and then I wrote some books

Here to talk about writing, but mostly showing art of my OCs.

[the-lunar-library]

4 Stand-Alone Adult Fantasy Novels by Rachel Day

The Price and Prey of Magic – A gothic fairy tale with curses, lies, love denied – and two heroines who want nothing more than to stop each other. (tag)

The Escape of Lady Aigle – A kingdom trembles – and friendships falter – in this coming-of-age fantasy of revolutionaries, nobles, students, and strange Magic. (tag)

To the Ravens – In the lunar Roman empire, a powerless young woman meets a handsome stranger with the recklessness to defy the gods and the charisma to seduce a city. (tag)

A Wilderness of Stars – A daring kidnapping, a lonely tower, and unexpected enemies. Learning the truth of the past changes the future as two sorcerers find themselves and fall in love. (tag)

[the-lunar-library]

For the past four years, I've been releasing a book each summer. This year, I decided not to.

I could have. I've been very lucky that I've been able to put out the books that fast. But part of it was an illusion.

No, it wasn't AI, don't worry. It also wasn't a ghost writer.

It's that for two of my books, The Price and Prey of Magic and The Escape of Lady Aigle, I wrote them in the 2010s. They had many years to grow and develop. Once I felt ready to publish, that made it relatively easy to release Papom in 2022 and Eola in 2023.

My third book, To the Ravens, was a different animal. I wrote it in a few months, caught up in this feeling that I just had to get it out there, it had to exist, especially while I knew I would have enough time to focus on it. So that one did have a remarkably fast turnaround, at least by my standards.

And then the newest one, A Wilderness of Stars, is a novella. An easy, short venture. It's romantic, it's very funny, it's over the top in places. It was escapist for me to write and I hope it's been escapist for you to read. But, you can see from this breakdown, that while I published four books in four years, I didn't technically write four books inside of four years.

So what about book 5?

Publishing nowadays is very focused on quantity. You see big-name authors putting out multiple books a year -- long books, for adult audiences.

For us indie authors, it feels even more demanding. Because we're powering our own hype machines, we're told we cannot -- cannot -- allow our readers' interest to lapse. Release a book every year.

Release two books a year.

Release four books a year.

I can only speak for myself, but to me, that sounds absurd. I can't imagine pushing myself to write four books a year, much less expecting them to be intricate or original with so little time. And, as a reader, I can't imagine expecting an author to do so.

I finished the first draft of book 5 early last year. Conceivably, I could have published it this year, this month, maintaining my rhythm. I think, had I done so, the book would have been in decent shape.

But I really love this book, so I want to give it a lot of time to develop until it's properly itself. I'm still editing that manuscript. Things are still changing. Things are getting richer, more textured, more interesting. I don't think I could do that in a matter of months. I know I couldn't even do it twice a year.

As a writer and a reader, I want to be in a community that gives its authors time to develop and experiment and research and revise. If I like an author, my interest isn't going to lapse just because I'm not getting a new book every quarter.

Anyway, thank you everyone who's been hanging with me, as many as four years back, or more recently. As proud as I am of my books, I'm always so surprised and delighted when people take an interest in them.

[the-lunar-library]

THE PRICE AND PREY OF MAGIC

Monty Cassidy isn't a huge character in the novel, but he's an all around good guy. There's a brief tossed-off line where he says that the heroine Eider taught him how to dance in high school. So here they are, two cute kids, figuring out their steps.

[the-lunar-library]

As you may know, I write fantasy novels. Even from a very young age, I knew I wanted to write. But it wasn't always fantasy. Oh no. When I was little, I intended to take the world by storm by writing middle-reader horse girl books.

You know the type. The Saddle Club. Pony Pals. If you're really in the know, you know the Animorphs author had a horse girl series called The Silver Creek Riders, which, in my opinion, was the best. Books about a group of girls (usually in batches in three) who meet at a stable and conflict over horses, and maybe boys, but probably not, and ride a lot. Usually there's a mean rich girl for one girl to be rivals with. Usually there's a Big Show. And when the author really wants to raise the stakes, a horse dies.

