There is something rather particular about the way a good fairy tale retelling handles loneliness. The original tales, as we know, are full of it — abandoned princesses, exiled daughters, orphans on forest roads with nothing but a crust of bread and their own wits for company. But the very best retellings understand that the cure for such loneliness is not merely a prince at the ball or a kingdom restored. It is the people you gather along the way. The ones who had no obligation to stay but stayed regardless.
We are speaking, of course, of that magnificent invention known as the found family — the ragtag band, the motley crew, the unlikely household that bickers over breakfast and would die for one another by dinner. When this trope collides with a fairy tale retelling, it produces something quite irresistible: stories where the familiar enchantments of “once upon a time” are threaded through with the warmth of belonging.
We have assembled fifteen such novels for your consideration. Every book on this list is both a delightful retelling and a celebration of chosen family. Shall we begin?
1. The Wendy by Erin Michelle Sky & Steven Brown (Peter Pan)
We confess a particular fondness for this one, which reimagines the tale of Peter Pan with Wendy Darling as its fierce, clever, and thoroughly determined heroine. In 1780s England, Wendy dreams of commanding her own ship despite the fact that such ambitions in a young woman were considered not merely impractical but downright scandalous.
The found family here is woven into every chapter. Wendy assembles her people not through destiny but through sheer force of loyalty — her fellow orphan Charlie, her steadfast platoon brothers John and Michael, her beloved dog Nana, and eventually a broader crew of allies who believe in her when the world insists they should not. These are not companions assigned by prophecy. They are people who chose her, and whom she chose in return, fiercely and without reservation.
The narration deserves special mention — it is witty, warm, and omniscient in a manner that recalls the storytelling voice of classic tales, complete with dry asides directed at the reader. One does not merely read this book; one is told a story, and told it well. Captain Hook is reimagined as a complex, infuriating adversary, Peter Pan is unpredictable and strange, and Tinker Bell is something altogether unexpected. The complete Tales of the Wendy trilogy is now available, so you may follow Wendy and her crew through all three volumes without pause.
2. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (Rumpelstiltskin)
Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver takes the old tale of spinning straw into gold and reweaves it into something far more intricate and far more human. Miryem, the daughter of a Jewish moneylender in a fictional Eastern European kingdom, earns a reputation for turning silver into gold through her sharp business acumen. When this boast reaches the ears of the Staryk king — ruler of a frozen faerie realm — he sets her an impossible challenge with lethal stakes.
The found family assembles across social chasms that should have kept these women apart forever. Miryem, Wanda (a peasant girl fleeing her violent father), and Irina (a duke’s daughter married to a tsar with dangerous secrets of his own) begin as strangers with nothing in common. Through a web of desperate bargains and quiet acts of courage, they become entangled in one another’s fates in ways none of them could have predicted. Novik’s genius lies in the economics of love — each woman pays a price for the others, and each finds that what she receives is worth infinitely more than what she spent. A Nebula Award finalist and one of the finest fairy tale retellings of the past decade.
3. Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher (Fairy Tale Mashup)
Winner of the Hugo Award, Nettle and Bone assembles perhaps the most gloriously unlikely found family in all of fantasy. Princess Marra is a nobody — the third-born daughter, the spare, the one nobody wanted. When her sister is trapped in a brutal marriage to an unkillable prince, Marra sets out to do the impossible: kill him herself. She has no training, no army, and no plan worth the name.
What she does have, eventually, is a dust-wife (a bone witch of magnificently dry temperament), a disgraced knight burdened by guilt, a deeply anxious fairy godmother who decided to simply tag along rather than make dramatic appearances, a demon-possessed chicken, and a dog built entirely of wire and bones that wags its bony tail with the enthusiasm of any beloved hound. They are not heroes by any respectable definition. They bicker. They are afraid. They go anyway. T. Kingfisher draws from Bluebeard, The Six Swans, and other dark fairy traditions, refusing to sanitize the cruelty or diminish the tenderness, and the result is a book that is both devastating and deeply, unexpectedly funny.
4. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (Fairy Tale Pastiche)
In the land of Ingary, where fairy tale rules are simply how things operate, Sophie Hatter is the eldest of three sisters and therefore resigned to the dullest fate imaginable: running the family hat shop while her younger sisters seek their fortunes. When the Witch of the Waste curses Sophie into the body of a ninety-year-old woman, Sophie does the most delightful thing — she feels liberated, marches out of town, and bullies her way into the moving castle of the feared Wizard Howl.
