’One for the kids? I think not’: Aussie global bestseller Kell Woods on one of fiction’s hottest trends

Fantasy and romantasy (shorthand: dragons and sex) are so hot right now, with fans flocking to yet another twist on the genre: mashed-up fairytales for the grown-ups.

Magic rings and fairy wings. Mermaid tails and dragon scales.

Humans have always loved shiny things, and fairytales are full of shimmer: treasure, enchantments, glass slippers and – a nod to the controversy-generating upcoming live-action remake of Snow White– magic mirrors.

These stories are old – very old – yet they appear in the books, films and series we devour again and again. The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Fourth Wing, and every Disney movie you’ve ever seen.

Why are we fascinated with these tales? Why can’t we get over them? I think it’s for three reasons. One, they are, to be blunt, great yarns. Two, there is something magical about the words once upon a time. And three, they are the stories of our childhoods.

‘One for the kids? I think not’ … Kell Woods says traditional stories are getting racy again, after being made ‘cute’ by the Victorians.

Most of us would, at some time in our early lives, have had fairy tales read to us. Before bed, perhaps, when the world – so much bigger and more dangerous back then – was winding down for the night. Darkness was coming, the moon was rising, but safely indoors, fed and warm, the sharing of a story with a beloved adult was the ultimate comfort.

Don’t believe me? Go into any bookstore or library and you’ll see new editions of fairy tales – often with much-needed modernisations – on the shelves. Children love being read to. And we, as adults, seem to love returning to the strange, wondrous (and often frightening) dreamscapes of our childhoods.

It’s interesting, then, that today’s re-tellings – so many of them pop-culture smash-hits, on page and screen – are most definitely not for children. Take Game of Thrones. We have kings and princesses, witches and dragons – all the hallmarks of a fairy tale – but we also have sex, gore and tragedy. (Red Wedding, anyone?) And then, of course, we have Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros’ phenomenally successful romantasy series. The books are known for their spiciness – Cosmopolitan summed it up best, describing Onyx Storm as “hotter than dragon fire.” One for the kids? I think not.

Moving from dragons to fairies, Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series is also wildly successful. It follows a young woman who enters the beautiful but dangerous fairy realm, and draws uponBeauty and the Beast, the Scottish ballad ‘Tam Lin’ and Northern European mythology. Like Fourth Wing, this series is known for its spiciness. This might surprise you (fairies are little and cute, not human-sized and hot, right?) but in truth, fairies have been seducing humans for as long as we’ve been telling stories about them – the Tuatha de Danaan of Celtic lore, for example, or Oberon and Titania from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was the fairy-obsessed Victorians who made them cute, reshaping the old tales through artwork, stories and plays, the way we’d polish up a precious stone to make certain facets shine.

Nowadays, fairy tales are more popular than ever. New re-tellings are being published all the time – including my own novels, After the Forest, aHansel & Gretel retelling which published simultaneously in the US, UK and Australia and became a Sunday Times bestseller, and Upon A Starlit Tide, a mash-up of The Little Mermaid and Cinderella, which is out this week. It’s another iteration of two very old tales I loved as a child, both as storybooks and Disney animations.

‘Next to be repolished’ … Rachel Zegler in the upcoming 2025 movie Snow White. Photo courtesy of Disney.

More recently, they’ve have been re-made as live action films, with, of course, some welcome changes, as well as some beloved and familiar motifs. (Those glass slippers! Perfection.) It seems that I – like so many others – just can’t get enough of fairy tales.

Next to be repolished is the Snow White re-make; and whileOnyx Storm holds glittering sway over BookTok and we collectively swoon over the latest iteration of Wicked, it’s plain to see that folklore, mythology and fairy tales are here to stay. They are, at the risk of sounding clichéd, tales as old as time – and now is their time to sparkle in theatres and bookstores once again.

Upon A Starlit Tide by Kell Woods is out now, published by Voyager.

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‘A mash-up of two very old tales I loved’ … Upon A Starlit Tide.

Originally published as ’One for the kids? I think not’: Aussie global bestseller Kell Woods on one of fiction’s hottest trends