Well, recently I unearthed the character sketches and concept art for what I'm sure would have been an, um, impressive horse girl series. May I invite you to Shadow Lane Stables?

It's the 90s and Baby Rayless is doing it right. We got the central horse girl image, with the horse girls, on their horses, smiling at horse girl stuff. (Notice how back then I was way more confident drawing horses than actual human beings.) We have both the series title and the brilliantly original title for the first book (The New Stable). And we have a bold border frame and two horse logos for immediately recognizable series branding. This is going to look so good on some fifth-grader's shelf.

But I didn't stop at cover art, oh no. Check out my very technical maps of Shadow Lane Stables' layout.

Included: dressage ring, outside ring, inside ring, a stable with stalls for all the horses, an immobile mounting block, and, in the front of the stable, something I called the "Equus". Equus is the Latin word for "horse", and, as best as I can tell, it's supposed to be a door wide enough for horses to pass through. No stable on planet earth has anything called an Equus, and Shadow Lane Stables is going to have a real problem with theater nerds trying to break in.

But a horse girl series is nothing without some horse girls, no?

I cast my horse girls in fifth grade, primo horse girl age, and drew them all with a propensity to lean hard on their right feet. On the left is Marcia West, who "thinks she knows everything about horses". She struggled with riding in the past and so has resumed the sport at the beginner level, re-learning everything from the ground up. She has a bridle slung over her shoulder to show she's ready to grab her horse and ride. Marcia's identified as a "Pessimist" and "Dramatic".

On the right is Nicole Hiroko, who's logical, smart, and artistic. Her notes say she "doesn't know all that much about horses but ends up buying one". Isn't it strange how that happens? She's an "Omptomist", and, yeah, when the universe just drops a horse in your lap, I guess you have a right to be omptomistic.

On the left is Carmen Cassara who is an orphan and athletic, extroverted, and "scheeming", but in a fun way, not an antisocial way. She's afraid of horses, but her aunt runs the stable, so not only does she have to ride, she has to wear a branded shirt, I guess. She's a mix of happy and more downbeat traits, or, as I put it, "Opto-Pesto".

Those are our three main horse girls, Marcia, Nicole, and Carmen. I'm sure they would have gone on lots of great horsey adventures, and maybe solved a mystery in one of the books.

On the right is the mean rich girl antagonist (you know she's rich because she's wearing hunting pinks even though she's not hunting), Margo Michelle Michaels. She's twelve, a sixth grader, so evil. Her crimes are listed as "thinking she knows everything" (so, not so different from Marcia?) and owning two horses. I bet she doesn't love either of them. She's no true horse girl! She's not even identified as an Omptomist or a Pessimist!

Special love to tertiary character Marcy Davis, who's denigrated as yet another "know it all" and who has the most crap-eating little face.

But of course for Baby Rayless the real allure of this exercise wasn't designing a stable with an Equus door or even character-building the horse girls. It was drawing the horses at the stable and characterizing them. I will spare you the entire herd, but here's some of the art and notes.

Pictured: Riddle Me This (Riddle). Despite his personality being "docile but a bit hard to handle", he's listed as suitable for Beginner level (we need three levels of Beginners because along with knowing Latin, we are thorough bitches at Shadow Lane). You give absolutely newbies the pony who's hard to handle? Yeah, riddle me that.

Peaches & Cream (Peaches). She's "amazingly obidient", but dislikes jumping. Peaches has her limits.

Baloney: A mustang, who presumably someone tore from the vast ranges of Montana and named Baloney. He's only suitable for the most advanced Beginner riders, heading up into Intermediate riders. "Stubborn. If you show him who's boss, though, you'll have fun." Maybe Baloney would have had a better attitude if he'd been named Sam.

On the other hand, I think that's him on the cover image, so he was afforded some dignity.

Kitten (Kitty), mostly included here because her art is cute and she has a cat friend, Elvis. She likes the cat so much, they basically just named her cat. Shadow Lane is creative enough to name a door Equus, but names a horse Kitty.

