5 More Books to Read if You’ll Always Love Robin McKinley’s Beauty

Confession: I am a fairy tale addict. I have been my whole life. I was raised on an irresistible combination of Disney movies and Grimm’s fairy tales. As I grew up, I got hooked on fairy tale retellings—whether modern-day reimaginings of old stories (I even wrote one of those myself) or stories set in ancient kingdoms that turn and original tale on its head with a feminist twist or a brand new backstory.
One of my all time favorite fairy-tale retellings is Beauty, by Robin McKinley, which revisits (you guessed it) the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. McKinley’s version is beautifully written and so much richer than the old fairy tale—here, Beauty (who has always hated her nickname) is one of three sisters, and takes charge of her family when they’re forced to move to the country after their father’s financial demise. You know the rest: when her father’s life is threatened by a mysterious Beast, Beauty offers her own life in exchange for his. It’s hard to believe this lovely, nuanced tale is McKinley’s first novel, and she has gone on to write award winners and other fairy-tale reimaginings. But Beauty stands out for her fans. So if you’re one of those readers whose heart has a special place for Robin McKinley’s first book, here are a few more fairy tales for you to try.

Hunted, by Meagan Spooner
Spooner’s book, out tomorrow, is a fresh take on the Beauty and the Beast tale. Once again, financial misfortune forces our heroine and her family to move from town to the woods. But in this story, Beauty’s name is Yeva, and Yeva doesn’t offer herself selflessly to the beast. Instead, when her father goes missing, Yeva sets out to find the beast—not to offer to be his prisoner in place of her father, but to hunt him. Yeva must go deep into the beast’s territory: a dark forest, a cursed valley, a forgotten castle. When her father sought to discover the secrets of this forest, he never returned home. Now that Yeva’s following in her father’s footsteps, her fate hangs in the balance: will she succeed in her quest to hunt the beast, or become his next victim?

The Lunar Chronicles, by Marissa Meyer
Cinderella? Check. Little Red Riding Hood? Check. Rapunzel? Check. Snow White? Check again. This quartet of books by bestselling author Marissa Meyer offers pretty much everything a fairy-tale enthusiast could ask for. The first book, Cinder, is a reimagining of perhaps the best known fairy tale of them all, Cinderella. This time, our heroine isn’t a servant girl, but a gifted mechanic—and a cyborg. When she’s blamed for her stepsister’s illness, Cinder finds herself tangled in an intergalactic power struggle, her life suddenly entwined with that of the handsome Prince Kai. Cinder may be the key to earth’s future, but only if she can put together the pieces of her past. And that’s just book one! Book two, Scarlet, introduces us to a new Red Riding Hood; book three, Cress, is a twist on Rapunzel, and book four, Winter, reimagines Snow White. There’s even a companion book called Fairest if you just can’t get enough. (And if you love fairy tales, you probably can’t.)

The Rose and the Beast, by Francesca Lia Block
In The Rose and the Beast, acclaimed author Francesca Lia Block reimagines nine famous fairy tales—including Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and even Thumbelina. In these retellings, Beauty travels not through an enchanted forest but through California’s redwoods to find the beast. The house where the seven dwarfs live is set in one of Los Angeles’ canyons. These stories are markedly different from the tales we grew up with—in place of a spindle, Sleeping Beauty pricks herself with a heroin needle—but they’re tightly linked to the fairy tales we know (and love) so well. Despite their sometimes dark settings, these stories speak to the power of love to transform and sometimes even save us, just like the fairy tales we read as children.

Lips Touch: Three Times, by Laini Taylor
Once in a while a writer offers you a brand-new set of wholly invented fairy tales, as bestselling author Laini Taylor does in her debut novella collection. The first, “Goblin Fruit” takes inspiration from Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” in which goblins offer young girls delicious fruit in exchange for their souls. The second, “Spicy Little Curses Such as These” takes place in India, where a demon and a (literally) hellish ambassador argue over the soul of a cursed girl. In the third story, “Hatchling,” a girl named Esme wakes to discover that one of her brown eyes has turned blue overnight. Stranger still, the eye seems not to belong to her, but to someone else with memories of sights Esme has never seen. The stories are beautifully illustrated by Jim Di Bartolo. Like so many classic fairy tales, each of these stories hinges on a kiss—a kiss with profound consequences.

Strands of Bronze and Gold, by Jane Nickerson
Bluebeard may be a lesser-known fairy tale, but it has been retold time and time again. The original story is a French folk tale in which a wealthy man marries then kills each of his wives—and the struggle of his latest wife to resist the fate of those who came before her. In Strands of Bronze and Gold, 17-year-old Sophia Petheram goes to live with her godfather on his lavish estate deep in the heart of Mississippi—a far cry from the humble childhood she knew before the death of her father. Sophie’s new guardian, Monsieur Bernard de Cressac, is generous and charming, but mysterious. As Sophie begins to put the pieces of his past together—including the stories of Monsieur de Cressac’s former wives, all of whom had hair just as red as her own—she begins to believe she is in danger, and that nothing on this rich estate is quite as it seems.