Book-type help needed

[ysobel]

So someone I know irl -- yes I'm *literally* asking for a friend haha is trying to find examples of a specific trope in traditionally published novel; she's working on a novel query and needs comparable examples to show it's sellable. Specifically, she's looking for "retelling an established story but with a point of divergence from the original". Which is a decent fanfic trope but she obviously needs published stuff.

Therefore she is desperately seeking media recommendations that hit as many as possible of the following:

• Required: within the last 5 years, more recent the better
• Highly desired: traditionally-published adult-targeted novel.
  • Also acceptable: non-text media such as movies, traditionally published YA novels.
  • Not usable: anything independently published.
• Highly desired: Point-of-Departure (PoD) from classic fiction or fairytale.
  • Acceptable: PoD from real history (i.e. alt-history rather than AU).
• Highly desired: single PoD, also acceptable (especially the more of the other points it hits): other form of retelling, such as 'but what if it was gay' or 'but what if it was on a boat' or whatever

She also says:

So what appears to be axiomatic so far, and really hoping book fandom can prove me wrong, is that for "X but what if Y?",
- if X = real history, valid for all Y but was published at least 20 years ago and has a 75% chance of being too problematic to comp
- if X = a Jane Austen book, valid for all Y but is independently published
- for all other X, the only solution is Y=elves

Counterexamples?

Please feel free to share this request so more people see it!

Comments

[pauamma]

Did she already check https://tvtropes.org/ (which is no longer about TV only but about narrative tropes in general)?

[ysobel]

Not sure, I'll suggest that, thanks :) (I'd check for her myself but tvtropes is dangerous)

[shannnon_foraker]

What's wrong with ending up with a lot of tabs of funny tropes?

[connie]

I have a book out from the library right now called Most Ardently, which is a retelling of Pride & Prejudice where one of the main protagonists is trans and the other is queer. It came out in 2024 and, as far as I can tell, was traditionally published. It also seems to be a part of a "remixed classics" series where each book is written by a different author but where each one is a more diverse/inclusive retelling of a classic.

[ysobel]

Ooooooooh perfect! I've passed that on, thanks <3 Also hello I have a bunch of books I need to check out, whee

[azurelunatic]

I was thinking about Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver, but that's definitely elves.