Raindrop. Raindrop is our Wild and Fierce Horse That No One Should Go Near Because They Might Get Hurt. If you know your horse girl tropes, you know what that means. I don't remember if one of the girls would have bonded with him and taught him the joys of toting elementary school children around a small ring on his back, or which of the girls it would have been, but I can tell you it wouldn't have been know it all Marcy Davis. I wanted to include him though because I did a good job on his art. Well done, Baby Rayless. Now learn to draw a human face.

Along with the map and the character art and the horses, I made sundry other housekeeping notes, which horses were suitable for what riding level (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced, with subgroups), which horses were used for rider evaluations, what special tack requirements there were for individual horses. And, hilariously, which horses should maybe die over the course of the series.

It is time to raise the stakes.

Twelve horses, Baby Rayless?!! You were going to whack twelve horses? My child, Shadow Lane Stables is going to be shut down pending an investigation by the ASPCA.

To be fair, these weren't all definite. The lefthand column reads Deaths (Possible), whereas the righthand one says, troublingly, Possibilities. So very likely most of these horses -- Chester, Strawberry, Jo, Baloney (along with being named Baloney, he was in the running to die tragically), Blue, Bubble, Hoshi, Jasmine, Winter, Esmerelda, Turqoise, and Bittersweet -- would have survived. And gone on to get tie-in Breyer models, I'm sure.

There is a check though by Hoshi's name, so oh no, get yourself a box of tissues. Given Hoshi's Japanese name, I suspect she would have been Nicole's horse (I don't have art of her to confirm this). I'm guessing that if her horse dies, Nicole might too become an Opto-Pesto.

I do have art for Bubble though.

Temperment: Competitive. Hard to win when you're dead, Bubble.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing this foray into my baby writer mind. I would nurture dreams of writing horse girl books until the day I sat down and played Final Fantasy 4 and everything changed. But I have a lot of affection for the kid who hunkered down and worked this all out, even if she did consider killing a lot of horses.

[the-lunar-library]

A WILDERNESS OF STARS

But the silver shape was not quite what he'd expected. As he flew down into the trees, he didn't see the tall elegant form of a sorcerer strolling smugly through the woodland. He saw the low elegant form of a silver lion strolling smugly through the woodland. A lion with black gazelle horns, most naturally, as well as a jeweled and pink-enameled barrel hanging under his throat. Bartel looped around into his path and transformed, glaring down into the lion's eyes, which were momentarily startled. Then the lion sat down on his haunches and, if anything, looked even smugger. “Well?” he asked.

Roger here was a departure from my usual villains -- he's mostly here to be funny. I mean, he gets in the way of what the hero Bartel needs to accomplish, push him far enough and he'll become a threat to your well-being, and he's certainly extremely powerful. But, like, dark? Complex? Menacing? That's not Roger. His primary motivators are self-interest, comfort, and looking good.

He's a shapeshifter, and his favorite animal form is a silver lion with gazelle horns. (Though even then, he has another surprise hidden up his sleeve, or furry foreleg.) The chapter I quoted, which prominently features Roger in all of his questionable glory, is one of my favorite bits I've ever written.

[the-lunar-library]

TO THE RAVENS

A stranger – an outcast – a secret plot... Could you fool them without making the whole city want to kill you?

Rejected by her clan, Akantha has few options. In the Roman lunar colonies, where people are winged and there are rumors of barbarians beyond the city walls, she knows to keep her head down and not hope for a great destiny – or anything beyond what the gods, the Romans, or her city allow a mere woman.

But then, a stranger enters her life, Alexandros the Peregrine, a mysterious golden prophet. He claims he can make the city his – and hers – with just their wits. He speaks as if the Romans can't hurt them. And as for the gods? He's about to make a god of his very own.

With humor, romance, and biting emotion, Akantha's story unfolds. Alexandros will change her life forever. Is he a savior who will bring her freedom, or is he a force far too dangerous for her to fall in love with?

Just a quick sketch of Akantha done with some blue tones. She looks a little disheveled and disreputable, which she's earned.

[the-lunar-library]

I've been meaning for ages to talk about designing Eider, one of the two protagonists of my first book The Price and Prey of Magic.

