Waiting On Wednesday .... Fairy Tale Retellings

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

As the year winds to a close, I'm working on a YA trends post. It looks like retellings will remain hot in 2013!

Here are two I'm excited about:

Of Beast and Beauty

by Stacey Jay

Random House

Expected publication date: July 2013

You might remember how much I enjoyed Stacey Jay's Juliet Immortal/Romeo Redeemed books. If you missed my review, you can read it here.  So I was super-excited to see that Stacey Jay is doing a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.  Here's the Goodreads blurb:

In the domed city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra, a Smooth Skin, is raised to be a human sacrifice whose death will ensure her city’s vitality. In the desert outside Yuan, Gem, a mutant beast, fights to save his people, the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together, they could return balance to both their worlds. Isra wants to help the city’s Banished people, second-class citizens despised for possessing Monstrous traits. But after she enlists the aid of her prisoner, Gem, who has been captured while trying to steal Yuan’s enchanted roses, she begins to care for him, and to question everything she has been brought up to believe. As secrets are revealed and Isra’s sight, which vanished during her childhood, returned, Isra will have to choose between duty to her people and the beast she has come to love.

Then, you might remember how posting books on WoW is good luck for me. Well, I just put in a NetGalley request for this:

Strands of Bronze and Gold

by Jane Nickerson

Random House

Expected Publication date: March 2013

When seventeen-year-old Sophia Petheram’s beloved father dies, she receives an unexpected letter. An invitation—on fine ivory paper, in bold black handwriting—from the mysterious Monsieur Bernard de Cressac, her godfather. With no money and fewer options, Sophie accepts, leaving her humble childhood home for the astonishingly lavish Wyndriven Abbey, in the heart of Mississippi.  Sophie has always longed for a comfortable life, and she finds herself both attracted to and shocked by the charm and easy manners of her overgenerous guardian. But as she begins to piece together the mystery of his past, it is as if a silken net is tightening around her. And as she gathers stories and catches whispers of his former wives—all with hair as red as her own—in the forgotten corners of the abbey, Sophie knows she’s trapped in the passion and danger of de Cressac’s intoxicating world. Glowing strands of romance, mystery, and suspense are woven into this breathtaking debut—a thrilling retelling of the “Bluebeard” fairy tale.

Crossing my fingers that I get approved for this one!

Are you anxiously waiting for a book? Tell me about it in comments!