a collection of sixteen fairy tale retellings by sixteen different authors.  Each book focuses on a character who is NOT the main character in the original story.  And all of the books in the series are non-magical fantasy novellas, which means that, yes, I have written something other than historical fiction!  

Well, sort of ;-)  I set A Noble Companion in a fantasy world based on Spanish California of the very early 1800s, in a place I call Costa Nueva.  This book has talking animals and dragons, but it is definitely low fantasy, or historical-esque fantasy.  I am a historical fiction author at heart, so this has a lot of similarities to my Once Upon a Western series, in that I did lots of research into the time and place I was basing my fantasy world on.  But it has little fantasy elements, too.

If you buy a copy of A Noble Companion before the end of November, you can receive some book swag related to it!  All you have to do to claim your swag is fill out this form and wait for me to email you to request proof of purchase and an address to send the swag to.  The swag includes:

• 1 double-sided bookmark
• 1 piece of dragon treasure
• 3 vinyl stickers

Here's what the goodies look like:

This swag bundle is available worldwide!  And you can buy either the paperback or the e-book.  Or, if you are a Kindle Unlimited reader, you can also get this swag if you read the entire book on KU before the end of the month.

If you want to know more, here's the official synopsis:

Raid a dragon's hoard for her dowry? It seemed like a good idea at the time... 

Madelena isn't in love with her friend Armando, but his marriage proposal offers the security she needs. She sympathizes with him—his father insists Armando must either find a bride or join the army. Armando would rather become a husband than a soldier, but his ugly face has scared away all other eligible ladies despite his family's wealth. Although she harbors only friendship for Armando, Madelena agrees to marry him on one condition: she insists on acquiring a dowry worthy of his family's noble standing in the land of Costa Nueva. But as a humble stablemaid, Madelena has no idea how to find such wealth. That's when the talking burro Terco mentions he's heard how to find a dragon’s treasure. 

Javier, Armando’s younger brother, has loved Madelena in silence for years. When he learns of their impending marriage, he offers to help her find the treasure, even though succeeding may cost him the chance to spend his future with her. Together, they face a dangerous wilderness, a charming bandit, and a dragon’s lair, forcing Javier to confront his feelings and Madelena to re-evaluate her heart.

I promise that's the last book I'm releasing this year ;-)  I'm tired and need a little break!

"The Midnight Show" by Sarah Pennington

This is such a fun book!  A fantasy version of the 1920s, with magical beings, speakeasies, jazz music, and so on.  AND it's a retelling of my favorite fairy tale, Twelve Dancing Princesses!

Popular singer Dayo Temitrope can't figure out why her dancing shoes are worn through every morning, and why her feet are covered in blisters.  She doesn't dance that much during her nightclub act, and she certainly doesn't go out dancing with her admirers enough to wreck her feet so badly.  So, she hires private investigator Bastian Dennell to figure out what's going on.

Bastian is excited to get to work for such a famous singer, especially since he's already a fan of hers.  But her case takes darker and stranger turns as he goes along, involving enchantments, disguises, and missing people.  But it all comes to a happy conclusion, and I am excited to read the next book in the Bastian Dennel series!

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some intense scenes and possibly frightening imagery.  No cussing, smut, or gore.

This is the 19th book I've read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

The Cover Reveal for My Book "A Noble Companion"

As you may have heard, I will be releasing an Ugly Duckling retelling called A Noble Companion this fall as part of the Cornerstone Series from Beyond the Bookery. I am revealing its gorgeous cover at last!

A Noble Companion releases on November 12, and you can already pre-order the Kindle version on Amazon.

The books in this series are all non-magical fantasy, which means the authors will include fantasy elements such as creatures (such as dragons, centaurs, unicorns, mermaids) or settings, but there will be no magic-users, such as witches or wizards or sorcerers.

Is this a major step out into the unknown for me as a writer?  In some ways, yes.  I tried writing a fantasy novel in my teens and gave it up because the worldbuilding was driving me crazy.  I've never tried to write anything fantasy-ish again... until now.  

But, because I'm me, A Noble Companion has an American West flavor -- I've created a world based on Spanish California in the early 1800s (think of Zorro), but with talking animals and dragons.  

I have an inspiration board for this book on Pinterest -- you can check that out here!

Anyway!  I love my cover, and I'm having a great time writing this book.  If you'd like to see covers for more of the series, we are releasing four at a time every Monday for the whole month of June -- you can find the first eight here in my Instagram feed!

