Faraway Books in Order

The Faraway page is a little different from Stone's other series pages, because this is not a long-running saga with recurring characters and escalating plot. Faraway is a themed collection of short fairy-tale retellings by different authors, and Nic Stone's contribution is Hazel and Gray. So the best way to think about it is as a standalone dark fairy tale that sits inside a larger project rather than the first step in a big multi-book arc.

Short does not mean small.

Hazel and Gray remixes Hansel and Gretel for a present-day setting. Instead of lost children, Stone gives us two anxious young lovers who have already crossed a line just by being together. Hazel's stepfather, called the Monster, hangs over the story before the woods do. By the time Hazel and Gray wake up with dead phones and no clear way home, the danger feels split between the world they escaped and the one waiting in the trees.

Setting does a lot of work here. The forest is classic fairy-tale territory, but Stone keeps it close to modern teenage fear: curfews, secrecy, adults with too much power, and the bad decision that suddenly feels much bigger in the dark. Then comes the house in the clearing, grand and inviting in the way dangerous places often are in stories like this. If you know Hansel and Gretel, you will recognize some of the tension, but Stone is not simply repainting old beats. She is using them to talk about control, vulnerability, and the price of choosing your own path.

Because this is part of a collection, the appeal is mood as much as plot. The Faraway books take familiar fairy-tale bones and ask what they might say now, with contemporary language, contemporary fears, and less interest in neat moral lessons. Stone's entry is one of the darker ones. It moves quickly, keeps the cast tight, and lets dread do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Expect eerie, not cozy.

If you are deciding where to start, you can read Hazel and Gray on its own with no homework at all. There is no larger Nic Stone narrative you need to catch up on, and no required order beyond your own curiosity. Come to this series if you want a quick read that feels like a fairy tale after dark, with a modern teen pulse under it. The book is brief, but the atmosphere lingers.