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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
| Original language | |
| English | |
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| http://www.elizabethblackwellboo … | |
WHILE BEAUTY SLEPT
Charming fairy tale novel. The Brothers Grimm meet The Thirteenth Tale as the legend of Sleeping Beauty is turned on its head in this Gothic retelling of the real story behind the cherished childhood classic.
I am not the sort of person about whom stories are told. And with this, Elise Dalriss, who began life as an impoverished farmhand, pushes back the curtain on one of the most famous fairy tales of all time. Folk songs and storybooks say that Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on a spinning wheel and fell asleep for a hundred years, only to be awakened by true love’s kiss. But the truth is no fairy tale. As her great-granddaughter excitedly recounts a minstrel’s song about a beautiful princess asleep in a tower waiting to be awakened by a handsome prince, aged Elise opens the door to her past, ready to confront the history that inspired a legend.
Elise, the onetime companion to the real girl who slumbered, is the only one left who knows what actually happened so many years ago. As the memories start to unfold, Elise is plunged back into the magnificent, opulent world behind the palace walls that she left behind more than half a century earlier, a labyrinth where the secrets of her real father and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil. While the servants may be invisible to their masters, the masters are not invisible to the help. Elise saw it all—the beautiful queen who awoke each morning with tears on her pillow, the elderly spinster who in heartache shut herself away, the brother of the king second in line to the throne yet first in line for revenge, the princess yearning to be free, and the ambitious and frightening sister of the king who cannot accept the fact that she will never rule.
As Elise succumbs to the palace’s charms and riches, she may pay the ultimate price for abandoning her heart. Elise has guarded these secrets for a lifetime; WHILE BEAUTY SLEPT is her story. In this rich and compelling novel of love and terror, friendship and fate, we are introduced to a heroine of extraordinary determination—the true heart of a legend—who reveals what it really takes to reach happily ever after.
Elizabeth Blackwell holds a B.A. in History from NorthwesternUniversity and a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. In 2006, she won Harlequin’s “Everlasting Love” writing competition, and her first novel, The Letter, was published by Harlequin in 2007, followed by The House of Secrets (Harlequin, 2009).
Elise, the onetime companion to the real girl who slumbered, is the only one left who knows what actually happened so many years ago. As the memories start to unfold, Elise is plunged back into the magnificent, opulent world behind the palace walls that she left behind more than half a century earlier, a labyrinth where the secrets of her real father and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil. While the servants may be invisible to their masters, the masters are not invisible to the help. Elise saw it all—the beautiful queen who awoke each morning with tears on her pillow, the elderly spinster who in heartache shut herself away, the brother of the king second in line to the throne yet first in line for revenge, the princess yearning to be free, and the ambitious and frightening sister of the king who cannot accept the fact that she will never rule.
As Elise succumbs to the palace’s charms and riches, she may pay the ultimate price for abandoning her heart. Elise has guarded these secrets for a lifetime; WHILE BEAUTY SLEPT is her story. In this rich and compelling novel of love and terror, friendship and fate, we are introduced to a heroine of extraordinary determination—the true heart of a legend—who reveals what it really takes to reach happily ever after.
Elizabeth Blackwell holds a B.A. in History from NorthwesternUniversity and a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. In 2006, she won Harlequin’s “Everlasting Love” writing competition, and her first novel, The Letter, was published by Harlequin in 2007, followed by The House of Secrets (Harlequin, 2009).
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Published 2014-02-01 by Amy Einhorn Books |
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Published 2014-02-01 by Amy Einhorn Books |