If you think A Noble Companion sounds like a fun read, you can mark it as "want to read" here on Goodreads.

"Kling Klang Gloria" by Jenni Sauer

I think this may be Sauer's best book yet.  Certainly, it is her most complex book yet.  Kling Klang Gloria is a follow-up to Rook di Goo, meaning it is book two of the War on Taras series.  It reads fine as a stand-alone, but you are going to enjoy the last section more if you have already read Rook di Goo.  And, since that last section is my favorite part of the book, overall, I definitely do recommend you read the first book first.

And now you're like, um, Hamlette?  Jenni Sauer has like five other Evraft books out too?  Which you have also reviewed?  How is this book two?

I'm so glad you asked!  This is book two because it is the second book in the War on Taras series, which takes place in the Evraft Galaxy.  The other books take place there too, and they sometimes involve characters who were in these books.  And that's about as much explaining as I can do.  I suggest visiting Sauer's website or connecting with her on social media to learn more.  Or just read the books and figure it out!  That's what I did ;-)

Anyway, Kling Klang Gloria starts out as a Sleeping Beauty retelling of sorts, then morphs into a King Thrushbeard retelling.  Princess Zariya wakes up from a cryogenic sleep and discovers her planet, Taras, has been overrun by their enemies.  The palace where she grew up has been leveled and the capitol city razed.  What's left of the Tarisian population is scavenging for survival and avoiding the occupying troops as much as they can.

Zariya is welcomed back by the only remaining royal guard, Thrush, who has faithfully waited all these years for her to awaken.  Together, they set off across the planet, looking for safety and purpose, basically.  Slowly, Zariya learns what happened to her planet and her people, and she slowly picks up clues as to Thrush's past, too.  Woven throughout the book are flashbacks to how and why Zariya was frozen and what her life was like beforehand.

Zariya was viewed as a spoiled and nonsensical girl all her life, treated as if she did not have a mind or will of her own and should just be a pretty puppet.  The only person who ever understood her was a boy named Arian, her only friend, but the two drifted apart as they grew up, leaving Zariya bereft and confused more than once as Arian stepped farther and farther away from her.  Zariya loves to fix things with her hands and has a genius for mechanical things, but struggles to understand social expectations and emotional cues, which makes me assume she is meant to be somewhere on the autism spectrum.  Maybe?  

Thrush starts out didactic and gruff, but mellows as he starts to trust Zariya and protect her because he wants to, not because it's his duty.  The two grow close and begin taking hesitant steps toward a romantic relationship, but this is more a coming-of-age story than a love story.  Their romance is sweet and very slow-burn, and I liked it a lot.

Particularly Good Bits:

Funny, that living scared her more than dying did.  But she had gone to so much trouble to survive, that was exactly what she intended to do (p. 18).

People were minefields of emotions and social constructs Ziya had never learned to read no matter how hard she tried (p. 267).

They weren't perfect.  Neither of them.  But maybe they could be imperfect together (p. 395).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some intense situations, violence, fake marriage as a cover story that involves Zariya and Thrush sharing a bed (innocuously) multiple times, and some mentions of menstruation and tampons that might not be something younger readers would appreciate/understand.  There's no cussing, no smut, and no gore, but there are brief mentions of someone having been tortured and several instances of hand-to-hand combat and other acts of violence.

This is my 6th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"A Little Persuaded" by Kendra E. Ardnek

I was hesitant about this final volume of the Austen Fairy Tales by Kendra E. Ardnek.  Persuasion is my favorite Jane Austen novel, but this book is blending it with "The Little Mermaid," and that is not a fairy tale I tend to love, at least not most retellings of it.  In fact, I actively dislike the Disney version.

Happily, Ardnek made the two stories and sets of characters work together really nicely.  Enna, her Anne Elliot/Little Mermaid character, was as retiring, thoughtful, and wise as Anne Elliot, but with some of the longings and disappointed hopes of Hans Christian Andersen's original Little Mermaid.

It was great getting to see lots of characters from earlier books in this series, especially since this is their last adventure.  I would have liked a little more resolution at the end, which is mostly a personal issue -- I love resolution, and books/stories with more open endings tend not to be my favorites.  Still, I feel like all the characters I have come to care about have a good chance at a happy and safe future, so I am pleased.

