It's Tell a Fairytale Day! Usually I do a blog post of fairytale retellings but this year I thought I'd pull together some young adult fantasies with royalty, monsters and lots of romance that will make you feel like you're reading a fairytale but still keep the stories fresh!
Where Shadows Bloom
By Catherine Bakewell
Ofelia has lived her life dreaming of entering Le Chateau Enchante – the mysterious court of the gods-blessed King Leo, where the shadow monsters that roam Ofelia's home never trespass.
Lope has lived her life as a knight, defending Ofelia and her home from Shadows even as she dreams of escaping with Ofelia by her side.
When the Shadows venture too close, Lope and Ofelia are thrust into a journey that will lead them to the heart of the darkness haunting their home: the dazzling and deceptive Chateau Enchante itself.
Liar’s Test
By Ambelin Kwaymullina
Bell Silverleaf is a liar.
It's how she's survived. It's how all Treesingers have survived since they were invaded by the Risen and their fickle gods. But now Bell is in the Queen's Test – she's one of seven girls competing in deadly challenges to determine who will rule for the next twenty-five years. If Bell wins, she'll have the power to help her people and take revenge on the Risen. But first she has to make it through the challenges alive.
She doesn't know how much she's been lied to, or where she fits in a bigger story, a mystery stretching back generations. And she's facing much bigger dangers than the Queen's Test. She's up against the gods themselves
Deep Is the Fen
by Lili Wilkinson
Merriwether Morgan likes her life as it is: simple, happy, and with absolutely no magic. Magic only ever leads to trouble.
But Merry's best friend, Teddy, is joining the Toadmen – a magical secret society – and she is determined to stop him. Even if it means teaming up with her academic arch-nemesis, Caraway Boswell, an ice-cold snob who hides his true face behind a glamour.
An ancient Toad ritual is being held in the nightmarish Deeping Fen, and if Merry doesn't rescue Teddy, she'll lose him forever. But the further she travels into Deeping Fen's foul waters, the more Merry wonders if she can possibly save her friend – or if she's walking straight into a trap.
Serpent Sea
by Maiya Ibrahim
Get swept away by the sequel to Spice Road, a romantic, action-packed fantasy set in an Arabian-inspired land.
Once, Imani swore to protect her home from the monsters roaming the desert. But now an even worse enemy threatens the Sahir, and as the Harrowlanders march south with their stolen magic, it is only a matter of time before the invasion begins.
The only chance for survival is a dangerous alliance with Qayn, a djinni king. If Imani journeys with him on a quest beyond the sands to restore his lost powers, he will summon a supernatural army to save her people. One wrong move could cost them their lives – and everyone they love. But they may find that there is more than meets the eye crossing the Serpent Sea ... and betrayal cuts deeper than any dagger.
Cruel is the Light
By Sophie Clark
A brutal war between demons and humanity has raged across Europe for over a century. At its heart are two elite soldiers – Selene Alleva, a powerful exorcists trained at the prestigious Vatican Academy, and foot soldier, Jules Lacroix, unrivalled in battle.
When their paths cross, despite initial distrust – then unwelcome attraction – Jules and Selene discover a terrible secret at the heart of the holy Vatican City ...
Soon Jules is forced to question everything he's ever known – including himself. And Selene, unable to ignore her growing feelings for Jules, must make an impossible choice between love and duty.
The Forest King’s Daughter
By Elly Blake
As a child, fey princess Klara snuck out of her father's castle and did the forbidden: she befriended a demon boy. On their third meeting, her new friend Zeru gave her a demonstone ring. He thought it was one of many in his mother's jewelry box, not to be missed. But the trinket was actually a dangerous and powerful artifact, which the demon queen will stop at nothing to get back.
Now, with the demons mounting attacks to retrieve the ring, the conflict between demons and faeries has intensified. After a decade of skirmishes, the demon army draws ever closer to the faerie stronghold. Klara wants to prove to her father that she is worth more than the demonstone she wields as a weapon. Zeru, her childhood friend, now enemy, has been waiting for the right opportunity to get the ring back and right the wrong he did to his people.
Prince of Fortune
by Lisa Tirreno
Shy Prince Edmund will be a great king one day: it has been Seen again and again. With rare magic giving him dominion over the nation’s plants and weather, Edmund feels a great deal of pressure to live up to his nation’s many expectations, including making a perfect diplomatic alliance through marriage. That is, until he meets Lord Aubrey Ainsley.
