Twelve Dancing Princesses
All stories listed should be clean or sweet romances. The occasional one with fade-to-black has been noted as such. If you believe one has been included in error, please contact me!
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“But every morning their shoes were found to be quite worn through as if they had been danced in all night; and yet nobody could find out how it happened, or where they had been.”
– Grimm’s Fairy Tales
“The Twelve Dancing Princesses” (or The Shoes That Were Danced To Pieces) is a classic fairytale collected by the Brother’s Grimm about the mystery of how twelve princesses escape a locked room and wear out their shoes every night.
Twelve Dancing Princesses Retellings
Here’s a list of Twelve Dancing
Princesses retellings I’ve found.
Check below for my reviews of some of them!
(Books marked with a * are either standalones
or first in series.)
| A Dance of Silver and Shadow – Melanie Cellier* A curse that can only be lifted by the magical bond of twins. |
| The Twelve Dancing “Princesses” – S. R. Nulton A new take on the Twelve Dancing Princesses tale! |
| The Firethorn Crown – Lea Doue A gorgeous tale of 12 sisters, a shadow world, and dragon friends. |
| Pirouette – Kenley Davidson Full of intrigue and the machinations of court life, the way the various threads work together is excellent. |
| The Dark King and the Eternal Dance – Alesha Adamson* A sweet and clean mashup of Hades and Persephone with the Twelve Dancing Princesses |
| The Twelve Dancing Princesses – K. M. Shea Fae princesses are cursed and Quinn is the only one who can save them. |
| Dancer – Kimberly A. Rogers Family, sacrifices, and dragons! |
| The Twelve Virtuosos – Sarah Beran A misplaced letter leads to a mystery of twelve missing virtuosos. |
| Kingdom of Dance – Deborah Grace White What happens when you get caught eavesdropping on a dragon? |
| The City Beyond the Glass – Suzannah Rowntree What if the Twelve Dancing Princesses tried to steal your soul? |
| The Thirteenth Princess – Nina Clare* A short, sweet narrative of the “true” story behind the dancing princesses |
| Till Midnight – Aya Ling* A gender-bent, high-stakes retelling |
The Dark King and the Eternal Dance
The Dark King and the Eternal Dance: An Intertwined Retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses and of Hades and Persephone by Alesha Adamson (A Villain’s
The Silver Prince
The Silver Prince: A Twelve Dancing Princesses Retelling by Lyndsey Hall (Once Upon a Prince book 7 ) Anders is the younger son of the king