It wasn't an entirely straightforward process. I first began brainstorming ideas for the novel in 2014 or so. I knew I wanted one of the protagonists to be a Beauty (as in Beauty and the Beast) character. I think the earliest kernel of an idea I had for her was that at one point she'd try to kill the Beast in order to escape him. I don't know when I also started playing around with the Girl Without Hands fairy tale, in which the heroine has her hands cursed away because of her father's carelessness (and the Devil, him too).

And then, that September, separate from my ideas for Papom, I doodled, as I so often do, a pretty lady. I have no recollection of what the character's context was, only that I thought about calling her Mireio, a name I'd used for another character who'd never gotten off the ground. Mireio v.2 had no story that I recall, and she did have hands, but otherwise she looks remarkably like Eider -- brown skin, wavy brown hair, and light eyes.

And then three days later, I'd smushed the Beauty and Girl Without Hands concepts together. As you can see, she has nothing to do with Mireio 2, being a white girl who's supposed to look very cute and rabbitish. I flailed around looking for names, not wanting to go with Belle or Bella. A lot of the names I considered either meant things like "beauty" or were flower names having to do with roses. I think of this second one as the "Jolie" design.

Jolie's very pretty and has a distinct humorous edge. I like the design, but within a few sketches I realized that her tight clothes and copious lacings made zero sense for a girl without, you know, hands. At least not a girl who wanted to be able to take care of herself, and that independence quickly became part of the character. I didn't sketch the character constantly, but I kept returning to her that fall and winter.

In November, I landed on the name Eider (no, I didn't even think about how it's a kind of duck) and a new design. This one's also very cute, and I sat and thought about how Eider might be able to dress herself without consigning her to wearing nothing but shapeless sacks she can pull over her head. So wrap-around dresses and loose-topped boots were the way to go, though I still ended up giving her some tightly laced sleeves that would not work. As early as the Jolie design, I liked the idea of her habitually wearing something on her head, though I would phase that out. Still no sign of her hooks.

I like this design, it's very engaging and appealing in the way Eider should be. But I think around this time something must have reminded me of Mireio 2.

Because a month later in December, we have a character who -- if she isn't finalized in all her details -- is recognizably Eider Isarna as she appears in the book. (Though I didn't yet have the surname for her.) Her coloration is mostly there, even if her hair and features are going to change some, and there are the hooks. Her vibe is beautiful rather than cute, but there's still something very down to earth about her.

That January I continued to sketch the character more, including that truly regrettable sketch of her and some weird stag version of Diarca, the Beast character. (He does not look like that in the book, I promise.) I love horses, so my characters will often get named horses in their stories, and at this stage Eider was going to have a rough but steady mustang-like horse whom she rode reinless. However I felt like the logistics of her caring for a horse by herself on her journeys were too difficult, so I abandoned that. But I still like the sketches.

Eider still isn't quite herself yet, but she's getting there.

I wrote Papom's first draft in 2018. Since then, Eider's become one of my favorite characters to draw. Sometimes figuring out a character's look and demeanor is a frustrating process, but while Eider's took some swerves, it was still very enjoyable and satisfying.

[the-lunar-library]

THE PRICE AND PREY OF MAGIC

Yew and a lot of yew leaves and yew berries. Yes, it did take as long as you think it did.

Yew's the protagonist of my first book, The Price and Prey of Magic, published all the way back in 2022 now, wow. Yews are trees with a number of contradictory connotations, including both healing and death -- in England, they were historically planted in graveyards.

Yew has a number of contradictions herself. She has both guts and smarts, she has an inner strength, and she can be very kind. But there's a darkness to her, much of it brought about by grief, and she spends a good chunk of the book in villain territory. Hopefully as a somewhat sympathetic villain, but a villain nonetheless. It was an interesting experience writing her.

[the-lunar-library]

Tumblr scammers are doing a fantastic job of leaching the fun out of posting writing content to this site. Within literal minutes of me posting this, art of a character from a book that's already published, I had a prefab message from an editor/beta reader/whatever who was just dying to give me feedback on Yew here. I'd already reported them like a week ago, but I'd neglected to block them.

