Fairy Tale Young Adult Fiction

Echo Alkaev's safe and carefully structured world falls apart when her father leaves for the city and mysteriously disappears. Believing he is lost forever, Echo is shocked to find him half-frozen in the winter forest six months later, guarded by a strange talking wolf - the same creature who attacked her as a child. The wolf presents Echo with an ultimatum: if she lives with him for one year, he will ensure her father makes it home safely. But there is more to the wolf than Echo realizes.

The Faerie Race has proven more grueling and deadly than Jacqueline thought possible. With one trial down and two to go, it seems the reality show's producers will stop at nothing to get their ratings - even murder. It will take all of Jacq's cunning to get through the next trial unscathed, but all she can think about is her discovery that her sister is alive. Too bad her search for answers has only left her with more questions, and more enemies.

A kingdom of shadows. A soldier sworn to protect. A princess silenced by love. Plagued by her mother's matchmaking attempts, Princess Lily, the eldest of 12 sisters and heir to a mighty kingdom, struggles to prove herself worthy of her inheritance while avoiding the attention of unwanted admirers. Tradition forbids marriage with the man she loves, so she would rather rule alone than marry someone who only wants the crown.

On the home front in 1944, Kate wants to do her part for the war effort. She'd prefer filling in for the window dressers at the New York department store where she works, but her mother insists on sending her to audition for roles she never gets. When relatives arrive from war-torn Poland with a mysterious steamer trunk and an even more mysterious story, her life is about to hit center stage.

Ever since the fateful day when the little mermaid risked everything for a human soul, the merpeople have been under lockdown—absolutely no surfacing. Sea princess Mairin bristles under the restriction and blames humans for her confinement. But when her kingdom comes under attack, the queen sends Mairin away to protect Edwin, a descendent of the little mermaid’s prince, from drowning. Mairin despises the responsibility even if it means finally breaking the surface.

When Brianna Jenson agreed to move in with her cruel uncle, Shane, in rural Pennsylvania, she didn't expect to find herself in the middle of a terrifying town legend. Every afternoon on her walk home from school, as the sun begins to set behind the overhanging branches of Shadowrun Road, Brianna hears footsteps following her - footsteps that belong to no one. Then there's the car that races along the narrow country road with blinding lights and almost runs her over! That's when Brianna realizes...there's no one driving.

Princess Cordelia is used to being overshadowed by her many brothers and sisters. So when she's offered the chance to attend her brother's wedding in a faraway kingdom, she leaps at it. In Northhelm, she'll finally have the chance to stand out. And maybe, just maybe, she'll even find romance. But not everything in the Northhelmian court is as it appears. With her brother distracted by the wedding, only Ferdinand, the ugliest man at court, will listen to Cordelia's concerns.

Fame. Fortune. Your most extravagant wish granted. These are the prizes promised to the team that wins the Faerie Race, the first and only reality television show to venture into the dangerous realm of the fae. But that's not why Jacqueline Cunningham wants in. She's after any sign of her sister - who vanished without a trace into the faerie world two years ago. Jacq thought getting into the race would be the hard part. But she didn't count on the other competitors - who will stop at nothing to finish first.

When 17-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.

Now that Kate Allen knows about her family's unique connection to a fairy tale, she sets her sights on finding the magical glass slippers. The Kolodenkos claim Cinderella's shoes have been lost to the family, but Kate is convinced she knows where they are. Or at least who might know where they are. With her dad still missing, Kate could use a pair of shoes with the power to reunite loved ones. But to find the famous glass slippers, she'll have to get around the tight-lipped Kolodenko family and travel to post-WWII Poland.

The final three fairy tale retellings from the Return to the Four Kingdoms series.

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the best-selling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison - even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive. Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life.

Desperate to save the life of their queen and her unborn child, the good citizens of the kingdom comb the land for the all-healing Sundrop flower to cure her . . . but someone mistakenly picks the blossom of the Moondrop instead. This shimmering flower heals the queen and she delivers a healthy baby girl―with hair as silver and gray as the moon. But with her mysterious hair comes dangerous magical powers: the power to hurt, not heal. For the safety of the kingdom, Rapunzel is locked away in a tower and put under the care of the powerful goodwife, Mother Gothel.

When Aurora finds an injured man on the battlefield of Bela, she takes him to her hidden cottage to keep him alive. It's her last good deed before the curse she's known was coming sends her into a thousand-year slumber. Aurora is ready. She has nothing, no one to miss. Until him.

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: Her mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: "Stay away from the Hazel Wood."

When one of Serilda's outlandish tales draws the attention of the sinister Erlking and his undead hunters, she finds herself swept away into a grim world where ghouls and phantoms prowl the earth and hollow-eyed ravens track her every move. The king orders Serilda to complete the impossible task of spinning straw into gold, or be killed for telling falsehoods. In her desperation, Serilda unwittingly summons a mysterious boy to her aid. He agrees to help her… for a price. Love isn't meant to be part of the bargain.

The universe of the Lunar Chronicles holds stories - and secrets - that are wondrous, vicious, and romantic. How did Cinder first arrive in New Beijing? How did the brooding soldier Wolf transform from young man to killer? When did Princess Winter and the palace guard Jacin realize their destinies?

The ball, the prince - it's all part of my plan to come out on top. Stepmother and her demented daughters will pay for every floor I have scoured, every sneer I have borne. They don't know about the white magic, how I use it to enhance myself. They can't see that my heart is black as midnight, rotten as a poisoned apple.

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana. Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won't approve of her feelings for her childhood friend--the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn't as weak as Levana believes her to be and she's been undermining her stepmother's wishes for years.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her "glamour" to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story - a story that has never been told - until now. Marissa Meyer spins yet another unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death.