Zel: An MM Romance Fairytale Retelling

An assassin in disguise is not meant to fall for their target... but Rapunzel’s life has never gone as planned.

The walled off tower in the wood, home to an immortal sorcerer, has stood for centuries, with bodies frequently found outside of it, sucked of their very souls. But the rapunzel, the lettuce, that grows around the tower’s base is said to be the source of the sorcerer’s immortality, often tempting thieves to steal it.

When the sorcerer's next trespassers are a man and woman who long to wed, he spares them, recognizing that the woman is pregnant, but gives them a choice: die there or take the lettuce and live under his conditions. The woman is to eat the lettuce and only her until the child is born. Then only the child. When the child reaches adulthood, she will be given to the sorcerer as his betrothed, at which point she will stay with him for one month to determine her worth as a bride.

With no other choice, the thieves agree—only for their babe to be born a boy.

Named for the very rapunzel his parents coveted, Zel is raised to pretend to be a girl. But he will be no bride. He will use his month in the tower to discover the true source of the sorcerer’s immortality, so he might slay his would-be bridegroom and claim the tower’s treasures for the Thieves Guild.

What Zel does not know is that the sorcerer, Ulrich, has plans of his own, and their journey of secrets, seduction, and identity might lead to revelations neither expect.

Each book set in the GriMM fairytale world can be read as a standalone and contains its own Happily Ever After story. Though you’ll definitely want to read each one, as the tales are connected to each other in multiple magical ways, this story features possessive mutual pining from enemies to lovers, with secret motives, crossdressing that becomes gender identity discovery, and a guaranteed happy for now ending.