Charming, romantic, and politically insignificant, Aubrey is a Seer, but not even he could have predicted catching the eye of Edmund, the Prince of Fortune – nor that the anxious prince who talks to plants more than people could feel so right for him. Aubrey’s dream-visions have been full of battle, not love, but to say that Prince Edmund has captured his fancy would be a grand understatement.
As the two become more and more intertwined, the nation of Saben falls under attack. War and dark sorcery loom on the horizon. To save their homeland, Edmund and Aubrey must resist the outside forces seeking to drive them apart and find the power within themselves to create a future for Saben – and each other – they never could have imagined.
Darkly
By Marisha Pessl
When an ad for an internship with the Louisiana Veda Foundation appears, Arcadia 'Dia' Gannon rushes to apply. Veda's game-making empire, Darkly, was renowned for its ingenious and terrifying games back in the day and Dia is as obsessed with them as anyone.
The remaining games are priced like highly sought-after works of art, with the rarest and most notorious commanding tens of millions of dollars at auction. Now, Dia is thrust into the enigmatic heart of the operation. But who are these other interns? Why do they all seem to have something to hide? And why was she really chosen? It soon becomes clear that this summer will be the most twisted Darkly game of all.
Heir
By Sabaa Tahir
Growing up in the Kegari slums, AIZ has seen her share of suffering. An old tragedy fuels her need for vengeance, but it is love of her people that propels her. Until one hot-headed mistake lands her in an inescapable prison, where the embers of her wrath ignite.
Banished from her tribe for an unforgivable crime, SIRSHA is an down-on-her-luck tracker who speaks to the earth, air, and water to trace her marks. Destitute, she agrees to hunt down a killer who has murdered children across the Empire. All she has to do is carry out the job and get paid. But then, she falls for a charismatic and inconvenient fugitive who keeps getting in her way.
QUIL is the crown prince of the Empire, nephew of a famed and venerated empress, but he's loathe to pick up the mantle when his aunt steps down. As the son of the most hated emperor in the history of his people, he, better than anyone, understands that power corrupts. When a vicious new enemy threatens the survival of the Empire, Quil must ask himself if he can rise above his tragic lineage and be the heir his people need.
Bittersweet in the Hollow
By Kate Pearsall
In rural Caball Hollow, surrounded by the vast National Forest, the James women serve up more than fried green tomatoes at the Harvest Moon diner, where the family recipes are not the only secrets.
Like her sisters, Linden was born with an unusual ability. She can taste what others are feeling, but this so-called gift soured her relationship with the vexingly attractive Cole Spencer one fateful night a year ago ... A night when Linden vanished into the depths of the Forest and returned with no memories of what happened, just a litany of questions – and a haze of nightmares that suggest there's more to her story than simply getting lost.
Now, during the hottest summer on record, another girl in town is gone, and the similarities to last year's events are striking. Except, this time the missing girl doesn't make it home, and when her body is discovered, the scene unmistakably spells murder.
As tempers boil over, Linden enlists the help of her sisters to find what's hiding in the forest ... before it finds her. But as she starts digging for truth – about the Moth-Winged Man rumored to haunt the Hollow, about her bitter rift with Cole, and even about her family – she must question if some secrets are best left buried.
Sisters of Sword and Song
By Rebecca Ross
Two sisters ... one unbreakable bond
Evadne is finally going to be reunited with her older sister, Halcyon, who has been serving in the queen's army for eight long years. But when Halcyon unexpectedly appears a day early, Evadne knows something is gravely wrong. Halcyon has been charged with a heinous crime and though her life is spared, she has been sentenced to fifteen years of punishment – five years of hard labour, five years of imprisonment and five years serving the house that she has wronged.
Suspicious of the charges, as well as the details of the crime, Evadne volunteers to take part of her sister's terms. If there's a way to clear Halcyon's name, she'll find it. But as the sisters begin their sentences, they quickly learn that there are fates worse than death ...
Off With Their Heads
By Zoe Hana Mikuta
In a world where Saints are monsters and Wonderland is the dark forest where they lurk, it's been five years since young witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were both sentenced to that forest for a crime they didn't commit – and four years since they shattered one another's hearts, each willing to sacrifice the other for a chance at freedom.
Now, Caro is a successful royal Saint-harvester, living the high life in the glittering capital and pretending not to know of the twisted monster experiments that her beloved Red Queen hides deep in the bowels of the palace. But for Icca, the memory of Caro's betrayal has hardened her from timid girl to ruthless hunter. A hunter who will stop at nothing to exact her vengeance – on Caro, on the queen, on the throne itself.
But there's a secret about the Saints the Queen's been guarding, and a volatile magic at play even more dangerous to Icca and Caro than they are to each other ...