Indie authors -- and, really, anyone who posts about original work rather than fan work -- are already starving for notes and feedback and any glimmer of interest in efforts that are often longterm, difficult, lonely passion projects. These scammers are quick off the mark and appear flatteringly invested in your creations. It sucks that it's a lie, but don't fall for it.

If you post about your original projects, be careful.

[the-lunar-library]

THE PRICE AND PREY OF MAGIC

Yew and a lot of yew leaves and yew berries. Yes, it did take as long as you think it did.

Yew's the protagonist of my first book, The Price and Prey of Magic, published all the way back in 2022 now, wow. Yews are trees with a number of contradictory connotations, including both healing and death -- in England, they were historically planted in graveyards.

Yew has a number of contradictions herself. She has both guts and smarts, she has an inner strength, and she can be very kind. But there's a darkness to her, much of it brought about by grief, and she spends a good chunk of the book in villain territory. Hopefully as a somewhat sympathetic villain, but a villain nonetheless. It was an interesting experience writing her.

[the-lunar-library]

A WILDERNESS OF STARS

Bartel Hoshino, the protagonist of my fourth book, A Wilderness of Stars. Awos is my first romance novel (novella, technically) -- though it's still also a fantasy, naturally -- and in creating Bartel, I found myself often leaning away from typical tropes.

I usually write from female p.o.v.s. Well, all right, Bartel here, the male romantic lead, is going to be my perspective character. Male romantic leads tend to be action hero types. Fine then, let's make Bartel a magical shapeshifter. Male romantic leads are often gruff, domineering, unapproachable. And Bartel's biggest personal failing is that he can actually be too nice. Also, let's give him glasses. And facial hair, I never do facial hair.

I enjoyed posing myself these challenges, and, speaking as his creator, I just love Bartel. He's very different from my other protagonists, more than simply because of his gender. He's brave and generous, but it doesn't always serve him. He's not a soldier or a knight, but that doesn't mean he's unwilling to fight to the best of his (not inconsiderable) magical abilities. He's written with a lot of warmth and humor, but that doesn't mean there isn't real pain guiding some of his actions.

Writing a romance novel was an interesting experiment, and I found Bartel good company as I tried this all out. I hope my readers enjoy spending time with him just as much.

[the-lunar-library]

5 Random Facts About Your OC

Thanks for the tag, @thunderboltfire!

Let's see, let's go with Diarca Talia from The Price and Prey of Magic.

1: I didn't make up the name Diarca and I've not always been sure how I think it should be pronounced, either die-arca or dee-arca. I tend to go with dee-arca.

2: As far back as 2014 or so, I knew I wanted to play with "Beauty and the Beast" tropes. Way, way early, I tried to come up with an actual Beast design for Diarca. But I really struggled to differentiate him from the classic Disney design we all know. One early version was a particularly regrettable winged stag-like design.

My notes read "green fur? like a muppet?" and "needs to look grosser".

Fortunately I gave up on that, though the stag motif remained in the form of the iron stag and the rose stag.

3: When it came to Diarca's Beast form, I went with a giant green snake, which, all things considered, felt less silly. There's literary precedent for it, though, as there's a 1697 sort of proto-Beauty and the Beast fairy tale called "The Green Serpent". There are a number of references to it in my novel, such as Diarca having to save the heroine Eider from a stormy lake. Also, in that version the heroine, rather than being a stunning and literal Beauty, is actually hideous, which is referenced by Eider's double amputation making her unsuitable for high society -- or so her father thinks.

4: I don't remember if it's mentioned in the book, but Diarca is an eldest child, having four younger sisters -- Bettrys, Katell, Alma, and Byrd.

5: His surname Talia is a reference to the fairy tale "Sun, Moon, and Talia", which is a variant of "Sleeping Beauty". This technically has more bearing on Arsen, but The Price and Prey of Magic also references "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", which has a lot of bearing on Diarca. Sun and moon designs appear at different times in the novel.

Thanks again for the tag! No-pressure tags for @sweet-suzume, @iffylogic, and @runicmagitek!

