The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

This month’s theme for Saturday Spotlight is retellings. So far I have discussed Once Upon a Time by Cameron Dokey and Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth. You can find those posts here and here.

This week I am sharing one of my most recent retelling books: the Sisters Ever After series by Leah Cypess.

I have read the first four books in this series- Thornwood, Glass Slippers, The Piper’s Promise, and The Last Rose– and I loved them so much.

This is a middle grade series that retells classic tales through the lens of little sisters.

The first book, Thornwood, is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Glass Slippers is Cinderella told through the perspective Tirza, her third wicked stepsister. The Piper’s Promise tells the the story of the Pied Piper. And The Last Rose tells the story of the Beauty and the Beast.

Each of these stories are wonderfully done. They introduce many amazing tropes and topics in manageable ways, perfect for a younger audience. Class differences, morally gray characters, marriages of convenience, and neglectful parents are all addressed and explored in really wonderful ways.

These were also just really fun. I read a lot of retellings, and while I enjoy most of them, these ones were really fun and twisted these tales in interesting ways that I hadn’t even thought of. The world-building was nicely done and the characters drew me in, and all of the storylines were engrossing!

Sisters Ever After is a middle grade retelling of many classic fairytales in fun, interesting ways!