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Mia

June 23, 2023 at 06:20 AM UTC


Dreams of Roses and Thorns of Gold by Celeste Baxendell are also Sleeping Beauty retellings. They’re a mix of King Midas and Sleeping Beauty and are interesting to read.

Camilla

June 19, 2023 at 08:14 PM UTC


I loved Kingdom of Slumber and would highly recommend the rest of the series which are a collection of fairytale retellings. The Wide-Awake Princess was also really good along with The Princess Game, although they weren’t my favorite’s because it was only from the girls perspective (if I’m remembering correctly) and I like having it from both the boy and the girl. Still great books though and I would totally recommend them!

R

June 19, 2023 at 12:45 PM UTC


Another one is J M Stengl’s version, The Rose and the Briar. She writes clean sweet romances as well.

Mo

June 19, 2023 at 07:18 AM UTC


-Melanie Dickerson has another sleeping beauty one, Veil of Winter. There aren’t as many parallels as in The Healer’s Apprentice, but the elements are still there.
-Awaken by Camille Peters

Whitney

June 17, 2023 at 09:06 PM UTC


Spindle by W.R. Gingell was a retelling I liked. It starts with the Sleeping Beauty character waking up from her long sleep. The love interest kind of reminded me of Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle. The story was definitely strange, like all of Gingell’s books, but it was very likable.
The Enchanted Rose by R.M. Arcejaeger is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and Sleeping Beauty that is beautifully done. The love story happens during the Beauty and the Beast portion and the Sleeping Beauty portion happens towards the end.
Spindle by Kimberly A. Rogers is another retelling beginning with the Sleeping Beauty character awakening.
The Healer and the Huntsman by Sarah Beran has a Sleeping Beauty Story in it but it’s not the main focus. The main character’s story is a mixture of Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood while her sister is the Sleeping Beauty character. It has a good love story with the main character and I like how she cares for her sleeping sister. The Sleeping Beauty character gets her own love story in a later book that’s a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and East of the Sun West of the Moon.
All of the above are clean retellings.

Kathryn M

June 16, 2023 at 02:49 PM UTC


+1 on Melanie Cellier’s version. Deborah Grace White’s is great too!
Rooglewood Press also has an anthology called Five Magic Spindles, which features five novella-length retellings of Sleeping Beauty. They are all fun and clean!

Kim

June 14, 2023 at 06:20 PM UTC


I really liked Melanie Cellier’s version. Her Sleeping Beauty was awake but locked inside of herself. She was active in helping to protect her kingdom and at night, as an alter ego, was able to physically do more. Very interesting spin.

Chikorita12345

June 16, 2023 at 08:49 PM UTC


Me too! Coincidentally, Melanie Cellier’s version of Sleeping Beauty is the only book I’ve read in her Four Kingdoms series! Definitely recommend though – one of my favourite fairytale retellings, and the fact that Celeste was just so smart but unable to voice it!

Emma

June 14, 2023 at 06:09 PM UTC


Thank you for the recommendations!!! I’m always on the lookout for clean books especially fairy tale retellings!!

Sleeping Beauty Retellings

Note from Kitty: I was performing a cleanup of my old blog posts and I found a few that I had left in draft status for some reason but never published them?!? So for the rest of this month you are getting these “Kitty’s Attic” blog posts – I hope you enjoy them!

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The story of Sleeping Beauty is gradually told throughout the first three books of the Fairy Tale Enchantress series (as well as the single book devoted to her in my Timeless Fairy Tales series). So I figured it is time we look at some of the Sleeping Beauty retellings that are out there!

I’m not going to lie, putting together this blog post made me a little nervous. Because let’s be real for a second and admit that some of the original Sleeping Beauty stories are really, really dark and definitely not safe for you to read to your kids (or to read at work). Most modern writers tend to skip over those aspects of the original story (thank goodness!) and I did work extra hard to scrub the list of books below but let me know if there is a book in the post that you don’t think is clean. Luckily, Sleeping Beauty has been blessed with a Disney movie retelling so it has inspired plenty of stories that focus on the lighter aspects of the original fairy tales!


List of Sleeping Beauty Retellings

The Castle Behind Thorns – by Merrie Haskell – Ok, I definitely did not like this book as much as Haskell’s other book, The Princess Curse. But this is still a great book with an interesting spin on the Sleeping Beauty tale (both how she ends up in the situation and what she and the main male character do to fix things).

Spindle’s End – by Robin McKinley – I’m assuming you’ve read one of Robin McKinley’s retellings of Beauty and the Beast, but did you know she has written a Sleeping Beauty retelling as well? It has McKinley’s trademark beautiful world building and descriptions combined with some fun twits. I think the best part is the fact that the main heroine is not some passive princess waiting for everything to get solved – she’s a woman of action!

The Healer’s Apprentice – by Melanie Dickerson – Melanie Dickerson has written a whole series of fairy tale retellings mixed with historical fiction, and this book is the first one in her series. I personally like books I read to have a touch of magic in them (which these do not) but I have to admire how seamlessly Dickerson can blend the historical aspects with the original fairy tales to come up with a story that is both entertaining and realistic!

Sleeping Beauty  – by K.M. Shea – For my retelling of Sleeping Beauty I knew I wanted Briar Rose to be a bit more fiery (she had to be to go through what I had planned for her)! Sometimes she gets a little carried away with herself but that is why Isaia is there to steady her and hold her back when necessary. And even though Briar is a side character in the Fairy Tale Enchantress series,  she still has some adventures of her own in that series!

More Sleeping Beauty retellings:

As usual, a big shout-out to everyone who commented on my Facebook post with extra suggestions! Thank you so much everyone, this blog post would be a lot shorter without your help!

Kill Me Softly – by Sarah Cross

Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters – by Diane Zahler

Rose & Thorn – by Sarah Prineas

The Wide-Awake Princess – by E.D. Baker

Princess of Thorns – by Stacey Jay

Curse of the Thirteenth Fey – by Jane Yolen

Once Upon a Dream – by Liz Braswell

The Princess Game – by Melanie Cellier

Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep – by Gail Carson Levine

Mistress of All Evil – by Serena Valentino

Sleeping Beauty – by Jenni James

Beauty Sleep – by Cameron Dokey

Kingdom of Slumber – Deborah Grace White

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