Fairytale Retellings That Are Way Too Hot for Storytime

Alice swore she was done. No more dirty work for Jabberwocky. No more tangled dealings with the ruthless Queen of Hearts. No more hiding in the shadows of London’s criminal underworld. But when the Hatter’s reckless antics land him in danger, Alice has no choice but to return to the one man she never wanted to see again—Caterpillar. He has a plan. A high-stakes heist. A diamond that could change everything. Stealing it? Easy. Guarding her heart against the man she once loved? Impossible. As the lines between loyalty, love, and madness blur, Alice must decide how far she’s willing to go to save the people she cares about—even if it means losing herself. A thrilling, romantic Alice in Wonderland retelling, Curiouser and Curiouser is a fantastical ride you won’t forget.

It takes more than passion and pixie dust to thaw a frozen heart. With the 1814 London Frost Fair in full swing, actress Elyse McKenna’s performance in A Midwinter Night’s Dream thrills the crowd. But Elyse’s backstage has life is beginning to take on a distinctly Shakespearean flavor. When she fell in love with Lord John Waldegrave, Elyse was prepared to keep their affair secret. But she wasn’t ready for her new love to rock her relationship with her dearest friend, Doctor Kai Murray. Everything Elyse thought she knew about her feelings for her old friend is flipped upside down when an enchanting ship captain turns her attention to Kai. Soon, Elyse and Kai find themselves embroiled in a domestic dispute between warring faeries. If Elyse hopes to escape the Thames with her heart intact, she must discover the truth about the captain, Kai, John, and her own feelings—before it’s too late.

In this tale as old as time, Isabelle Hawking must tinker a solution to a heartbreaking mystery. When Isabelle Hawking and her father set out from London on a sea voyage, Isabelle is thrilled. Visiting foreign courts, learning from master tinkerers, and studying clockwork mechanisms is her dream. And it doesn’t hurt that the trip also offers Isabelle an escape from her overbearing and unwanted suitor, Gerard LeBoeuf. But Isabelle never arrives. Swept up in a tempest, her ship is lost. Isabelle survives the storm only to be shipwrecked on a seemingly deserted island. The magical place, dotted with standing stones, faerie mounds, and a crumbling castle, hints of an ancient past. Isabelle may be an unwilling guest, but her arrival marks a new beginning for the beastly residents of this forgotten land.

Being the heir to Camelot is a tangled mess. Rapunzel has spent her entire life living in Merlin’s cave on the coast of Cornwall. Under the protection of her faerie guardian, Gothel, she’s stayed safe. Safe and bored. Dreaming of a life that looks more like a Jane Austen novel, Rapunzel fears she’ll never have the chance to explore the world. Or meet a man. Or be kissed. Or anything else remotely resembling normal. When Red Cape Society Agent Ewan Goodwin’s monster-stalking device leads him to Rapunzel—and her unusual pets—the pair’s destinies entwine. Together, they must solve a mystery tied to the very roots of King Arthur’s Britannia.

They call me the dagger. I’m an assassin and that’s all I’ve ever known. So when a white rabbit tells me that loved ones are waiting for me in the Wonderland Court of Faerie, it’s surprising. And then, I learn something even more shocking. The Red Queen stole the Crown of Wonderland from my mother. Murdered her too. The queen singlehandedly created my reality of death and blood and murder. While that’s devastating, I can handle those emotions. Its what I have been trained to do. What I don’t know how to handle is rebel leader Henri Hatter. He’s loved by everyone. A man who sings in the streets because people ask for aether’s sake. A faerie who knows more about my past than anyone—including me. A good man who could crush my heart if I let him in. Despite my claims that I work alone, Hatter and two nosey little pixies insist on sticking with me. Only one thing is for sure, with them by my side assassinating the Red Queen will be unlike any other job I’ve ever tackled.

An assassin princess. A shifty wizard. A kingdom begging for freedom. Life in the Wonderland Court is complicated . . . Seeing as I plan on rescuing my sister from the Dark Court of Faerie, I don’t expect the complications to stop any time soon. Especially after, Jax, a blast from my past, shows up with his killer smile. He’s persistent, and ruining one of the best things in my life—Henri Hatter. I’m falling for Hatter, and yet, I can’t deny that I need Jax. Not if I’m going to save my sister from the Dark Court. As much as I hate to admit it, I need all the help I can get, or else I risk losing the only family I have left.

He wanted revenge—then he met her. James lives for one purpose: to bring down his enemy, Peter Michaels. When Peter’s sheltered daughter, Wendy, stumbles into his bar, James seizes the opportunity. Use her, break her, and finally have his revenge. But when cracks appear in his organization, James finds himself hunting down a traitor instead of his revenge. And Wendy? She’s suddenly more than a pawn in his plans. Wendy’s spent a lifetime under her father’s cold shadow. One reckless night out, though, leads her straight to James—a man who’s equal parts danger and allure. Against all her instincts, she’s drawn deeper into his world, caught between desire and dread. But will she end up falling for James…or the ruthless man known as Hook?

