It’s All Well and Good Until Someone Gets Cursed

Rumpelstiltskin has always been one of my favorite fairy tales. So when I found out that Erin. A Craig – whose House of Salt and Sorrows was a retelling of another fairy tale, The Twelve Dancing Princesses – was writing a creepy YA fantasy novel loosely inspired by Rumpelstiltskin, I was over the moon! Ellerie Downing has lived in the town of Amity Falls all her life, in the shadow of Blackspire Mountains and surrounded on all sides by a nearly impenetrable fortress rumored to be full of devils the villagers defeated long ago. But a sudden disappearance disturbs the peace of Amity Falls, raising fears that the monsters may have returned, ready to tempt unwary villagers with promises of desires fulfilled. And in return they ask for so little! What’s a small favor in the face of all you’ve ever wanted?

So personally, I love Frozen. But if Disney’s (very, VERY) loosely Snow Queen-inspired film didn’t do it for you, may I recommend something a little more… violent? Sirapirat has been locked in endless winter ever since the Winter Queen captured the city-state. In search of the shards of a powerful magic mirror. General Lussadh carries one of those mirror shards in her heart, making her unwaveringly loyal to winter. Her job is to find the remaining “glass-bearers”, and her search eventually leads her to Nuawa, whose only mission in life is to destroy the Winter Queen. Add in one brutal, deadly tournament in which the victors become part of the Queen’s army, the loser’s souls are forfeit, and there’s a complicated romance growing between general and insurgent, and you’ve got all the makings of an epic queer retelling that also happens to be seasonally on point!

Little Red Riding Hood really is the perfect fairy tale for adaptation. It’s dark, borderline scary (some versions are downright gruesome). It pits a young girl against a violent, predatory, sexually coded figure, and it’s all set against the back drop of a vast, threatening forest. In other words, it’s pretty much the proto-plot for any number of horror stories. Red is the original final girl. And when it comes to dark retellings, For the Wolf definitely delivers! Red is a Second Daughter, the first in centuries, which means that her one purpose in life is to be sacrificed. The Wolf in the Wood holds the world’s gods captive and every second daughter born is sacrificed in hopes that he might release them. But what she finds in the depths of the Wilderwood is a tangle of lies, and everything she thought she knew about her world comes undone.

The release date of Comfort Me With Apples got delayed late last month because of the almighty and terrible supply chain issues that are currently plaguing publishing, but the day is finally here! Tomorrow this chilling, enchanting Bluebeard retelling enters the world, and I could not be more excited. Sophia knows nothing but the reality of her perfect, sheltered, beloved life behind the safe walls of Arcadia Gardens. She was made to be her husband’s little darling, that’s her whole life. Sophie has never questioned her existence, or how she came to exist. Until one day the arrival of a stranger in Arcadia Gardens threatens to overturn her peaceful existence and reveal the terrible truth that hides behind the basement door her husband forbids her to open.

Can I just say how much of a struggle it was to choose a Sleeping Beauty adaptation when I had three amazing, queer retellings to choose from? But ultimately I chose Briar Girls because I’m a sucker for a mysterious forest. Lena has spent her whole life living in fear of her curse, a touch that can kill. She and her father live in a tiny village near the Silence, a dense forest that few are foolish enough to enter, and fewer still return from. Until the day that Miranda emerges from the trees, on a quest to wake a fabled sleeping princess that may be able to save her home city. Miranda promises to break Lena’s curse in exchange for the other girl’s help in completing her mission, but the further into the forest they travel, the more Lena beings to suspect that not everything is as it seems.