Katherine Ardens bestselling debut novel spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice. "A beautiful deep-winter story, full of magic and monsters and the sharp edges of growing up." - Naomi Novik, bestselling author of Uprooted. Winter lasts most of the year at the edge of the Russian wilderness, and in the long nights, Vasilisa and her siblings love to gather by the fire to listen to their nurses fairy tales. Above all, Vasya loves the story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon. Wise Russians fear him, for he claims unwary souls, and they honor the spirits that protect their homes from evil.. Then Vasyas widowed father brings home a new wife from Moscow. Fiercely devout, Vasyas stepmother forbids her family from honoring their household spirits, but Vasya fears what this may bring. And indeed, misfortune begins to stalk the village. . But Vasyas stepmother only grows harsher, determined to remake the village to her liking and to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for marriage or a convent. As the villages defenses weaken and evil from the forest creeps nearer, Vasilisa must call upon dangerous gifts she has long concealed - to protect her family from a threat sprung to life from her nurses most frightening tales.. Praise for The Bear and the Nightingale. "Ardens debut novel has the cadence of a beautiful fairy tale but is darker and more lyrical." - The Washington Post. "Vasya [is] a clever, stalwart girl determined to forge her own path in a time when women had few choices." - The Christian Science Monitor. "Stunning . . . will enchant readers from the first page. . . . with an irresistible heroine who wants only to be free of the bonds placed on her gender and claim her own fate." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) . "Utterly bewitching . . . a lush narrative . . . an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family." - BOOKLIST (starred review) . "An extraordinary retelling of a very old tale . . . The Bear and the Nightingale is a wonderfully layered novel of family and the harsh wonders of deep winter magic." - Robin Hobb
Publisher: n/a
|
9781101885932
|
Hardcover
The Snow Child
By Ivey, Eowyn
Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.
This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780316175678
|
Book
Men Are Frogs
By Dewylde, Saranna
Ever After, Missouri, is the unlikely source of the world's magic, but without love--magic's secret ingredient--the well is running dry. Resident fairy godmothers Petunia, Jonquil, and Bluebonnet are on the job! Nudging couples toward romance might do the trick, unless their fairy dust is on the fritz... SOMETIMES YOU'RE THE CURSE . . .Disgraced wedding planner Zuri Davis is so relieved to be offered a job with Fairy Godmothers, Inc., she's willing to trade the high-rise excitement of Chicago for the small-town charm of Ever After. Falling for one of her grooms, even unintentionally, was enough to destroy her career - and also to prove that all men are indeed frogs. But when she meets gorgeous B&B owner Phillip Charming, who definitely lives up to his name, even she is tempted to test that theory .
Publisher: n/a
|
9781420153156
|
Paperback
The Merry Spinster
By Ortberg, Mallory
A collection of darkly playful stories based on classic folk and fairy tales (but with a feminist spin) that find the sinister in the familiar and the familiar in the alien -- from Mallory Ortberg, author of Texts From Jane Eyre.From Mallory Ortberg comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from her beloved "Children's Stories Made Horrific" series, "The Merry Spinster" takes up the trademark wit that endeared Ortberg to readers of both The Toast and her best-selling debut Texts From Jane Eyre. The feature has become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Ortberg's eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief. Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Ortberg's boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Ortberg's oeuvre will delight in her unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface. Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night. Bed time will never be the same.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781250113429
|
Paperback
A court of thorns and roses
By Maas, Sarah J
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERPerfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and George R.R. Martin, this first book in a sexy and action-packed new series is impossible to put down!When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin--one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world. As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow over the faerie lands is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin--and his world--forever.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781619634442
|
Hardcover
Hiddensee
By Maguire, Gregory
