Coming Attractions: Ice and East

I've got some fantastic icy tales coming up for you during Fairy Tale Fortnight, and I just want to give you a little sneak peak; they're based on one of my more recent faves, East of the Sun, West of the Moon.  This tale, mixing Beauty and the Beast/Eros and Psyche with the traditions and bitter cold of northern Europe, is a completely captivating story that actually provides the basis for one of my all-time favorite retellings, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow (but more on that tomorrow...).
So coming in April, during Fairy Tale Fortnight, we'll have a little taste of winter with:

Ice
by Sarah Beth Durst
When Cassie was a little girl, her grandmother told her a fairy tale about her mother, who made a deal with the Polar Bear King and was swept away to the ends of the earth. Now that Cassie is older, she knows the story was a nice way of saying her mother had died. Cassie lives with her father at an Arctic research station, is determined to become a scientist, and has no time for make-believe.

Then, on her eighteenth birthday, Cassie comes face-to-face with a polar bear who speaks to her. He tells her that her mother is alive, imprisoned at the ends of the earth. And he can bring her back — if Cassie will agree to be his bride.

That is the beginning of Cassie's own real-life fairy tale, one that sends her on an unbelievable journey across the brutal Arctic, through the Canadian boreal forest, and on the back of the North Wind to the land east of the sun and west of the moon. Before it is over, the world she knows will be swept away, and everything she holds dear will be taken from her — until she discovers the true meaning of love and family in the magical realm of Ice.

and: 

East

by Edith Pattou 

Rose has always felt out of place in her family, a wanderer in a bunch of homebodies. So when an enormous white bear mysteriously shows up and asks her to come away with him—in exchange for health and prosperity for her ailing family—she readily agrees. The bear takes Rose to a distant castle, where each night she is confronted with a mystery. In solving that mystery, she loses her heart, discovers her purpose, and realizes her travels have only just begun.

As familiar and moving as "Beauty and the Beast" and yet as fresh and original as only the best fantasy can be, East is a novel retelling of the classic tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," a sweeping romantic epic in the tradition of Robin McKinley and Gail Carson Levine.

What are your favorite fairy tales and retellings?

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