The Fairy Tale Novels, a series of books by Regina Doman, take somewhat well-known fairy tales and move the setting to a modern-day setting - let's say New York. The cast: a bunch of Catholic teenagers. In this world, a sleeping spell is a coma, a magical passageway becomes a locked-away staircase that leads out of the house, the seven dwarves are replaced by seven quirky Franciscan friars, and so on.
There are currently six books in the series: The Shadow of the Bear, Black as Night, Waking Rose, The Midnight Dancers, Alex O'Donnell and the Forty CyberThieves, and Rapunzel Let Down.
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These books provide examples of:
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: In Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyber Thieves, when Alex and Kateri are sitting by the pool discussing Alex's uncle who was just murdered.
- Action Girl: Kateri Kovach, particularly compared to the series' other heroines.
- Amateur Sleuth: Rose and Blanche, but especially Rose.
- "Pipe down, Trixie Belden."
- The Atoner: Donna in Waking Rose spends the first half of the book antagonizing Rose. Upon the latter's fall into a coma, she becomes horrified and remorseful, and gradually works alongside Fish and crew to help her.
- Battle Couple: Alex and Kateri.
- Big Brother Instinct:
- Bear got his nickname in juvenile detention when he saw three inmates trying to drown Fish. He threw one against the wall, the other two ran away, and we can assume both the Denniston brothers were carefully respected afterwards.
- Fish tells Rose this is how he feels about her; he doesn't let himself fall in love with her at first, but still goes to great lengths to protect her.
- Brother Charley to Brother Leon in the second book, and nearly all the friars to Blanche.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Subverted with Dr. Prosser and Dr. Murray. After tying Fish up, dousing him in gasoline, throwing him into a barn, and setting it on fire, they walk away. Despite his injuries, he manages to wriggle out of his bonds and escape... and finds that they were waiting outside to see if he would. He is unceremoniously thrown back in and would have died were it not for Bear's timely arrival.
- Brains and Brawn: Fish and Bear, respectively, when they're working as a Sibling Team. Not that Bear is by any means stupid, or that Fish can't take care of himself.
- Cool Sword: Alex's various Japanese weapons.
- Damsel in Distress: Usually the girls (these are based off fairy tales, after all), but the guys have their moments, too. For Blanche, who has the looks and demeanor to go with it, it's even Lampshaded.
- Dance Battler: When Kateri finally does the fan dance in Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyberthieves."Remain still. Or you, sir, are dead."
- Dark and Troubled Past: As revealed over the second and third books, Bear and Fish have a whopper: while their mother was dying of cancer in a hospital, she and they converted, enthusiastically, to Catholicism, so the boys started going to St. Catherine's high school; they were nerds and bullied - especially Fish, who was thought to be gay and was sexually taunted by an adult man; Father Raymond, the closest thing they had to a normal dad, died under mysterious circumstances, and they started investigating; Mr. Freet, fearing they would suspect him, planted cocaine in their lockers; when they got out of juvenile detention, Bear discovered his father was having an affair; the other woman moved in, and married their father after their mother had finally died; she resented the boys, especially Bear because he had preached unsuccessfully against the affair; but she was also attracted to Bear, and when he refused to give her the wrong kind of kiss, he and Fish got framed for drug possession AGAIN; the charge didn't stick, but their father turned them out of the house without giving them their inheritance from their mother; so they lived at their friend Stephen Foster's house while still illegally investigating Father Raymond's death. That's excluding what happened to Fish offscreen in The Shadow of the Bear.
- Darker and Edgier:
- Black as Night. Blanche is on the run after being framed for drug possession and grand theft, and is also being stalked by two different parties.
- As of Rapunzel Let Down, which deals with teen pregnancy, illegal immigration, homelessness, prison, kidnapping, and worse, we have a new winner in this category.
- The author states she intended the books to alternate between this and Lighter and Softer, but didn't completely succeed. Black as Night - darker and edgier. Waking Rose - even darker. The Midnight Dancers - serious, but more gentle and philosophical in tone. Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyber Thieves - even the title is lighter and softer; there's a lot more humor, and the action scenes get decidedly cartoony. Rapunzel Let Down - isn't even put in the YA section with the others; it was published as adult fiction.
- Defrosting Ice Queen:
- Fish in "Waking Rose" is a male example—he cares about Rose and they are genuine friends, but he's also keeping her at arm's length because of her immaturity, her pushiness about her romantic interest in him, and because he has his own issues he's working through. Her growing respectful of his boundaries allows him to open up to her about those issues, to the point she becomes the only one besides Bear who knows the full details.
- Rachel Durham from "The Midnight Dancers" also qualifies.
- Defiled Forever: Rare Male Example. Fish was raped off-screen by Mr. Freet in the first book and has been wrestling with feelings of shame, inadequacy, and dirtiness since. It's not until the end of Waking Rose that he accepts that what happened does not, in any way, make him less worthy of love, God's or Rose's.