From the author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Wicked, the magical story of a toymaker, a nutcracker, and a legend remade . . .Gregory Maguire returns with an inventive novel inspired by a timeless holiday legend, intertwining the story of the famous Nutcracker with the life of the mysterious toy maker named Drosselmeier who carves him.Hiddensee: An island of white sandy beaches, salt marshes, steep cliffs, and pine forests north of Berlin in the Baltic Sea, an island that is an enchanting bohemian retreat and home to a large artists' colony-- a wellspring of inspiration for the Romantic imagination . . .Having brought his legions of devoted readers to Oz in Wicked and to Wonderland in After Alice, Maguire now takes us to the realms of the Brothers Grimm and E. T. A. Hoffmann-- the enchanted Black Forest of Bavaria and the salons of Munich. Hiddensee imagines the backstory of the Nutcracker, revealing how this entrancing creature came to be carved and how he guided an ailing girl named Klara through a dreamy paradise on a Christmas Eve. At the heart of Hoffmann's mysterious tale hovers Godfather Drosselmeier-- the ominous, canny, one-eyed toy maker made immortal by Petipa and Tchaikovsky's fairy tale ballet-- who presents the once and future Nutcracker to Klara, his goddaughter. But Hiddensee is not just a retelling of a classic story. Maguire discovers in the flowering of German Romanticism ties to Hellenic mystery-cults-- a fascination with death and the afterlife-- and ponders a profound question: How can a person who is abused by life, shortchanged and challenged, nevertheless access secrets that benefit the disadvantaged and powerless? Ultimately, Hiddensee offers a message of hope. If the compromised Godfather Drosselmeier can bring an enchanted Nutcracker to a young girl in distress on a dark winter evening, perhaps everyone, however lonely or marginalized, has something precious to share.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780062684387
|
Hardcover
Unbury Carol
By Malerman, Josh
The Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Bird Box returns with a haunting tale of love, redemption, and murder. Carol Evers is a woman with a dark secret. She has died many times . . . but her many deaths are not final: They are comas, a waking slumber indistinguishable from death, each lasting days. Only two people know of Carol's eerie condition. One is her husband, Dwight, who married Carol for her fortune, and--when she lapses into another coma--plots to seize it by proclaiming her dead and quickly burying her . . . alive. The other is her lost love, the infamous outlaw James Moxie. When word of Carol's dreadful fate reaches him, Moxie rides the Trail again to save his beloved from an early, unnatural grave. And all the while, awake and aware, Carol fights to free herself from the crippling darkness that binds her--summoning her own fierce will to survive. As the players in this drama of life and death fight to decide her fate, Carol must in the end battle to save herself. The haunting story of a woman literally bringing herself back from the dead, Unbury Carol is a twisted take on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale that will stay with you long after you've turned the final page.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780399180163
|
Hardcover
The Crane Wife
By Ness, Patrick
A magical novel, based on a Japanese folk tale, that imagines how the life of a broken-hearted man is transformed when he rescues an injured white crane that has landed in his backyard.George Duncan is an American living and working in London. At forty-eight, he owns a small print shop, is divorced, and lonelier than he realizes. All of the women with whom he has relationships eventually leave him for being too nice. But one night he is woken by an astonishing sound - a terrific keening, which is coming from somewhere in his garden. When he investigates he finds a great white crane, a bird taller than even himself. It has been shot through the wing with an arrow. Moved more than he can say, George struggles to take out the arrow from the bird's wing, saving its life before it flies away into the night sky.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781594205477
|
Hardcover
Spinning Silver
By Novik, Naomi
A fresh and imaginative retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairytale from the bestselling author of Uprooted, called "a very enjoyable fantasy with the air of a modern classic" by The New York Times Book Review.Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will be the same again. For words have power, and the fate of a kingdom will be forever altered by the challenge she is issued. Channeling the heart of the classic fairy tale, Novik deftly interweaves six distinct narrative voices--each learning valuable lessons about sacrifice, power and love--into a rich, multilayered fantasy that readers will want to return to again and again.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780399180989
|
Hardcover
The Tiger's Wife
By Obreht, TÉa
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST bullNEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLERIn a Balkan country mending from war Natalia a young doctor is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfatherrsquos recent death Searching for clues she turns to his worn copy ofThe Jungle Bookand the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with ldquothe deathless manrdquo But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told hermdashthe legend of the tigerrsquos wifeLook for special features insideJoin the Circle for author chats and moreRandomHouseReadersCirclecom
Publisher: n/a
|
9780385343831
|
Print book
Boy, Snow, Bird
By Oyeyemi, Helen
