Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ash & Bramble | 2015 | Sarah Prineas | Buy |
| 2 | Rose & Thorn | 2016 | Sarah Prineas | Buy |
Sarah Prineas’s Ash & Bramble duology takes fairy tales apart. In this world, “Story” is a sentient force that controls people’s lives, pushing them into familiar narrative roles whether they want it or not. The Godmother enforces Story’s will from a fortress where captives lose their memories and become characters in tales they never chose.
Ash & Bramble (2015) retells Cinderella. Pin wakes in the Godmother’s fortress with no memory. She escapes with Shoe (the Shoemaker), only to be recaptured and placed as “Lady Penelope” in a town where a prince is about to hold a ball. Pin, Shoe, and Prince Cornelius eventually join rebels fighting to break free from Story’s grip. Rose & Thorn (2016) picks up fifty years later with a Sleeping Beauty retelling. Rose, the daughter of Pin and Shoe, has been hidden her whole life to delay three curses. When the protection breaks, she enters a city where Watchers guard against Story’s return.
The duology is Prineas’s only young adult work. Both books subvert the expectations of the fairy tales they draw from, making the traditional magical helpers into antagonists and giving the protagonists agency to reject the stories they have been assigned.