She doesn’t belong to him… She belongs to the crown. Prince Tristan Faasa was never destined for the throne. That was always his brother, Michael. The same brother responsible for both Tristan’s tormented childhood and the scar that mars his face. When their father dies, Michael is set to assume the throne, and Tristan is set to steal it. The leader of a secret rebellion, Tristan will stop at nothing to end his brother’s reign. But when Michael’s new betrothed, Lady Sara Beatreaux, arrives, Tristan finds himself in the middle of a new kind of war. The kind that begs the question of what’s more important—the crown or the woman about to wear it. Sara has one plan. Marry the King and eradicate the Faasa line, even at the risk of her own peril. But she never expects the Scarred Prince. He’s dangerous. Forbidden. And one of the men she’s been sent to kill. But the line between hatred and passion has never seemed so thin, and as secrets come to light, Sara grows unsure of whom she can trust, torn between vengeance and the villain she was never supposed to love.

A woman can be great, and terrible too. Evelina Westerly has always been the bad guy. As the brains, brawn, and botanist behind her family’s drug empire, she’s her father’s ruthless secret weapon. With her days divided between perfecting her greenhouse, seeking revenge for her sister’s murder, and putting a gun to the head of anyone in her way, Evelina doesn’t have time for anything else. Especially not for love. After a one-night stand with a gorgeous man at a nightclub, she’s sated her urges and is back to her criminal ways. That is, until that same man shows up as the new Westerly lackey…under a totally different name. But Nicholas Woodsworth’s real secret is much more dangerous than an alias. He’s an undercover DEA agent, and he’s hell-bent on destroying the drug trade that devastated his family. When he realizes the youngest daughter of the Westerly empire is the same woman he’s been fantasizing about since that night at the club, attraction wars violently with disgust. Evelina embodies everything he’s against, and he’s been sent here to be her downfall. Yet the more they learn about the darkness in each other’s hearts, the more alike they seem, and when hatred turns to something more, Nicholas will have to decide whether he can love a wretched woman, even if it means bringing both of their lives to ruin.

She’s his diamond in the rough. He’s her worst nightmare. Yasmin Karam, daughter to one of the richest men in the world, has never known strife. So, when her beloved father falls ill, she’s determined to make his final days his happiest. His last wish? To see her married to a man of his choosing. Except Yasmin’s heart already belongs to someone else. A servant. A street rat. A man her father would never consider worthy. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Yasmin strikes a desperate deal with her father’s right-hand man, Julian, not realizing he has his own twisted agenda. Julian Faraci has one goal: become the most powerful man in the world. He’s built a future from broken bones and faded bruises, never caring who he hurt along the way. But when his mentor falls ill, he finds himself on the verge of losing everything, and he’ll stop at nothing to inherit what is rightfully his. Even if it means forcing a woman he can’t stand into marriage. Yasmin is a brat who speaks out of turn, and he’s the villain of her story. But he decides she’ll be his—no matter what it takes to convince her.

He is righteousness. She is sin. Father Cade Frédéric is a holy man. Brought up in the streets of Paris, he has dedicated his life to the church. But there’s a monster that lingers just beneath the surface. A sickness. One that bleeds darkness and feeds on the damned. When he’s tasked to become the priest in Festivalé, Vermont, a town both beautiful in architecture and riddled with despair, his sickness sings, demanding he rid the place of evil. Amaya Paquette is Festivalé’s beautiful mystery. She spends her days caring for her younger brother and her nights transforming into Esmeralda, dancing for greedy eyes and shameless lips. Although she longs for love, she shies away from companionship, afraid of being abandoned again. When Father Cade lays eyes on Amaya, he finds himself ensnared, convinced she’s using witchcraft to lure him to her. He can’t eat. Can’t breathe. Can’t think unless it’s of her. And temptation is a devastating mistress. She’s his weakness, so he decides he’ll be her demise…even if it means killing the only woman he might ever love.

There’s a monster in the woods, and he just claimed me. The kingdom is cursed—shifters trapped in their human forms, time frozen by a deal with a demon king. Only one hope remains: Nyfain, the golden dragon prince, a beast lurking in the forbidden forest. When I trespass on his land, he doesn’t kill me. He takes me. Dragging me to his castle, he sees something in me—something that might break the curse. But taming the monster within him means surrendering to the darkness between us. Giving in to the fire he ignites. Risking everything. Because if I fail, our kingdom is lost. If I succeed, I’ll never be the same. And either way… I’m his. A dark and spicy Beauty and the Beast retelling with claws, curses, and chaos!

The only thing standing between me and the demons…is the beast. Nyfain, the golden dragon prince, tried to free me. But in this kingdom, true freedom doesn’t exist. Not for anyone. Now, the demons have found me, intent on using me as a weapon against Nyfain. And soon, the demon king himself will arrive to claim me. Nyfain insists I should escape, even if it means bargaining with the very creature who tortures our people. But how can I sacrifice myself to the demon king—the monster responsible for so much suffering? As the clock ticks down, I’m faced with an impossible choice: betray the man I’ve come to care for, or sacrifice my soul to save those I love. Will I find the strength to face the darkness, or will it consume me?

Never sell your soul to the Demon King. Too late. In an effort to save all that I love, I have to finish the job Nyfain started… and ruin myself. I’ve made a trade with the most cunning creature alive. Me for them. The dungeons will be my new home. Dolion’s destruction will be my new goal. I just have to get out of here and back to my golden dragon. Preferably alive.

I thought once we released the curse, I’d only have one enemy to contend with. Wrong. The queen lives. Not only that, but she knowingly hid herself from me and the rest of this kingdom until the moment the curse was broken. Now she is back, and her desires aren’t clear. Neither are her motives. Will she try to take the throne for herself? We can stop her…unless she had a hand in that curse. In which case, will we need to battle her and the demon king before we can finally live in peace? Or has this all been for naught? Regardless, we have very little time before the demon king returns to wipe us out.