As seen on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where it was described as "gloriously unsettling ... evoking Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel García Márquez, Chris Abani and even Emily Dickinson," and already one of the years most widely acclaimed novels:. "Helen Oyeyemi has fully transformed from a literary prodigy into a powerful, distinctive storyteller ... Transfixing and surprising." - Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A) . "I dont care what the magic mirror says; Oyeyemi is the cleverest in the land ... daring and unnerving ... Under Oyeyemis spell, the fairy-tale conceit makes a brilliant setting in which to explore the alchemy of racism, the weird ways in which identity can be transmuted in an instant - from beauty to beast or vice versa." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post. From the prizewinning author of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Gingerbread, and Peaces comes a brilliant recasting of the Snow White fairy tale as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity.In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life shes left behind in New York. She marries Arturo Whitman, a local widower, and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow.. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined shed become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boys daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African-Americans passing for white. And even as Boy, Snow, and Bird are divided, their estrangement is complicated by an insistent curiosity about one another. In seeking an understanding that is separate from the image each presents to the world, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold. . Dazzlingly inventive and powerfully moving, Boy, Snow, Bird is an astonishing and enchanting novel. With breathtaking feats of imagination, Helen Oyeyemi confirms her place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of our time.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781594631399
|
Hardcover
All the Ever Afters
By Teller, Danielle
In the vein of Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, a luminous reimagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella's "evil" stepmother.We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we?As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story. . . .A peasant born into serfdom, Agnes is separated from her family and forced into servitude as a laundress's apprentice when she is only ten years old. Using her wits and ingenuity, she escapes her tyrannical matron and makes her way toward a hopeful future. When teenaged Agnes is seduced by an older man and becomes pregnant, she is transformed by love for her child. Once again left penniless, Agnes has no choice but to return to servitude at the manor she thought she had left behind. Her new position is nursemaid to Ella, an otherworldly infant. She struggles to love the child who in time becomes her stepdaughter and, eventually, the celebrated princess who embodies everyone's unattainable fantasies. The story of their relationship reveals that nothing is what it seems, that beauty is not always desirable, and that love can take on many guises.Lyrically told, emotionally evocative, and brilliantly perceptive, All the Ever Afters explores the hidden complexities that lie beneath classic tales of good and evil, all the while showing us that how we confront adversity reveals a more profound, and ultimately more important, truth than the ideal of "happily ever after."
Publisher: n/a
|
9780062798206
|
Hardcover
For the Wolf
By Whitten, Hannah
As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose-to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he'll return the world's captured gods. Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can't control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can't hurt those she loves. Again.But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn't learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood-and her world-whole.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780316592789
|
Paperback
Alif the Unseen
By Wilson, G. Willow
In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clientsdissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groupsfrom surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble. He goes by Alifthe first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and a convenient handle to hide behind. The aristocratic woman Alif loves has jilted him for a prince chosen by her parents, and his computer has just been breached by the States electronic security force, putting his clients and his own neck on the line. Then it turns out his lovers new fianc is the head of State security, and his henchmen come after Alif, driving him underground. When Alif discovers The Thousand and One Days, the secret book of the jinn, which both he and the Hand suspect may unleash a new level of information technology, the stakes are raised and Alif must struggle for life or death, aided by forces seen and unseen.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780802120205
|
Hardcover
How to Fracture a Fairy Tale
By Yolen, Jane
"[Yolen is] the Aesop of the twentieth century" -- The New York TimesFantasy legend Jane Yolen (The Emerald CircusThe Devil's Arithmetic) , adored by generations of readers of all ages, delights with these effortlessly wide-ranging fairy tales, myths, and legends. She fractures the classics to reveal their crystalline secrets, holding them to the light and presenting them transformed: a spinner of straw as a falsely-accused moneylender, a philosophical bridge who longs for its troll, and the villainous wolf retiring to a nursing home. Each offering features an intimate author note and poem, allowing readers to discover stories old, new, and refined for the world we live in -- or a much better version of it.
