Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists

Two centuries ago, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first volume of Children's and Household Tales. Now Philip Pullman, one of the most accomplished authors of our time, makes us fall in love all over again with the immortal tales of the Brothers Grimm. (Description from catalog)

In a village in northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.
(Description from catalog)

From the author of the internationally bestselling A Man Called Ove, a charming, warmhearted novel about a young girl whose grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters, sending her on a journey that brings to life the world of her grandmother's fairy tales. (Description from catalog)

A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mother, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it's been just the three of them-her mother has brought home guests attimes, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mother brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children's lives.
(Description from catalog)

Breaking the promise he made to his beautiful wife, to never pry into her past, when they arrive at her childhood home, a crumbling manor shrouded in mystery, a scholar of myths must choose between reality and fantasy, even if doing so threatens to destroy their marriage--or their lives.
(Description from catalog)

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud the fairy stories Phoebe loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, to journey to a land colored by the memories of childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father—a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; a land where old enemies are watching and waiting...
(Description from Amazon)

Red doesn't like to think of herself as a killer, but she isn't about to let herself get eaten up just because she is a woman alone in the woods.... (Description from NoveList)

A childless couple working a farm in the brutal landscape of 1920 Alaska discover a little girl living in the wilderness, with a red fox as a companion, and begin to love the strange, almost-supernatural child as their own. (Description from NoveList)

Light and dark-this is the destiny placed upon Natasha and Clara, the birthright bestowed by their godfather, the mysterious sorcerer Drosselmeyer. Clara, the favorite, grows into beauty and ease, while Natasha is cursed to live in her sister's shadow. But one fateful Christmas Eve, Natasha gets her chance at revenge. For Drosselmeyer has brought the Nutcracker, an enchanted present that offers entry into a deceptively beautiful world: the Kingdom of Sweets.
(Description from catalog)

You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes. On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own.
(Description from catalog)

Raised by an evil sorceress, Cordelia must choose between her controlling mother and the kindness of a stranger to save innocent lives in a dark retelling of The Goose Girl by the Brothers Grimm.--Description from NoveList

A dark fairy tale inspired by folklore is set against the Jazz age in Mexico's underworld, where a young dreamer is sent by the Mayan God of Death on a life-changing journey. (Description from NoveList.)

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.
(Description from catalog)

I’m not who you think I am. My transformation from a poor, orphaned scullery maid into the enchantingly mysterious lady who snagged the heart of the prince did not happen in a magical metamorphosis of pumpkins and glass slippers. My stepsisters and I had been trained for this. We were taught how to get everything we wanted in this world, everything men always kept for themselves: power, wealth, and prestige. And with a touchingly tragic past and the help of some highly illegal spells, I would become a princess, secure our fortunes, and we would all live happily ever after. But there’s always more to the story. With my magic running out, war looming, and a handsome hostage prince distracting me from my true purpose with his magnetic charm and forbidden flirtations, I’m in danger of losing control of the delicate balance I’ve created...and that could prove fatal.
(Description from Amazon)

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the greatest villain of them all? Snow White's dark queen tells her side of the story in this queer, witchy re-imagining of the classic fairy tale from the author of Malice.
(Description from catalog)