The found family that forms inside that castle is one of the most beloved in all of fantasy. Howl is vain, dramatic, and slithers out of every responsibility with theatrical flair. His apprentice Michael is earnest and loyal. Calcifer the fire demon is bound by a mysterious contract and possessed of a sharp tongue. Sophie installs herself as their cleaning lady and proceeds to take over entirely. What begins as mutual inconvenience becomes something far more real — a household of misfits who cannot quite remember how they managed before one another arrived. Diana Wynne Jones subverts every fairy tale expectation with bone-dry British wit, and the result is pure, effervescent joy. Later adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film by Hayao Miyazaki.
5. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Snow White)
Marissa Meyer accomplished something rather audacious with The Lunar Chronicles: she took four classic fairy tales, transplanted them into a far-future world of cyborgs and spaceships, and wove them into a single, escalating saga of revolution. It begins with Cinder, in which Cinderella is reimagined as a gifted mechanic — and a cyborg — in the plague-ravaged streets of New Beijing. Instead of losing a glass slipper at the ball, she loses her entire cybernetic foot on the palace stairs.
With each subsequent volume, a new fairy tale heroine joins the rebellion: Scarlet (Red Riding Hood) is a spaceship pilot, Cress (Rapunzel) is a hacker imprisoned in an orbiting satellite, and Winter (Snow White) is a princess whose beauty drives the Lunar queen to murderous jealousy. One by one, they find Cinder and join her ragtag crew aboard a stolen spaceship, forming a found family united against a tyrant. The ensemble grows richer with every book, complete with a roguish ship captain, a mysterious street fighter, and a loyal royal guard. It is fairy tale logic at interstellar scale — and the found family is the engine that drives the entire series.
6. Gilded by Marissa Meyer (Rumpelstiltskin)
We make no apology for including Marissa Meyer twice — when an author demonstrates such mastery of fairy tale retellings across entirely different tones and settings, one rather feels obliged to acknowledge it. Where The Lunar Chronicles gave us fairy tales in chrome and starlight, Gilded plunges us into the dark forests of Germanic folklore, and the contrast is magnificent.
Serilda is a miller’s daughter cursed with eyes like spinning wheels — golden and strange — and blessed (or perhaps cursed further) with an irrepressible talent for storytelling. When the Erlking, lord of the Wild Hunt and ruler of the dark ones, discovers she can spin straw into gold, he drags her to his haunted castle and demands she perform the feat or die. Within those haunted walls, she encounters Gild, a poltergeist with a mysterious past and a name that carries the weight of a very old bargain.
The found family here takes an unexpected and rather haunting form. Five ghost children — Hans, Anna, Nickel, Fricz, and little Gerdrut — are trapped within the Erlking’s castle, and Serilda becomes their fierce protector, their surrogate mother, the person who tells them stories and refuses to abandon them even when the cost of staying is monstrous. Together with Gild and the moss maidens of the forest, Serilda assembles a family bound not by blood but by stubborn, grief-stricken, magnificent love. Meyer reimagines the Rumpelstiltskin tale with a clever inversion that redefines who is truly monstrous and who deserves trust — and the price of gold proves far more complex than the original tale ever suggested. The duology concludes with Cursed.
7. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (Beauty and the Beast)
The first volume of Sarah J. Maas’s massively popular series retells Beauty and the Beast with a huntress named Feyre and a beast-like Fae lord named Tamlin. But it is as the series unfolds that the found family truly ignites. Feyre is drawn into an Inner Circle of Fae warriors and ancient beings — a group bound not by blood but by centuries of shared loyalty, trauma, and fierce, complicated love.
The members of this circle are unforgettable. A high lord whose charm conceals extraordinary depth. A warrior of legendary irreverence. A quiet, deadly spymaster. A woman whose courage is matched only by her stubbornness. And an ancient, terrifying being in a Fae body who could reasonably intimidate a mountain. Feyre is folded into this circle not as an outsider being tolerated but as an equal, and the bonds they forge become the emotional backbone of the entire series. With elements of East of the Sun, West of the Moon woven throughout, the series has sold millions of copies and helped define the modern romantasy movement. How Feyre finds this family — and who they turn out to be — is one of the great pleasures of the reading experience, and we shall say no more.
8. Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust (Snow White)
This extraordinary retelling of Snow White asks a question that the original tale never dared: what if the queen and the princess could choose each other? Mina is a sorcerer’s daughter whose heart was cut out and replaced with one made of glass, leaving her convinced she is incapable of love. Lynet is a king’s daughter crafted from snow to be the image of her dead mother, with skin that cannot feel cold because she is not entirely human.