The Bear and the Nightingale
By Arden, Katherine
Katherine Ardens bestselling debut novel spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice. "A beautiful deep-winter story, full of magic and monsters and the sharp edges of growing up." - Naomi Novik, bestselling author of Uprooted. Winter lasts most of the year at the edge of the Russian wilderness, and in the long nights, Vasilisa and her siblings love to gather by the fire to listen to their nurses fairy tales. Above all, Vasya loves the story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon. Wise Russians fear him, for he claims unwary souls, and they honor the spirits that protect their homes from evil.. Then Vasyas widowed father brings home a new wife from Moscow. Fiercely devout, Vasyas stepmother forbids her family from honoring their household spirits, but Vasya fears what this may bring. And indeed, misfortune begins to stalk the village. . But Vasyas stepmother only grows harsher, determined to remake the village to her liking and to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for marriage or a convent. As the villages defenses weaken and evil from the forest creeps nearer, Vasilisa must call upon dangerous gifts she has long concealed - to protect her family from a threat sprung to life from her nurses most frightening tales.. Praise for The Bear and the Nightingale. "Ardens debut novel has the cadence of a beautiful fairy tale but is darker and more lyrical." - The Washington Post. "Vasya [is] a clever, stalwart girl determined to forge her own path in a time when women had few choices." - The Christian Science Monitor. "Stunning . . . will enchant readers from the first page. . . . with an irresistible heroine who wants only to be free of the bonds placed on her gender and claim her own fate." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) . "Utterly bewitching . . . a lush narrative . . . an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family." - BOOKLIST (starred review) . "An extraordinary retelling of a very old tale . . . The Bear and the Nightingale is a wonderfully layered novel of family and the harsh wonders of deep winter magic." - Robin Hobb
The Snow Child
By Ivey, Eowyn
Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.
This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.
Men Are Frogs
By Dewylde, Saranna
Ever After, Missouri, is the unlikely source of the world's magic, but without love--magic's secret ingredient--the well is running dry. Resident fairy godmothers Petunia, Jonquil, and Bluebonnet are on the job! Nudging couples toward romance might do the trick, unless their fairy dust is on the fritz... SOMETIMES YOU'RE THE CURSE . . .Disgraced wedding planner Zuri Davis is so relieved to be offered a job with Fairy Godmothers, Inc., she's willing to trade the high-rise excitement of Chicago for the small-town charm of Ever After. Falling for one of her grooms, even unintentionally, was enough to destroy her career - and also to prove that all men are indeed frogs. But when she meets gorgeous B&B owner Phillip Charming, who definitely lives up to his name, even she is tempted to test that theory .
The Merry Spinster
By Ortberg, Mallory
A collection of darkly playful stories based on classic folk and fairy tales (but with a feminist spin) that find the sinister in the familiar and the familiar in the alien -- from Mallory Ortberg, author of Texts From Jane Eyre.From Mallory Ortberg comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from her beloved "Children's Stories Made Horrific" series, "The Merry Spinster" takes up the trademark wit that endeared Ortberg to readers of both The Toast and her best-selling debut Texts From Jane Eyre. The feature has become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Ortberg's eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief. Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Ortberg's boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Ortberg's oeuvre will delight in her unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface. Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night. Bed time will never be the same.
A court of thorns and roses
By Maas, Sarah J
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERPerfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and George R.R. Martin, this first book in a sexy and action-packed new series is impossible to put down!When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin--one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world. As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow over the faerie lands is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin--and his world--forever.
