Modern Retellings of Classic Novels

Book Summary

Set in the real-life neighborhood of Sugar Hill in Los Angeles during the 1940s, this modern retelling of The Great Gatsby follows the mysterious and glamorous James Mann, whose parties illuminate the night—but whose past is shrouded in secrets.

Charlie, a young veteran, comes to town at the invitation of his cousin, Marguerite, and is shocked to discover the world of L.A.’s Black elite. Marguerite’s cousin helps him land a promising career as an insurance agent.

Soon, Charlie is drawn into Mann’s glittering orbit. He discovers that behind the glamor, Mann is haunted by love and ambition, and is determined to reclaim something, or someone, that he lost.

Real historical events and figures are woven throughout the novel, including a court battle over racial covenants and real stars like Hattie McDaniel and Lena Horne.

Book Summary

Katarina didn’t have the family support or funding usually required to make it to the Olympics, but she knew becoming an Olympic figure skater was her destiny. When she has an instant connection with Heath, who was in the foster system, their chemistry and determination make them a formidable duo on the ice. Skating is the perfect escape from their difficult lives. The childhood sweethearts turn into crowd-favorite champions in the cutthroat world of ice dancing.

Their story takes a terrible turn after a shocking incident at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Ten years later, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public obsession with Kat and Heath and promises to uncover the truth about their final skate. Kat initially wants nothing to do with the documentary, but more than that, she doesn’t want anyone else to tell her story. It’s finally time to share everything, and the truth may be even more shocking than her fans anticipate.

Book Summary

This is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. Like Copperfield, Copperhead examines institutional poverty, but in contemporary Appalachia.

Born to a teenage single mother, Damon (soon to be known as Demon) braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, opioid addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.

Book Summary

This thought-provoking novel transports you back to 1840s Missouri, the world of Huckleberry Finn. However, in James, you’ll find the story reimagined from the point of view of the enslaved man, Jim, who prefers to be called James.

James overhears that he’s about to be sold to a man in New Orleans. If this happens, he’ll never see his wife and daughter again. Unable to accept that, he decides to hide on Jackson Island until he comes up with a long-term plan. The island is also the temporary home of Huck Finn, who is running from his abusive father.

Together, the unlikely duo is determined to make it down the Mississippi River to the elusive Free States. Along the way, they encounter the same trials Mark Twain included, but they feel different through the eyes of James.

Book Summary

This novel tells the story of Dorothy’s aunt, Emily Gale, moving from Chicago to Kansas long before her niece ever visits Oz.

In the mid-1920s, Emily and her husband, Henry, were living in the bustling city of Chicago while dreaming of a quieter American dream in Kansas. But leaving the city would also mean leaving Emily’s beloved sister, Annie, behind.

Nearly a decade later, Emily and Henry have forged a new life in the prairie town of Liberal, Kansas. When a tragedy strikes, their orphaned niece, Dorothy, lands on their doorstep.

Amid the drought and devastation of the Dust Bowl and the stock market crash, wide-eyed Dorothy’s new home becomes a place of uncertainty and danger. And when the past catches up with the present, and old secrets are exposed, Emily struggles to protect her niece.

Book Summary

Ayesha lives with her boisterous Muslim family in Toronto and dreams of being a poet. For now, however, she needs her teaching job in order to pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle.

She’s lonely, and it doesn’t help that her family is constantly reminding her that her younger cousin has received close to one hundred marriage proposals. Nonetheless, she doesn’t want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid, who is the opposite of everything she thinks she’s looking for. Despite being handsome and smart, he’s also conservative, judgmental, and dressed like he’s straight out of the seventh century.

When her cousin’s surprise engagement to Khalid is announced, Ayesha is forced to confront her irritating attraction to him. Things are further complicated when she hears some unsettling new gossip about his family.

Book Summary

Jane is new to town. Working as a broke dog-walker in a fancy, gated neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama, she can hide her real identity while lifting tchotchkes and jewelry right out from under the bored housewives who employ her without them even noticing.