Their relationship is the found family at the heart of this book. Stepmother and stepdaughter begin with genuine affection but are surrounded by a patriarchal court that insists only one woman may hold power — the very arrangement that drove the original tale’s poisoned apple and jealous mirror. Bashardoust turns the Snow White story into a question rather than an inevitability: must these two women become enemies, or is another path possible? The answer is the book’s to give, and it earns every step of the journey. The prose has a wintry beauty that suits its frozen kingdom, and the radical act at its center — making the “evil stepmother” fully human — is handled with uncommon grace.
9. A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow (Sleeping Beauty)
Zinnia Gray is dying. She has a rare, terminal condition, and no one with her disease has ever lived past twenty-one. For her twenty-first birthday, her fierce best friend Charm throws her a Sleeping Beauty-themed party, complete with a spinning wheel purchased from eBay. When Zinnia pricks her finger on the spindle, she is yanked through reality into a world where a real princess is about to fall under the same enchantment.
What Zinnia discovers about the nature of the Sleeping Beauty story — and her own place within it — is best left for readers to uncover. Suffice it to say that Harrow’s brilliant conceit transforms a tale about a solitary sleeping young woman into something far more collective, and the found family that forms is composed of women who refuse to accept the roles their stories have assigned them. Alix E. Harrow threads the needle between dark themes (terminal illness, the powerlessness of fairy tale women) and a fierce, self-aware warmth. A Hugo Award finalist for Best Novella, this NPR Best Book of 2021 is only about 120 pages, but too good to leave off the list.
10. In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune (Pinocchio)
TJ Klune inverts Pinocchio with devastating tenderness. In a treehouse deep in a forest, Victor — one of the last humans in a world dominated by machines — lives with the most peculiar family imaginable: Giovanni, a fatherly android inventor who fled the machine city to protect his adopted human son; Nurse Ratched, a pleasantly sadistic medical robot; and Rambo, a tiny vacuum cleaner desperate for love and approval.
Their peaceful existence cannot last forever. Giovanni’s past and the machine city he fled still cast a long shadow, and when that shadow reaches their treehouse, this strange little family must fight to protect what they have built together. The Pinocchio inversion is layered and profound: Victor is the “real boy” raised by a puppet-father, and the question is not whether the puppet can become human but whether love itself is what makes someone real. Nurse Ratched’s menacing bedside commentary provides darkly hilarious counterpoint to the genuine philosophical depth, and Rambo the vacuum may be the most heartbreaking character in all of modern fantasy. An Alex Award winner from the New York Times bestselling author of The House in the Cerulean Sea.
11. The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines (Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty)
Here is a question the original tales never bothered to answer: what do fairy tale princesses do after “happily ever after”? According to Jim C. Hines, they become secret agents. When Cinderella’s stepsisters attack on her first night in the palace and kidnap her prince, Danielle discovers that the Queen runs an elite covert-operations team staffed entirely by fairy tale princesses.
Her partners are magnificent. Talia (Sleeping Beauty) is a lethal martial artist — all those fairy blessings at her christening gave her superhuman combat grace. Snow White is a flirtatious expert in mirror-based espionage. The three women initially clash — Danielle is untrained, Talia is guarded, Snow is reckless — but as they journey into Fairyland, they forge the kind of bond that only comes from saving each other’s lives on a regular basis. Hines reimagines fairy tale gifts as practical abilities (Sleeping Beauty’s “grace” becomes martial arts mastery, Snow White’s mirror is a scrying tool) and wraps it all in a swashbuckling adventure that is thoroughly, unapologetically fun.
12. The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh (Shim Cheong — Korean Folktale)
Axie Oh’s luminous retelling of the classic Korean folktale of Shim Cheong — the dutiful daughter who sacrificed herself to the sea — reimagines the tale with a young woman who was never supposed to be the sacrifice at all. Mina’s village has long sent brides to appease the Sea God, whose slumber brings devastating storms. When the hundredth bride is chosen and it is the woman her brother loves, Mina throws herself into the water in her place — an act of defiance rather than duty.
She wakes in the Spirit Realm, a breathtaking underwater world of lesser gods, fox spirits, and mythical creatures, where the Sea God lies cursed in an enchanted sleep. The found family that gathers around Mina is as strange and wonderful as the realm itself. There is Shin, the cold and guarded lord of the highest house, whose careful armour conceals a devastating loyalty. Namgi, warm and steadfast, who befriends Mina before anyone else dares. Kirin, reserved and watchful, who takes longer to trust but proves no less devoted. And the spirit trio of Dai, Mask, and baby Miki, who appear whenever Mina needs shelter and whose small, tender household radiates a quiet, fierce love. Mina is an outsider in every sense — mortal, uninvited, and ignorant of the Spirit Realm’s politics — and yet this unlikely collection of gods and ghosts becomes her people. A New York Times bestseller and NPR Best Book of 2022.