- Distressed Dude: Every male hero gets tied up and humiliated at least once.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Played With. Elaine is a Gold Digger who tries to frame at least three people for drug possession and is coaxing her husband into suicide, but hesitates to actually murder Blanche...up until all her plans fall through. At that point she decides, in the midst of a Villainous Breakdown, that there's no turning back for her, so she may as well cross that final line.
- Dr. Murray gladly sells organs on the black market, but doesn't have the stomach for murder. A bit hypocritical, considering people have to be murdered to provide said organs... A much more straightforward example is her genuine horror at Dr. Prosser gleefully and cruelly stomping on Fish's broken ankle.
- Foregone Conclusion: As these are fairytale retellings, anyone even slightly familiar with the originals should have an idea of what major plot beats to expect, i.e. both Blanche and Rose falling into comas in their own books. Rose's is even called Waking Rose!
- Foreshadowing:
- After falling into her coma, the next few Rose POVs show that she's able to hear those around her and is actively trying and coming close to getting her body to work again. Then, after a dream in which a snake bites her, her feeble control slips away from her, her POVs become disjointed and hallucinatory, and she's unable to hear anything from the real world. That's because from then on, she's actually being kept in a drugged state.
- Also, that dream, and thus the drugging, occurs after she is transferred into Dr. Murray's care. Guess who's one half of the Big Bad Duumvirate?
- Freudian Excuse: Both villains in "Rapunzel Let Down" had abusive fathers. One follows his father's example, the other hates all men.
- Fun Personified: Both Br. Leon (from Black as Night) and Alex O'Donnell count.
- Genius Bruiser:
- As it turns out, Bear writes poetry.
- Raphaela from 'Rapunzel Let Down' as well, much to her mother's disapproval.
- Goshdang It To Heck: This is Christian fiction. Rose's swear words get pretty bizarre, though. ("Holy candlesticks, sister!")
- I Never Said It Was Poison: A complicated version occurs in Waking Rose. During her gloating over Fish, Dr. Prosser brings up his rape at the hands of Mr. Freet to further humiliate him. Fish never actually charged Mr. Freet for the rape, so there are no court records of it as she claims. From that slip, he quickly deduces they're somehow talking to the comatose Rose, who does know..
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Fish is cranky, sarcastic, dismissive, and outright rude. But, when people need him, he always goes the whole hog in pulling through for them, the best example having to be when Rose falls into a coma: he makes the hour-and-a-half drive every day to visit her and works himself to the bone trying to find who did it.
- Katanas Are Just Better: ALEX. He does end up breaking one in a fight, though.
- Massive Numbered Siblings:
- The Durhams have fourteen kids. The Kovachs have plenty, too.
- So does Raphaela. Turns out she has 13 biological siblings in Mexico!
- Meaningful Name:
- Rose (has red hair, a fiery spirit, and is named for the fairy tale character Rose Red and Briar Rose); Blanche (means white, is quiet and gentle, and named after both Snow Whites); Brier, their surname, means Rose. So their names mean Rose Red ('rose' is a shade of red) and Rose White (in some variations of the story, Snow White's name is changed to this).
- Bear points Blanche's name out to her and jokingly calls her Snow White.
- Bear is named for being brawny and protective of his younger brother, Fish, who is named for managing to slip out of bad situations. However, their proper names are Arthur and Benedict (Fish's other nickname is Ben).
- It gets better. The name Arthur means Bear. Fish, meanwhile, is pointed out in the third book to be symbolically associated with Christ.
- Hermes is the god of thieves and gambling. Hermes 'stole' Raphaela's innocence and loves risks.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Paul from "The Midnight Dancers" is a ninja clown! Who also plays the flute!
- Number of the Beast: The villain's keypad code in "The Shadow of the Bear."
- Prince Charming: Bear and Fish play this in different books for each of their love interests. Paul is also seen as this trope by a somewhat jealous Fish in "Waking Rose".
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red-haired Rose (romantic, adventurous Cloudcuckoolander) and black-haired Blanche (shy and sensible, with a Sugar-and-Ice Personality).
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Played with with the Denniston brothers. Bear is a burly, serious guy with a fierce temper should you cross him, but he has a deep appreciation for art, poetry, and architecture. Fish is scrawny, geeky, and uses brains over brawn, but he's not a romantic at all like his brother and can come off as harsh because he lacks sensitivity.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Even after she's woken from her coma, Rose still has to spend time recovering in a hospital gradually being weaned off all the drugs she was pumped with for months.
- Took a Level in Badass: Fish, Alex, Kateri, Raphaela, Hermes, and Rose to an extent in her own book.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Political activist Kateri is the Tomboy to the Girly Girls Blanche and Rose, who like dresses, sewing, and romance. Also Raphaela's mother and Raph herself.
- Twice-Told Tale: All of the books.