[the-lunar-library]

THE PRICE AND PREY OF MAGIC

Eider again, surrounding by floating pears (happens to all of us).

The Price and Prey of Magic combines narrative elements from a number of fairy tales, but two of the big ones are "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Girl Without Hands", which share an interesting trope: marriage coming about through thievery. BatB features Beauty's father stealing a rose from the Beast's garden, leading to the Beast's unaccountable rage, but also bringing about Beauty's and the Beast's meeting.

In "The Girl Without Hands", the heroine, having lost her hands to none other than Satan, escapes her home, travels by herself, gets hungry, and finds herself in a pear orchard where an angel is nice enough to appear and help her steal some pears. She doesn't know it, but this is the king's orchard, and he'll notice the theft, and while he won't be as angry as the Beast, this crime will still bring about their meeting and, soon after, marriage. (But can you really be blamed if a literal angel is an accessory to your crime?)

Like I said, my own novel incorporates many fairy tale tropes, but it isn't a faithful beat-by-beat retelling of the tales themselves. So I debated whether and how to include this particular element. There are moments where Eider steals a pear (no angel required, thanks) and later on plucks a significant rose (no father required either, he is a real jerk). While neither instance brings an outraged beast or king down upon her, both do result in her coming closer to a mysterious man who could really use some help breaking an enchantment.

[the-lunar-library]

I've had a good spring, writing-wise. I took a bit of a break from working on Book 5 over the holidays, but I didn't have much trouble getting back into the swing of it.

In March, I was able to (I think) draw the components for the cover art, and then this morning I finished editing the fifth (I...think?) draft of the manuscript.

It still has a lot of editing ahead of it, but things are moving along.

As for the drawing side of things, the main character, Candace, has come along nicely, and now I'm trying to feel out the side characters. They're proving difficult. One of them is supposed to have an almost eerily blank face -- not inhuman, but very anonymous and blank -- while still projecting an air of strength, and that's been really hard to translate over to the sketchbook.

I'm pleased to find I still like this manuscript. Sometimes you can get really sick of a project, and while you still want to work on it and complete it, that can leach away some of the enjoyment. But I'm continuing to have fun with this one.

[daily-rayless]

TO THE RAVENS

This is a concept sketch of a character who never actually made it into the book. Her name was Polylampa ("many lights") and she was going to be a rather stately, severe pagan priestess whom Akantha met late in the story during her travels over the moon.

Her outfit is based on a painting of Athena (nudity at link) which dates to 330 BC, which is earlier than the book's setting, but I thought it was a fun departure from the muted draped tunics we often associate with the Greeks. You can also see my attempts to try to figure out how you'd pin the dress to accommodate wings. (That painting actually features a winged figure too, wearing a patterned tunic, but the ancient painter wisely only shows his front.)

Polylampa is meant to be winged, though I didn't fully draw her wings -- actually, her one wing. Her left one is only a stub, which you can see above her arm, but she's wrapped it in a patterned cloth.

As I said, Polylampa never actually made it into the book. But traces of her did. Menaios, Akantha's cousin, has two permanently injured wings that keep him from flying. Pas, a priest of the goddess Cybele, is Akantha's friend but often quite stern with her (and she often doesn't listen). Vitalis is an extremely cold Christian noblewoman who leads a community of unmarried women, a proto-nunnery. And then Galana is a strange and very mysterious woman whom Akantha meets during her lunar travels.

I really liked this design, and I like that even when you decide against including a character, they can still influence the end result.

[in-my-fop-era]

i am normal and can be trusted with The Historical Figure

[the-lunar-library]

THE PRICE AND PREY OF MAGIC

One of my favorite portraits of Eider, who's one of my favorite of my own protagonists. It helps that I love both "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cupid and Psyche", and at times she serves as a partial Beauty/Psyche character.

Her hair's a bit shorter than usual in this one, but it's a good look for her.

[the-lunar-library]

Beauty and the Beast Novel Master List

I like Beauty and the Beast, I bet you do too, here's all the retellings I've read.

I'm not selecting for quality, I'm just listing them.