Particularly Good Bits:

Enna was used to people talking about her as though she wasn't there.  She wasn't used to being defended (p. 34).

"Austere alone knows the future, but we can prepare for it as best we can " (p. 104).

"Focus, Enna," she whispered to herself. "Thinking about how much there is to think about isn't going to help at all" (p. 189).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  No real violence to speak of, no cussing, no smut.

This has been my 56th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.

"Thornrose Estate" by Kendra E. Ardnek

This book is a whirlwind!  An amnesiac heroine (who repeatedly forgets things in the past), a shape-shifting hero, a horrible curse to untangle, and a friends-to-lovers arc that I loved.  Not to mention some found family elements too!

Calla (who was a side character for much of the previous book in the series, Snowfield Palace) has grown up in a small cottage in the middle of nowhere.  She can't remember the last nine years of her life, but her guardians assure her that when she turns nineteen, she'll be able to remember who she is and what happened to her nine years ago.

Nine years ago, the Forest was sealed off, not allowing people in the northern and southern kingdoms to contact each other in any way.  Calla knows this is due to some disaster, and she feels like she should remember what happened, but how could she have been involved if she was a child of ten at the time?

Calla's guardians send her to stay with a friend in the big city, where she's befriended by the chatty and gossipy Belle and pursued romantically by Belle's brother Johnston.  Calla also makes friends with the sweet Elaeza and her brother Hansel, both of whom are much kinder than Belle and Johnston.  Which pair of siblings can Calla truly trust?  She really wonders about this when Elaeza and Hansel turn out to be royalty and ask her to stay with them at Thornrose Estate.  Why would they seek the company of a nobody with no memory of her childhood?

Of course, Calla's memories eventually return, and she joins one set of friends in fighting the other, trying to break the curse that binds the Forest and its Gardiner.  Plus, she falls in love with a man who can turn into a wolf, which echoes a couple of her favorite fairy tales.

I like that a lot of what happened in Snowfield Palace got resolved in this book -- I'm so glad Ardnek didn't drag that out until the final book of the series, which is expected to launch this fall.  Though I can see that some of this book's ending is setting things up for that final adventure, so everything is not fully resolved yet.

Once again, Ardnek cleverly twists a Jane Austen novel (Northanger Abbey) with a fairy tale ("Beauty and the Beast") and uses them to craft an entirely new story of her own.

Particularly Good Bits: 

Wasn't that why she read all of the books that she did?  So she could pretend that the lives of the heroines were hers.  Pretend that there were people who loved her and adventures that she could travel.  But it was only ever pretend (p. 136).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some violence, scenes of peril, and kissing.  As with the rest of the series, no smut or bad language.

This is my 3rd book read from my 10 Books of Summer list, and the 40th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.

"Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship" by Colin Duriez

Although it took me several months to finish reading this book, that is not because it was boring.  Rather, other books kept shoving their way in front of it.  Library books coming due, ARCs needing to be read before release day, and so on.  Now that my kids are done with school, I have had a lot more time for reading, and I finally finished this!

Duriez begins the book with biographical accounts of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis from childhood until they met.  He then shows how their personalities, tastes, interests, and ideas blended into friendship.  He spends time discussing the other Inklings too, and how their collective group friendship was important to both Tolkien and Lewis.  Their writing, their faith, and their careers all get explored here, sometimes in depth.  If you are a fan of either author, or you like learning about authors in general, you would probably get a lot out of this book.  I know I did!

Particularly Good Bits:

From his wide experience of reading [Lewis] instinctively rejected a distinction between highbrow and lowbrow literature, serious and popular, and even between so-called good and bad books.  A far more important distinction for him was that between good and bad readers.  Literature, he increasingly felt, exists for the enjoyment of readers, and books therefore should be judged by the kind of reading that they evoke (p. 67-68).

At the core of the friendship of Tolkien and Lewis was their shared antipathy to the modern world.  They were not opposed to dentists, buses, draft beer, and other features of the twentieth century, but what they viewed as the underlying mentality of modernism.  They were not against science or scientists, but the cult of science, found in modernism, and its tendency to monopolize knowledge, denying alternative approaches to knowledge through the arts, religion, and ordinary human wisdom (p. 107).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some non-explicit allusions to possible sexual relationships between some adults and discussion of the trauma of wartime for soldiers.

This is my 29th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.