13. The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (The Goose Girl)
Shannon Hale’s retelling of the Brothers Grimm tale follows Crown Princess Ani, a young woman whose gift is the strange and quiet sort — she can speak to animals and hear the whispers of the wind, but she has never been able to command a room or inspire loyalty through speech. When her silver-tongued lady-in-waiting leads a violent mutiny and steals Ani’s identity, the princess is stripped of her name and her crown and must take the only work she can find: tending the king’s geese.
The found family that forms among the palace workers is the warmest kind — built not from dramatic oaths but from shared meals, laughter, and the slow accumulation of trust. Razo is loyal and witty. Enna is fierce and sharp-tongued. And there are others whose role in Ani’s story is best discovered on the page. This community of common workers becomes Ani’s true court, and they rally around her not because she commands them but because she has earned something more durable than authority: their genuine affection. Ani’s journey is about discovering that quiet gifts — listening, patience, real connection — are their own kind of power.
14. A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer (Beauty and the Beast)
Brigid Kemmerer’s retelling of Beauty and the Beast asks what happens when you strip the fairy tale of its grandeur and give both the beauty and the beast reasons to be genuinely, furiously angry at the world. Prince Rhen has been cursed to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year for over three hundred cycles. At the end of each, he transforms into a creature of escalating monstrousness, destroying everything and everyone nearby. His sole remaining companion is Grey, the commander of the Royal Guard, who has watched the prince he swore to protect become something unrecognizable — and who stays anyway, cycle after cycle, out of a loyalty that has long since surpassed duty.
Into this bleak repetition falls Harper, a young woman from modern-day Washington, D.C., who has cerebral palsy, a mother dying of cancer, and no patience whatsoever for enchanted castles or cursed royalty. The found family builds slowly and stubbornly around this trio, as Harper’s refusal to play the role of the docile captive forces open spaces for genuine connection. Grey becomes her first real ally in Emberfall — teaching her to throw knives, playing cards by the fire, proving that loyalty can be quiet and constant. Freya, a woman whose home was destroyed, becomes Harper’s fierce protector and confidante. Zo, an unlikely guard recruit, offers the kind of no-nonsense friendship that steadies Harper when everything else is falling apart. The Cursebreakers trilogy deepens these bonds magnificently, drawing in new members who choose one another across impossible odds. A New York Times bestseller.
15. Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (Fairy Tale Pastiche)
We close with a book that takes every fairy tale convention, examines it with a raised eyebrow, and then does precisely the opposite. Princess Cimorene is, by all official accounts, a great disappointment. She is not interested in dancing, deportment, or waiting to be rescued. She is interested in fencing, Latin, magic, and — when her parents arrange a marriage to a prince so tedious he makes wallpaper seem charismatic — running away to volunteer as a dragon’s princess.
The dragon in question is Kazul, who is as far from a fairy tale monster as one could imagine: practical, intelligent, fond of cherries jubilee, and in possession of the dry wit one expects from a creature who has been alive long enough to find most human nonsense faintly ridiculous. In Kazul’s mountains, Cimorene discovers a world of fellow dragon’s princesses, witches, and assorted magical persons — and begins assembling the most unconventional found family imaginable. Alianora is a shy princess from a neighbouring dragon’s cave, lacking confidence until Cimorene’s friendship draws out her considerable courage. Morwen is a witch with sensible opinions, nine cats, and no patience for foolishness of any variety. Together, this unlikely alliance uncovers a conspiracy by a society of villainous wizards and proceeds to dismantle it with efficiency, bravery, and a refreshing absence of any prince’s assistance. Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles continue across four volumes, and the found family only grows richer with each. For readers who love Howl’s Moving Castle, this is its long-lost, magnificently opinionated cousin.
There they are — fifteen novels in which the fairy tales are reimagined and the families are chosen. Whether you prefer your found families in moving castles, aboard stolen spaceships, or assembled from a bone witch, a demon chicken, and a disgraced knight on a road to an impossible murder, there is something here for you.
Because the finest enchantment, in the end, is not a glass slipper or a spinning wheel or a kiss that wakes the sleeping. It is the moment when a group of unlikely people look at one another and decide, without ceremony or contract: you are mine, and I am yours, and we shall face whatever comes next together.
