Tales from the palace of the Fairy King is a book of new fairy tales from a time long ago. In seven interwoven stories princes do battle for honor and for love. Princesses seek their destinies, and farmers' sons discover the world in an age of fairies and imps and real magic.

Once upon a time... Princess Liesel is adamant that the last thing she would ever want is to have to leave her splendid palace and marry a prince. But after she scorns one too many suitors, her father loses his temper with her spoiled ways and declares that she must marry the next man who dares to seek her hand! Unfortunately for her, the next man who proposes-albeit unintentionally-is only a humble, traveling minstrel. Now, cast off and penniless, she finds herself at the mercy of her handsome betrothed who intends for her to become a proper peasant. But after a lifetime of being pampered, ordinary chores and tasks are not as easy as she expected, and she soon realizes she will need her prospective husband's help if she hopes to salvage anything of her future. Will the two strangers be able to find a way to work together and perhaps free themselves from their forced betrothal? Or might they find that "happily ever afters" sometimes happen in unexpected ways ... A retelling of the timeless Grimm fairy tale, "King Thrushbeard." *This book is a clean and proper romance.

"Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher--for that world or ours." --

Rori Bloom demonstrates that Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy (1652–1705) and Henriette-Julie de Murat (1670–1716) changed the stakes of the fairy tale: instead of inviting their readers to marvel at the magic that changes rags to riches, they enjoined them to acknowledge the skill that transforms raw materials into beautifully made works of art.