Top Ten Tuesday: Indie State of Mind

I love that this week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl focuses on Indie/Small Press/Self-Published Books!  As an author who has published both with the small press and self-publishing models, I am excited to see those get a chance to shine this week.

Although, technically, any press that is not affiliated with one of the "big five" (Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, and Hachette Book Group) is considered to be "independently published," I am focusing mainly on self-published books here, with a couple of very small press exceptions.

Here are my favorites:

The Beautiful Ones by Emily Hayse -- book two in the fantasy western Knights of Tin and Lead trilogy, which retells the King Arthur legend

A Little Beside You by Jenni Sauer -- a "Snow White and Rose Red" retelling with a scifi setting and lots of cozy vibes

These War-Torn Hands by Emily Hayse -- book one in the fantasy western Knights of Tin and Lead trilogy, which retells the King Arthur legend

Emmazel by Kendra E. Ardnek -- a fantasy story that weaves the fairy tale "Rapunzel" with the Jane Austen novel Emma

In the Glorious Fields by Emily Hayse -- book three in the fantasy western Knights of Tin and Lead trilogy, which retells the King Arthur legend

Isabella's Daughter by Charity Bishop -- the last book in the Tudor Throne series of historical fiction revolving around Britain's Tudor royalty

Song of the Valley by Britt Howard -- a sweet, heartwarming Christian romance set in modern-day Montana

Land of Hills and Valleys by Elisabeth Grace Foley -- coming-of-age historical fiction set in Wyoming during the Great Depression

Laertes by Carly Stevens -- a dark academia retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in 1920s Europe

The Goblin and the Dancer by Allison Tebo -- a retelling of the fairy tale "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" changed up so that the jack-in-the-box character is not a villain

Have you read any of these?  Do you seek out indie books and authors, or read them if they happen to cross your path?

"Beauty" by Robin McKinley

Well, now I know why people love this retelling of Beauty and the Beast so much!  It is wonderful!  An absolute treat!  I really loved it, and I'd like to have my homeschool co-op lit class read it next year.

I love that Beauty isn't outwardly beautiful to begin with, but already inwardly beautiful.  She's so sweet and helpful and nice and hardworking -- everything I love in a fictional character.  I love how well she gets along with her family.  Her sisters aren't horrible in this version!  In fact, although her family falls from wealth to hard times, they really have a very happy home life overall.  That is absolutely refreshing and made me so happy.  Plus, Beast was really a very nice guy, if a bit brusque and prone to having raging bouts of temper thanks to his curse -- but he always took care to get away from Beauty if one of those was coming on, and they really weren't his fault, I didn't think.

This was probably the coziest version of Beauty and the Beast I have ever read, or at least rivalling the one I wrote myself, which was also super cozy a lot of the time.  And I loved the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" perspective that was woven into it.

Particularly Good Bits:

"You will find no mirrors here," he said, "for I cannot bear them: nor any quiet water in ponds.  And since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?" (p. 162).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's clean and wholesome.

This is the 14th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.

"Snowfield Palace" by Kendra E. Ardnek

Oh my.  That turned serious.  Which I probably should have expected from a book that combines "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen with Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.  Neither one of those are a barrel of laughs and giggles.

Ginny is an orphan taken in by her dead mother's childhood best friend's family.  Although the family gives her a home, they don't give her much attention or love, and she grows up in the shadows, on the edges of their lives.  She loves their son Kaimund from afar, but knows she's not special or important enough to ever marry him.

Enter Prince Hans and Princess Maia, charming and charismatic siblings who quickly win the hearts of the young folks in the family -- all except Ginny, who doesn't trust Hans and can't quite bring herself to truly like Maia.

And then, everything gets serious.  Even dark.  Some minor characters die, and some large and seemingly permanent changes occur in this fairy tale world that could have lasting ramifications.  I was not expecting quite so much damage to actually happen, and it really pushed the series to a whole different level.  But there's still a happily-ever-after ending for Ginny, don't worry.

I loved how many characters from the first three books showed up again here, and I am eagerly awaiting book five, which is due out this summer!

Particularly Good Bits:

"Everyone is hiding some form of pain, Ginny.  Remember that.  And everyone responds to their pain in different ways.  That's why you have to treat everyone with grace" (p. 11).

"I think any way a person grows up, none of it is a promise that they'll turn out right.  It depends on what sort of person they are, too" (p. 207).

If This was a Move, I Would Rate It: PG for some violence, thievery, and kissing.

This is my second book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.