Spring is in the air in the Northern Hemisphere, and The Fairy Tale Magazine has a roundup of garden and fairy inspired novels to plant the seeds of new life of your book shelf. Read on for book recommendations that will bring light and color to your early spring days!
No spring reading list is complete without The Secret Garden, the classic novel about three children who restore a garden and heal a family. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s heartwarming tale has been turned into a movie and a musical, and it remains a centerpiece of Children’s Literature.
Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen, tells the story of the Waverly family, a group of women with a luscious garden famous for its apple tree which bears prophetic fruit. This is the perfect book to read while you sit in the sun and watch your own garden grow.
Hawthorn trees are at the center of Melissa Harrison’s novel At Hawthorn Time, a heartbreaking exploration of love and loss. Set during a spring month when the Hawthorn trees in rural England bloom, this novel explores the way that modern people try to find belonging in the natural landscape.
Something in the Woods Loves You is a poetic memoir by Jarod K. Anderson, a poet who uses the comforts of nature to heal his own depression. This book is a love letter to the natural world sure to be enjoyed by readers of books like Braiding Sweetgrass.
If you would like to learn more about the healing properties of springtime flowers and plants give The Sacred Herbs of Spring: Magical, Healing, and Edible Plants to Celebrate Beltane a try. Ellen Evert Hopman explores how to identify, harvest, and use earth’s bounty to commemorate the coming of spring and summer.
House of Roots and Ruin by Erin A. Craig continues the story of the Thaumas sisters (from House of Salt and Sorrows) with an emphasis on the beautiful and poisonous plants that grow in a lush fairy tale landscape. This beautifully written book is a unique retelling of Bluebeard with gorgeous spring vibes, and is sure to enchant those who love gardening and fairy tales. You can read my review here.
Faeries are synonymous with springtime, and Hazel Gaynor’s The Cottingley Secret explores what happens when a young girl becomes fascinated with Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, the children who claimed to photograph fairies in 1917. This is a beautifully written and researched book that will help you see the fairy world in a whole new light.
If you want to delve even deeper into faerie lore, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett is the perfect way to invite the fair folk to your reading corner. This novel about a Cambridge professor finding love while compiling an encyclopaedia of faerie lore will enchant you!
Heather Fawcett also breathes new life into the classic spring story Anne of Green Gables in her novel The Grace of Wild Things. A witch living in the middle of the woods takes the protagonist on as an apprentice, teaching her to find the beauty in nature, magic, and poetry. Review coming soon to The Fairy Tale Magazine!
Finally, no spring reading list is complete without Sarah J. Maas’ best selling novel A Court of Thorns and Roses, the Beauty and the Beast retelling that launches a series of five books about the world of the Fae. The novel takes place largely in The Spring Court, a fairy land filled with beautiful flowers and unseen dangers. Happy Spring!
Kelly Jarvis is the Contributing Writer for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Her work has also been featured in A Moon of One’s Own, Baseball Bard, Blue Heron Review, Corvid Queen, Eternal Haunted Summer, Forget Me Not Press, Mermaids Monthly, The Chamber Magazine, The Magic of Us, and the World Weaver Press Anthology Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. Her first novella, Selkie Moon, comes out in 2025. You can connect with her on Facebook (Kelly Jarvis, Author) or Instagram (@kellyjarviswriter) or find her at https://kellyjarviswriter.com/
Cover Image from Pixabay