But then she meets the most mysterious resident in Thornfield Estates. Eddie recently lost his wife, Bea, who drowned in a boating accident with her best friend. Jane doesn’t just see a grieving widower; she sees an opportunity. Eddie is rich and handsome and could offer her the protection she’s yearned for.

As Jane and Eddie begin to fall for one another, Jane feels increasingly haunted by the legacy of Bea. How can she live up to Eddie’s first wife with her rags-to-riches origin story and the wildly successful southern lifestyle brand that she built? And how long will Jane be able to hide her real identity?

Book Summary

This novel reimagines the woman who may have inspired Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

In the early 1800s, Scottish seamstress Isobel sails to the New World with her husband, Edward, who struggles with opium addiction. They hope to leave their debts and secrets behind, but soon after they arrive in Salem, Edward signs on as a ship’s medic, abandoning Isobel to fend for herself.

When Isobel meets Nathaniel Hawthorne, they grow close. One is a muse, and one is a dark storyteller, but which is which?

Book Summary

For 23 years, Emma has led a comfortable life on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. However, when she plays matchmaker for her sister, Margo, it results in a wedding, and Margo relocates downtown. Simultaneously, Emma’s friends seem to be traveling constantly, leaving her feeling bored and alone as her final year of graduate school looms.

Fortunately, she finds a potential new friend in Nadine, a newcomer to the city from Ohio. Emma is thrilled to give Nadine an NYC-style makeover as their friendship blossoms. Meanwhile, her childhood friend and neighbor, George Knightly, continues to dampen her spirits with his lectures on adulthood. Little does she know, this renewed attention from Knightly is because he can’t seem to get her off his mind.

Book Summary

Life is tough for single-mom Birdie in her small Alaskan town, where she brings her daughter with her to work at a roadside lodge. She’s getting by, but she misses the happier days of her youth when she roamed free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur is known as a recluse. Although he typically only appears in town during the change of the seasons, he brings Birdie’s daughter Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Even though most people avoid Arthur, Birdie finds herself falling for him and the wild land he inhabits.

Despite the warnings from those who care about them, Birdie decides that she and Emaleen will move into Arthur’s isolated mountain cabin. She envisions an idyllic, simple life off the grid, far from roads, telephones, and electricity. But she’ll soon discover that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she ever imagined.

Book Summary

In the aftermath of their father’s business scandal, sisters Jane and Celia Woodward are forced out of their San Francisco tea shop. Jane wants to stay put in the place she’s always called home, but Celia insists they move to Austin, Texas. Together with their kid sister, Margot, they head south for a fresh start.

Of course, moving to a new place doesn’t immediately solve all of their problems. Their living situation poses challenges, and tensions rise between Jane and Celia, exacerbated by Jane’s new love interest.

Jane is falling for an up-and-coming musician named Sean Willis. He has a knack for charming everyone he encounters – except for retired Marine Captain Callum Beckett. Callum thought he’d spend his entire career in the military, but after losing both his father and his left leg, he finds himself unexpectedly back in Texas.

Book Summary

Funke had a happy childhood growing up in Nigeria with her art teacher mother and her professor father. But following a tragedy, she’s sent to England – a place she only knows from her mother’s stories. The much-lauded estate she’s heard so much about is now dilapidated, and both the weather and the food leave a lot to be desired.

The only member of her mother’s family who doesn’t act cold and distant is her free-spirited cousin, Liv. Filled with warmth and kindness, Liv helps Funke heal. As the two girls grow into women, they become close friends, and Funke feels fiercely protective of Liv until another tragedy tears them apart.

In the shadow of their shared family history, each woman will struggle to find her way forward. Set in Lagos, Nigeria, and Somerset, England, over the course of two decades, the cousins – separated by country, misunderstanding, and ambition – will have to confront whether a family’s generational wrongs can ever be righted.

Book Summary

Revisit the glittering Jazz Age with this atmospheric novel that reimagines The Great Gatsby from the perspective of three alternating female voices. When Jay Gatsby was found shot dead in his swimming pool in August of 1922, and a local mechanic was found dead in the woods nearby, the police viewed it as an open-and-shut case of murder/suicide. 