Art by anonymous. Beast has put on his nicest pompom shoes to win Beauty's heart.

Some of these are retellings (girl swaps places with father, is isolated with a beastly love interest of some type, leaves for some reason, returns to find the beast dying, confesses her love and saves the day), others are only inspired by BatB, but I'm including them as long as there's a clear reference. So Rose Daughter goes, but things like The Phantom of the Opera, Shrek, or Jane Eyre, despite their many overlaps, don't.

Art by Horace Elisha Scudder. Beauty has found Beast, here played by a distant cousin of the Berenstain Bears family.

Also for your consideration: What do you call your heroine when canonically she has a painfully literal name?

Hmmm...

E: explicit

NF: not fantasy or any adjacent genre

YA: young adult

BOOKS:

Beauty's names: Beauty, Lucy, Eider

A Rose for Beauty – Irene B Brand

NF. Novella length. I don't remember much about this one despite reading it just last year, but it's modern day and I think it's Christian. Featured in the Once Upon a Time collection. (No connection to the Once Upon a Time book series.)

Beauty and the Clockwork Beast – Nancy Campbell Allen (Steampunk Proper Romance)

Despite the title, I don't think this one follows the fairy tale quite faithfully enough to really be a retelling. It's more of an original steampunk gothic-mystery-romance. But the BatB inspiration is there.

The Price and Prey of Magic – Rachel Day

I wrote this one. It riffs on both the classic BatB and an alternate version called “The Green Serpent” where the beast is a snake and the Beauty character is thought to be hideous. Other fairy tales are incorporated.

Beauty's names: Belle, Violaine, Lindy

Belle – Cameron Dokey (Once Upon a Time)

YA. The Once Upon a Time series did novella retellings of the classic Disney fairy tales (as well as some outliers) in the 2000s. Some of them are fairly original, some of them play it more safe. There were multiple authors, but I always felt the Dokey entries were the strongest. Belle doesn't try to reinvent the fairy tale that much (see Spirited farther down the list), though it does make the magical rose a more central element in the story.

The Prisoner of the Castle of Enlightenment – Therese Doucet

E. Not a close retelling, but definitely inspired by BatB. Even set in 1700s France for good measure with a strong focus on the Enlightenment. Nods to the fairy tale early on, then heads off into unexpected original territory and gets magical and folkloric.

Beastly – Alex Flinn (Kendra Chronicles)

YA. Probably the best-known modern retelling. The author makes the risky choice of telling it from the beast's point of view, in this case a conceited rich prep boy, and I think a lot of the reader's enjoyment depends on how much they like being in his head. There's a companion novella from the Beauty character's perspective, but I haven't read it.

Beauty's names: Isabella, Caitrin, Beauty

Spirited – Nancy Holder (Once Upon a Time)

YA. The other Once Upon a Time retelling. This one is more original, less by-the-book, setting it in colonial America. But it makes the questionable decision to cast the beast character as an American Indian who takes a beautiful white colonist captive. I suspect this is why the series' creators revisited BatB with the Dokey version, with the hopes this one would quietly vanish.

Heart's Blood – Juliet Marillier

A historical fantasy set in medieval Ireland. This one decides to cast the beast as disabled, but if you can put that aside, he's an interesting and well-rounded character. Another book that deviates pretty substantially from the original and goes off and does its own thing. There are ghosts, not talking knickknacks. Even so, it feels like a legitimate retelling, not merely inspired by BatB.

Beauty and the Beast, The Only One Who Didn't Run Away – Wendy Mass (Twice Upon a Time)

YA. What I remember most about this one is reading it while waiting to see if I'd be impaneled for a jury. It doesn't stand out much in my memory, but as I recall it was lighthearted and aiming for humor.

Beauty's names: Beauty, Beauty, Beauty

Beauty – Robin McKinley

YA. Robin McKinley's first foray into BatB retellings. It's one of my favorite novels, period, with a thoughtful bookish Beauty (way before Disney did it) and a brooding but gracious beast. It's an intelligent slow burn with loads of introspection, but still has many sweet, warm, and funny moments.

