Fairy Tale (Swendson)

Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie Drake danced with the fairies in the woods behind her grandparents' Louisiana home. But she closed the door to the fairy world and turned her back on the Fae when they tried to steal her little sister Emily. Fourteen years later, Sophie heads to New York City on a desperate mission. Emily, now an up-and-coming Broadway actress, has gone missing. Only Sophie suspects the Fae. Now Sophie has her work cut out for her. Emily's abduction is part of a larger plot involving the missing Queen of the fairy realm. An upstart fairy is making a bid to assume control of the entire Realm, unite the fairies, and become master over the human world. To free her sister, Sophie must derail this power scheme and find the true Queen of the Realm. That's a lot for a small-town ballet teacher to tackle, but with the unlikely aid of her sometimes flighty sister, a pair of elderly shopkeepers with a secret, a supremely lazy (but surprisingly knowledgeable) bulldog, and a wounded police detective searching for his own missing person, she just might prevail – if she can force herself to confront her own past and face her true nature.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown – especially the crown of the fairy realm… Sophie Drake has made a promise, and she never breaks her word. She will free Michael Murray's long-lost wife from the fairy realm even if her intensifying feelings for him make it the most painful thing she's ever done. But Sophie is running out of time. Dark fae forces are stirring, threatening the human world. To make matters worse, humans are being cast out of the Realm, whether or not they want to leave, and the shock from these sudden evictions can even prove fatal. It's only a matter of time before it happens to Michael's wife. All this in the name of the fairy queen. Stunned, Sophie knows this is impossible because she's the queen. She won the throne fair and square, through trials and blood. Now she must find and fight an impostor for a crown she never wanted in order to save both the Realm and the human world.

Dancing on Ice … The holiday season in New York City is supposed to be magical, but it's not yet Thanksgiving, and what's happening isn't that kind of magic. The fairy world seems to be bleeding into the human world. Strange white horses carry people into the Central Park lake. Children are disappearing from their beds. Unearthly snow flurries pepper the air while odd pockets of summer appear randomly in Central Park. There's even a suspicious wave of injuries among Broadway dancers and ballerinas, who feel like they've danced all night. Noticing this, outside enchantresses are converging on New York to stop what they think is a fae incursion. Sophie Drake knows the fae aren't to blame, and she suspects that one of the enchantresses is up to no good, creating a situation that will put her in power. But revealing how she knows what's happening would mean revealing her own fae ties to the anti-fae enchantresses. Not that she has time to deal with any of this. She's been offered a major ballet role in The Nutcracker – a chance to revive her dance career. She can't miss a step onstage as she tries to thwart the power play and balance the realms without running afoul of the fae or the enchantresses.