But then a diamond hairpin is found in the bushes around the pool, and three women suddenly become suspects – Daisy Buchanan, who once thought she’d marry Gatsby; Jordan Baker, who has a secret that could derail both her golf career and her friendship with Daisy; and Catherine McCoy, a suffragette who’s fighting for women’s rights and to protect her own sister from a terrible marriage.

This is a tale of money and power, marriage and friendship, love and desire, and ultimately murder.

Book Summary

Catalina “Cat” Capuleta is an ambitious singer living in San Antonio. When she is given the opportunity to join Patricio Galán on his seven-week Mariachi concert tour, she knows it’s the chance of a lifetime. Patricio might be a superstar heartthrob, but he also turns out to be demanding and arrogant. He challenges Cat at every turn, but she’s determined to make him feel he’s met his match.

Cat is also determined not to fall for him because her one and only goal is her own success, so she can make her family proud. But when the duo hit the road, the chemistry is undeniable – even the audience can feel it.

Book Summary

This modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet is unexpectedly set in Alaska. When the main character, Helene, was young, she filled notebooks with her dreams of the perfect man. However, real life brought her a messy divorce. Now, she’s done with fantasies and moves to a small town in Alaska to write her novel.

However, life is full of twists, and she meets Sebastian, who is her childhood dream down to the smallest details. But Helene isn’t the only one with a past filled with broken hearts. Sebastian has his own secrets and broken heart.

Book Summary

Charlie greets the women in his family, including his wife and four daughters, by saying “Hello, Beautiful” and truly sees something special in each of them. Unfortunately, Charlie is resented by his wife, Rose, because he’s an alcoholic, which also impacts his ability to provide for the family.

Their oldest daughter, Julie, is smart and ambitious. When she meets William, whose family couldn’t be more different than her own, he’s at college on a basketball scholarship. For William, the sport has been his saving grace and a substitute for the love of family. At least until he meets Julie and her family embraces him in their family unit when they become a couple. Once that happens, the family refuses to give up on him.

While you’ll get some fall vibes when Julie heads to college, Hello Beautiful also follows the characters for nearly four decades. The book begins in the main character’s childhood, in the 1960s, and spans into their middle-aged years.

Book Summary

Simultaneously sad and uplifting, Nora and Kettle are two teenage neighbors, each facing their own hardships. Kettle is a Japanese American orphan trying to survive after a period of internment. Despite his young age of 17, he’s determined to help other orphans.

Nora has a much different life from the daughter of a prominent civil rights attorney. Everything looks privileged from the outside, but she endures abuse to protect her sister Frankie behind closed doors. When Nora is nearly killed, her path crosses with Kettle’s, and they learn to lean on each other.

Book Summary

This novel imagines what Mary Bennet’s life would have looked like if the bookish, intellectual middle daughter had taken a different path from the one laid out for her in Pride and Prejudice.

Like Austen’s other heroines, Mary will learn that she can only expect joy after she throws off the false expectations and accepts who she really is. While Mary’s destiny diverges from that of her sisters and does not involve broad acres of landed gentry, it does involve a man. Mary must decide whether he’s genuinely the right one for her.

Book Summary

Dee settled in Kansas to attend graduate school and live with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em after her globe-trotting mother passed away. However, now she needs a quick escape after a humiliating public breakup with a faculty member, which felt like a tornado ripped apart her life. The Trinity College writing program is just the fresh start she needs!

In Ireland, she meets three new companions – seemingly brainless (but charming and hot) Sam Clery, heartless Tim Woodman, and fiercely loyal Reeti Kaur. With her new friends and the incredible women mentoring her in the writing program, Dee experiences a year of opportunities and changes. With everyone’s help, she’s ready to face her fears and apply all the lessons she has learned along the way.

Book Summary

Sixty-somethings Julie Roseman and Romeo Cacciamani own competing flower shops in Boston. Not only are they business rivals, but their families have hated each other forever (though no one seems to remember why). 

