Image: "Beauty and the Beast" by Sandara.
Once upon a time...
When I first started reading historical romance, I soon
realized that among my favorite tropes was fairy tales. I particularly favor the Beauty and the Beast
inspired stories, closely followed by Cinderella. This preference is consistent with my
childhood’s fairy tale addiction. What I
will never fully understand is why it took me so long to discover romance,
though I suspect those cheesy covers from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, didn’t
help. I found them embarrassing, and I
knew I would have to endure endless teasing from my sisters and mom, and
outright disapproval from my dad, if I dared pick one. Additionally, as I later found out when I
actually started reading romance, I don’t think the style of those decades
(they were called “bodice rippers” for a reason) would have appealed to me at
all.
Over the 16 years or so that I’ve been reading romance, I’ve
read quite a number of fairy tale inspired ones. Some have been outstanding, others not so
much, but I can’t remember one that I found to be terribly bad. That right there says something about my
favoring this trope.
Following is my short-list of authors who have published
fairy tale-inspired books which I have enjoyed:
Eloisa James
Elizabeth Hoyt
Emily Larkin
Teresa Medeiros
Julia Quinn
Robin McKinley
There is one author that seems to love the Beauty and the
Beast trope: Elizabeth Hoyt. She has
several titles across two or three of her series, that are inspired by the
Beauty and the Beast fairy tale.
Another popular historical romance author, Eloisa James, has
a whole series of fairy tale-inspired novels.
It’s quite a nice series. Eloisa
James does not incorporate heavy drama/angst in her stories, so that is a plus. As a side note, the hero in one of those books was inspired by Dr. House, from the T.V. show "House".
Teresa Medeiros also wrote a series of fairy tale-inspired
books years ago. They are heartwarming
stories laced with humor.
Julia Quinn doesn’t have multiple titles inspired by fairy
tales but the third book in her Bridgertons series, “An Offer From a Gentleman”,
is inspired by Cinderella.
Of course, there are many more authors out there who have written this sort of story (Mimi Matthews, Claire Delacroix), so I intend to update the above list as I discover more.
