The Society of Roses Books in Order

The Society of Roses is a smaller corner of Melanie Karsak's bibliography, at least for now, but it fits neatly beside her other fairy-tale work. The series currently centers on Spindles and Thorns, a Sleeping Beauty retelling, and the title alone gives you a good sense of the mood. This is not a bright nursery-tale version of the story. It leans toward romance, danger, curses, and a darker fantasy atmosphere.

Because the series is still slim, it makes sense to think of it less as a sprawling saga and more as a doorway into a particular flavor of Karsak. If you like the way she retools old stories in her steampunk books, but want something less mechanical and a little more haunted, this is the lane to try. The emphasis is on mythic stakes and emotional pull rather than shared-world sprawl.

A Sleeping Beauty retelling naturally comes with certain expectations, sleep, fate, thorny barriers, enchanted danger, and the question of who gets to decide how a story ends. Karsak's style usually works well with that material because she is interested in women making choices inside systems that were built to contain them. Even when she uses a very familiar fairy-tale frame, she tends to push against passivity.

The local series name also suggests a more romantic, perhaps more secretive fairy-tale branch of her work, one that can hold stories tied together by mood, symbol, or loose thematic kinship rather than one long plot. That makes Spindles and Thorns feel approachable. You do not need a long reading commitment to step in.

If what you want from Karsak is a fairy tale with a little more shadow around the edges, this is a good place to look. Expect atmosphere, old magic, and a retelling that knows flowers and thorns usually grow on the same stem.