So imagine their surprise when Julie and Romeo bump into each other at a business seminar and feel an intense and unexpected attraction to one another. They are ready to put the long-standing family feud aside, but not everyone is eager to see them have a happy ending. Romeo’s octogenarian mother, Julie’s nosey ex-husband, and all their grown children are determined to keep them apart.

This modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet (minus the tragic ending) is honest, witty, and filled with snappy dialogue. If you can’t get enough of these two older protagonists, you’re in luck because they have a second story called Julie and Romeo Get Lucky.

Book Summary

When Circe is born, she is neither powerful like her father nor alluring like her mother. She must turn to mortals for companionship, which leads to the discovery that she does have power – witchcraft.

Zeus becomes threatened by Circe and banishes her to an island where she is able to practice her skills and tame wild beasts. She also crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus, and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

Even with her abilities, it’s dangerous for a woman who stands alone and unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods.

Book Summary

This young adult fiction set on Long Island in the Roaring Twenties is a jazz age retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. After getting kicked out of boarding school, 17-year-old Beatrice goes to her uncle’s estate on Long Island, where her cousin runs a struggling speakeasy in the basement. Told from multiple points of view, this is the story of six teenagers whose lives intertwine during a summer of romantic misunderstandings and dangerous deals.

Described as “hilariously clever and utterly charming,” this YA novel set in the 1920s is filled with quick and hilarious banter that will keep readers of all ages turning the pages.

Book Summary

This fun rom-com series currently includes five retellings of classic Disney stories, each written by a different author. Each book in the series reads as a standalone, so if you’re looking for a light fun read, choose the novel connected to your favorite Disney princess.

Cinderella Retelling – In Book 1, If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy, plus-sized Cindy has just graduated with a degree in shoe design but is forced to work for her stepmother, who is the executive producer of a popular reality dating show.

Beauty & the Beast Retelling – Book 2, By the Book by Jasmine Guillory, introduces us to Isabella (the modern-day Belle) as she’s beginning her publishing career as an editorial assistant. It’s not easy being the only Black employee at her publishing house. When she hears her boss complaining about a beastly high-profile author who’s missed his manuscript deadline, she sees the opportunity to finally earn the promotion she knows she deserves.

Little Mermaid Retelling – Book 3, Kiss the Girl by Zoraida Córdova, features Ariel del Mar as a world-famous singer who headlines a band called Siren Seven with her sisters. To see her onstage in her iconic red wig and sequined costumes, you’d think she’s the girl who has everything – but lately, she’s been wanting more. After wrapping up their farewell tour, Ariel wants to finally slow down and enjoy a normal life, but her record executive father has other plans for her. Defying his wishes, she sneaks out to a concert in Brooklyn for a night of incognito fun where she meets dreamy lead singer Eric and sneaks away with him for the summer.

Tangled Retelling – In book 4, Tangled Up in You, our favorite author duo, Christina Lauren, reimagines Rapunzel as a young woman who’s been raised on a homestead off the grid. At 22, Ren has never held an iPhone, searched Google, or followed a crush on social media… but she’s read hundreds of books and taught herself to paint. When she gets accepted to her dream college, she’s ready for her life to finally begin. There, she meets Fitz, who has his life all mapped out until Ren puts his plans in jeopardy. Paired up for an assignment in their immunology seminar, the two suddenly find themselves on a road trip that leads them in unexpected directions.

Mulan Retelling – With a publication date of June 3, 2025, book 5, Worth Fighting For by Jesse Q. Sutanto, sets Mulan in the male-dominated field of private equity, where she has to work twice as hard to gain respect among the finance bros. When her father, the head of the company, falls ill in the midst of an important acquisition with a company known for its very masculine brand, she takes over the negotiations, posing as him in the email correspondence. It’s going well until she’s forced to take a face-to-face meeting that leads to an invitation to a week-long retreat filled with axe-throwing, cattle wrangling, and mastering butchering techniques.