Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Rapunzel — it's easy to see the romance there, whether we think those fairy tales are actually romantic or not.
But ... Rumpelstiltskin?
Full disclosure, I am weird. (If you've read my genre-bending books, you've figured this out already.) That said, I think there's a perfectly reasonable case to be made for repurposing the Rumpelstiltskin story as a romance.
Get rid of the king, at least as the husband. Forget the threat of baby-stealing. And what you have left is a character who desperately wants something and another character who can provide it ... for a price.
I would read the heck out of that.
That's why I grabbed this story to retell for the fantasy romance fairy tale anthology coming out in September (*clears throat, attempts sales voice*: just 99 cents while on pre-order!).
But actually, this is not my first Rumpelstiltskin rodeo. In The Opposite of Magic, Emily Daggett stumbles upon the fact that Alexander Hartgrave can cast spells, and she strikes a bargain with him: She'll keep his secret if he'll answer one question about magic a day.
Then she asks a question he refuses to answer. Guess, he says.
That's about the point she starts thinking of him as the fairy-tale character with the supposedly unguessable name.
And, for good measure, another infamous bargain-maker:
“What I think,” he said, leaning casually against the archway into her office, “is that you’d be willing to give up quite a lot to know what I know.”
It brought to mind her dream the week before—Hartgrave as the devil, bartering for her soul. He really was a bit Mephistophelian.
And he was right, she would be willing to give up a lot, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “What did you have to trade to get that knowledge in the first place?”
For an instant, she thought she’d shocked him speechless. The effect was fleeting. “Nothing of importance to anyone but myself,” he said, and was gone.
The spine-tingling pleasure of reading about characters making bargains is the inescapable question: Are they getting in over their heads?
(Also: At what point are they going to realize that they want more from each other than whatever they were bargaining about?)
And that is why Rumpelstiltskin is the awesomest fairy tale. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. 😉
What books about striking bargains have you enjoyed? Hit me with your recommendations by hitting reply.
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More cool & bookish things
Speaking of fairy tales: Have you read Laura Greenwood's Once Upon an Academy series?
The tagline says it all. Welcome to Grimm Academy, where fairy tale characters go to avoid their fate.
Deal alert: Tower of Thorns in that series is currently free.
Rapunzel learned her prophecy by heart years ago. Now, she plays with fate over the details.
When she meets a handsome lord at Grimm Academy, she starts a chain of events that will lead to a bigger betrayal than she ever saw coming.
Looking for more fantasy romance books? Find a bunch here, from a new dragon hunter who accidentally falls for her target to a (very) paranormal community whose residents include an octopus shifter and vegan necromancer.
Looking for free-for-everyone fantasy romance? Find those books here, from a Peter Pan-inspired heist to a woman with a killer touch that is just what one vampire needs.
And finally — lots to share this time! — a bunch of books in the delightful gaslamp fantasy genre are free, on sale or in Kindle Unlimited (though the promo ends after today, so look quickly). Find an equal-rights campaigner confronting the Goblin King, a sentient estate in need of a new lord and other equally fun stories.
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