Hiddensee
By Maguire, Gregory
From the author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Wicked, the magical story of a toymaker, a nutcracker, and a legend remade . . .Gregory Maguire returns with an inventive novel inspired by a timeless holiday legend, intertwining the story of the famous Nutcracker with the life of the mysterious toy maker named Drosselmeier who carves him.Hiddensee: An island of white sandy beaches, salt marshes, steep cliffs, and pine forests north of Berlin in the Baltic Sea, an island that is an enchanting bohemian retreat and home to a large artists' colony-- a wellspring of inspiration for the Romantic imagination . . .Having brought his legions of devoted readers to Oz in Wicked and to Wonderland in After Alice, Maguire now takes us to the realms of the Brothers Grimm and E. T. A. Hoffmann-- the enchanted Black Forest of Bavaria and the salons of Munich. Hiddensee imagines the backstory of the Nutcracker, revealing how this entrancing creature came to be carved and how he guided an ailing girl named Klara through a dreamy paradise on a Christmas Eve. At the heart of Hoffmann's mysterious tale hovers Godfather Drosselmeier-- the ominous, canny, one-eyed toy maker made immortal by Petipa and Tchaikovsky's fairy tale ballet-- who presents the once and future Nutcracker to Klara, his goddaughter. But Hiddensee is not just a retelling of a classic story. Maguire discovers in the flowering of German Romanticism ties to Hellenic mystery-cults-- a fascination with death and the afterlife-- and ponders a profound question: How can a person who is abused by life, shortchanged and challenged, nevertheless access secrets that benefit the disadvantaged and powerless? Ultimately, Hiddensee offers a message of hope. If the compromised Godfather Drosselmeier can bring an enchanted Nutcracker to a young girl in distress on a dark winter evening, perhaps everyone, however lonely or marginalized, has something precious to share.
Unbury Carol
By Malerman, Josh
The Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Bird Box returns with a haunting tale of love, redemption, and murder. Carol Evers is a woman with a dark secret. She has died many times . . . but her many deaths are not final: They are comas, a waking slumber indistinguishable from death, each lasting days. Only two people know of Carol's eerie condition. One is her husband, Dwight, who married Carol for her fortune, and--when she lapses into another coma--plots to seize it by proclaiming her dead and quickly burying her . . . alive. The other is her lost love, the infamous outlaw James Moxie. When word of Carol's dreadful fate reaches him, Moxie rides the Trail again to save his beloved from an early, unnatural grave. And all the while, awake and aware, Carol fights to free herself from the crippling darkness that binds her--summoning her own fierce will to survive. As the players in this drama of life and death fight to decide her fate, Carol must in the end battle to save herself. The haunting story of a woman literally bringing herself back from the dead, Unbury Carol is a twisted take on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale that will stay with you long after you've turned the final page.
The Crane Wife
By Ness, Patrick
A magical novel, based on a Japanese folk tale, that imagines how the life of a broken-hearted man is transformed when he rescues an injured white crane that has landed in his backyard.George Duncan is an American living and working in London. At forty-eight, he owns a small print shop, is divorced, and lonelier than he realizes. All of the women with whom he has relationships eventually leave him for being too nice. But one night he is woken by an astonishing sound - a terrific keening, which is coming from somewhere in his garden. When he investigates he finds a great white crane, a bird taller than even himself. It has been shot through the wing with an arrow. Moved more than he can say, George struggles to take out the arrow from the bird's wing, saving its life before it flies away into the night sky.
Spinning Silver
By Novik, Naomi
A fresh and imaginative retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairytale from the bestselling author of Uprooted, called "a very enjoyable fantasy with the air of a modern classic" by The New York Times Book Review.Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will be the same again. For words have power, and the fate of a kingdom will be forever altered by the challenge she is issued. Channeling the heart of the classic fairy tale, Novik deftly interweaves six distinct narrative voices--each learning valuable lessons about sacrifice, power and love--into a rich, multilayered fantasy that readers will want to return to again and again.
