Beauty
by Sheri Tepper
Set in the 14th century and covering a span of 100 years, readers are caught in the world of Beauty, born into nobility and of fairy ancestry. When a curse is placed on her household, Beauty takes on a journey through different eras and universes in order to find her destiny. In this hopeful tale, author Sheri Tepper references an array of familiar tales and plunges beneath the surface to unveil ideas of morality and the ideal.

Confessions of an ugly stepsister
by Gregory Maguire
Extreme beauty is an affliction Set against the rich backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice, and ambition. Iris's path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister.

Enchantment
by Orson Scott Card
The moment Ivan stumbled upon a clearing in the dense Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed. Atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, the beautiful princess Katerina lay still as death. But beneath the foliage a malevolent presence stirred and sent the ten-year-old Ivan scrambling for the safety of Cousin Marek's farm. Now, years later, Ivan is an American graduate student, engaged to be married. Yet he cannot forget that long-ago day in the forest--or convince himself it was merely a frightened boy's fantasy. Compelled to return to his native land, Ivan finds the clearing just as he left it. This time he does not run.

Mirror Mirror
by Gregory Maguire
Wickedness is certainly the dynamic in this retelling of the Snow White fairy tale, set in early sixteenth-century Italy, where vice and corruption are commonplace for everyone from the pope to the brutal military conqueror Cesare Borgia. The Snow White character is an angelically beautiful child, Bianca. The stepmother-witch is Cesare's vain, demonic sister, Lucrezia, who is so jealous that she orders a hunter to murder Bianca in the woods. The child is saved by the seven dwarfs, though Lucrezia continues in relentless murderous pursuit with a poison apple.

Never After
by Rebecca Lickiss
From Novelist: "In a whimsical fairy tale, three adventurers - a prince in search of a pride, a young woman in search of adventure, and a recent graduate of Wizard School - find their true destiny at a remote castle buried in thorns in which one princess and three identical princes dwell in a cursed sleep."

The Big Over Easy: a nursery crime
by Jasper Fforde
It's Easter in Reading-a bad time for eggs-and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Dumpty, minor baronet, lover of women, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Yes, the big egg is down. All those brittle pieces sitting in the morgue point to foul play. Jack Spratt and his new partner, Sergant Mary Mary, search through Humpty's sordid and secretive past in hopes of finding the key to his death.

The Black Swan
by Mercedes Lackey
Though cursed to be a swan (besides regaining her human form in the moonlight), Princess Odette relentlessly strives for her freedom from a powerful, scheming sorcerer. If she can hold a man's love and faithfulness for a month, the spell will break. Amidst her travail, little does she know that she and every other person involved are all pawns in the sorcerer's game.

The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf
by Kathryn Davis
A modern American adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's tragic tale, this imaginary biography traces the unique friendship and parallels of misfortune between an elderly Danish music composer and her unique friendship with the narrator, a single mother of twins, wherein "the complicated mess of human affairs finally transforms into celestial music."

The Rats of Hamelin: A Piper's Tale
by Adam McCune
A father-and-son writing team revisits the old tale of the Pied Piper with jarring twists and rivalries, and the hero's discernment of enemies and allies, justice and mercy.

The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales
by Francesca Lia Block
Francesca Lia Block fuses simple fairy tales with modern settings, making the historical tales dance with identifiable, relatable life. Written with raw, firey prose, the young heroines battle social issues like abuse and addictions, yet the dark internal turmoil cannot defeat the timeless truth of the transformation found in love.

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel: A Novel of War and Survival
by Louise Murphy
Nazi occupation in Poland forces two Jewish children to take the names of "Hansel" and "Gretel" as they find safety wandering in a thick forest, where an old and peculiar woman, known by the villagers as a "witch," determines to save them. The fairy tale archetypes blend with the harrowing tale of the Holocaust, leaving readers enchanted with the reality of hope.

White as Snow
by Tanith Lee
From FantasticFiction.com: "Arpazia and her unwanted daughter, Coira, conceived in violence during the sacking of her Arpazia's father's castle, are lured into the woods by the elder gods, who are seeking to restore their worship in a magical land in which a new religion threatens to transform life for everyone."