Waking Beauty by Sarah E Morin
Published 2015 by Enclave Publishing, 467 pages
Genre: Christian fantasy, suitable for 12 and up

What if Sleeping Beauty refused to wake up? This book plays with that question. It fleshes out Sleeping Beauty as Princess Brierly, dreaming for 100 years, many of the dreams tainted by the presence of the evil fairy who lured her to the spindle.

When Prince Arpien kisses her awake, she thinks he’s just another figment of the dream world. She’s reckless and heedless, actually downright rude. Besides, he looks just like his ancestor who was once her fiance. So she consistently calls him by the wrong name.

It’s enough to make a guy give up. But Arpien, who has motivations of his own, doesn’t back down easily.

What do I think? This book was a little hard for me to get into because a fairy tale re-imagined with humor just didn’t seem “true.” But then what fairy tale is true? After a little while I got into it though and enjoyed the story. I was able to empathize with these cardboard characters whom the author managed to bring to life. Four stars.