The Tiger's Wife
By Obreht, TÉa
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST bullNEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLERIn a Balkan country mending from war Natalia a young doctor is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfatherrsquos recent death Searching for clues she turns to his worn copy ofThe Jungle Bookand the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with ldquothe deathless manrdquo But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told hermdashthe legend of the tigerrsquos wifeLook for special features insideJoin the Circle for author chats and moreRandomHouseReadersCirclecom
Boy, Snow, Bird
By Oyeyemi, Helen
As seen on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where it was described as "gloriously unsettling ... evoking Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel García Márquez, Chris Abani and even Emily Dickinson," and already one of the years most widely acclaimed novels:. "Helen Oyeyemi has fully transformed from a literary prodigy into a powerful, distinctive storyteller ... Transfixing and surprising." - Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A) . "I dont care what the magic mirror says; Oyeyemi is the cleverest in the land ... daring and unnerving ... Under Oyeyemis spell, the fairy-tale conceit makes a brilliant setting in which to explore the alchemy of racism, the weird ways in which identity can be transmuted in an instant - from beauty to beast or vice versa." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post. From the prizewinning author of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Gingerbread, and Peaces comes a brilliant recasting of the Snow White fairy tale as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity.In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life shes left behind in New York. She marries Arturo Whitman, a local widower, and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow.. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined shed become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boys daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African-Americans passing for white. And even as Boy, Snow, and Bird are divided, their estrangement is complicated by an insistent curiosity about one another. In seeking an understanding that is separate from the image each presents to the world, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold. . Dazzlingly inventive and powerfully moving, Boy, Snow, Bird is an astonishing and enchanting novel. With breathtaking feats of imagination, Helen Oyeyemi confirms her place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of our time.
All the Ever Afters
By Teller, Danielle
In the vein of Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, a luminous reimagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella's "evil" stepmother.We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we?As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story. . . .A peasant born into serfdom, Agnes is separated from her family and forced into servitude as a laundress's apprentice when she is only ten years old. Using her wits and ingenuity, she escapes her tyrannical matron and makes her way toward a hopeful future. When teenaged Agnes is seduced by an older man and becomes pregnant, she is transformed by love for her child. Once again left penniless, Agnes has no choice but to return to servitude at the manor she thought she had left behind. Her new position is nursemaid to Ella, an otherworldly infant. She struggles to love the child who in time becomes her stepdaughter and, eventually, the celebrated princess who embodies everyone's unattainable fantasies. The story of their relationship reveals that nothing is what it seems, that beauty is not always desirable, and that love can take on many guises.Lyrically told, emotionally evocative, and brilliantly perceptive, All the Ever Afters explores the hidden complexities that lie beneath classic tales of good and evil, all the while showing us that how we confront adversity reveals a more profound, and ultimately more important, truth than the ideal of "happily ever after."
For the Wolf
By Whitten, Hannah
As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose-to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he'll return the world's captured gods. Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can't control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can't hurt those she loves. Again.But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn't learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood-and her world-whole.
Alif the Unseen
By Wilson, G. Willow
In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clientsdissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groupsfrom surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble. He goes by Alifthe first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and a convenient handle to hide behind. The aristocratic woman Alif loves has jilted him for a prince chosen by her parents, and his computer has just been breached by the States electronic security force, putting his clients and his own neck on the line. Then it turns out his lovers new fianc is the head of State security, and his henchmen come after Alif, driving him underground. When Alif discovers The Thousand and One Days, the secret book of the jinn, which both he and the Hand suspect may unleash a new level of information technology, the stakes are raised and Alif must struggle for life or death, aided by forces seen and unseen.
How to Fracture a Fairy Tale
By Yolen, Jane
"[Yolen is] the Aesop of the twentieth century" -- The New York TimesFantasy legend Jane Yolen (The Emerald Circus The Devil's Arithmetic) , adored by generations of readers of all ages, delights with these effortlessly wide-ranging fairy tales, myths, and legends. She fractures the classics to reveal their crystalline secrets, holding them to the light and presenting them transformed: a spinner of straw as a falsely-accused moneylender, a philosophical bridge who longs for its troll, and the villainous wolf retiring to a nursing home. Each offering features an intimate author note and poem, allowing readers to discover stories old, new, and refined for the world we live in -- or a much better version of it.