Rose Daughter – Robin McKinley

YA. McKinley's better known BatB retelling. This one is a lot more original, expanding on the fairy tale, incorporating Beauty's siblings a lot, and overall giving you a longer, richer read. I still prefer Beauty, but this one has a lot going for it and includes an unusual twist. Also, while I won't list it as its own entry, Chalice is an original McKinley fantasy novel with a strong BatB vibe.

Beast – Donna Jo Napoli

YA. Another book from the beast's p.o.v. Also casts him as a person of color (Persian) with a white Beauty, and in this case turns him into a lion rather than a fantastical monster. Yes, him being a literal animal rather than a slightly humanoid beast does introduce some specific elements to the story. Probably part of why the cover touts it as sophisticated.

Beauty's names: Belle (Annabelle), Shelley

Belle – Sarah Price

NF. The Amish one. Modern setting. It has a YA feel (the heroine is very young), but given that it deals with marriage, and to a significantly older man, I'm not exactly sure which audience it's ultimately for. This Beauty takes a Disney-inspired approach, being bookish and spirited. But the beast is a crotchety Amish guy, so that's new.

The Gentle Prisoner – Sara Seale

NF. 1940s Cornwall. A gothic-tinged romance novel with an otherworldly, innocent, sensitive heroine, who's also very young and marries a significantly older man with a troubling scar and no end of brooding. Not exactly a retelling, but leans heavily on the fairy tale and isn't afraid to draw attention to it.

SHORT STORIES:

"The Rose and the Beast" – Francesca Lia Block

YA. Modern day. I did read this one, a hundred years ago. I don't remember much except for a general impression of the whole collection – dark, urban, sensuous. Can be found in the collection of the same name.

"The Courtship of Mr Lyon" – Angela Carter

Modern (to the 1970s, when it was published). A feminist retelling. Been forever since I read it, so I don't remember specifics, but I have a clear memory of enjoying it.

"The Tiger's Bride" – Angela Carter

As you can guess from the title, also sophisticated.

"Beast and Beauty" – Vivian Vande Velde

YA. A lighthearted, cute take on the story from the beast's perspective. VVV's writing is often very funny, and this is one of my favorites of her retellings. It can be found in Tales From the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird.

That was tiring. I think I'll just lie here and stick my tongue out and die.

I would love to find more retellings, so please feel free to add to this list.

[rayless-reblogs]

Enough time has passed that I have a fresh batch of offerings:

BOOKS:

Beauty's names: Marta, Gwendolyn, Isa, Rose

My Rock and My Refuge -- Rachel Kovaciny NF. Part of the Once Upon a Western series. Christian, as I recall. A guarded Beauty whose thoughtful demeanor reminds me of Jane Eyre. A gentle Beast. The book is in fact very focused on exploring their power dynamic and how Beauty does not want to be beholden to the Beast. Will make you crave bread.

The Bride and the Beast -- Teresa Medeiros NF, E. Eighteenth-century Scotland. Humor, heading into absurdity at times. Whatever the opposite of a slow burn is. A spirited, plus-sized Beauty and a very brooding Beast, they hate each other. Notes of Cupid and Psyche.

Deceiving the Cursed Beast -- Jen Lynning E. Part of the Once Upon an Enchantment series. A practical acerbic Beauty who's never been interested in romance until now, a Beast who makes some bad choices but tries to make amends. Also, this Beast is a fluffy black cat. Truth magic and contract-based magic everywhere. Much snark.

The Fire Rose -- Mercedes Lackey Might be part of a series, might not, Lackey's written a lot of books. 1900s San Francisco, so if you know your history, you know Something Big is going to happen. A scholarly and downright misanthropic Beauty. The Beast is a werewolf, but stuck in wolf form, and lures Beauty to his mansion under false pretenses. Copious discussion of Magick and many helpful salamanders.

SHORT STORIES:

"Beauty" -- Tanith Lee BatB, but with aliens. Lots of Cupid and Psyche references. Lee's usual lush, eccentric language. An angry Beauty who truly wants to be known. The Beast is never what he seems in any version, but this Beast is really not what he seems.