Rose & Thorn

by Sarah Prineas

Overview

This beauty isn’t sleeping! Discover the true story of Sleeping Beauty in Sarah Prineas’s bold YA fairy-tale retelling filled with thrilling adventure and romance, perfect for fans of the Lunar Chronicles and the Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy.

After the spell protecting her is destroyed, Rose seeks safety in the world outside the valley she had called home. She’s been kept hidden all her life to delay the three curses she was born with—curses that will put her into her own fairy tale and a century-long slumber. Accompanied by Griff, the handsome and mysterious Watcher, and Quirk, his witty and warmhearted partner, Rose tries to escape from the ties that bind her to her story. But will the path they take lead them to freedom, or will it bring them straight into the fairy tale they are trying to avoid?

Set in the world of Sarah Prineas’s Ash & Bramble fifty years later, Rose & Thorn is a powerful retelling of the classic “Sleeping Beauty” tale where the characters fight to find their own happy ever after.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062337993
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/18/2016
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	832,724
File size:	963 KB
Age Range:	13 Years

About the Author

Sarah Prineas lives in the midst of the corn in rural Iowa, where she wrangles dogs, cats, chickens, and goats, goes on lots of hikes, and finds time to write. She is also the author of Ash & Bramble, a retelling of Cinderella. She is married to a physics professor and has two kids. You can visit Sarah online at www.sarah-prineas.com.

Editorial Reviews

08/01/2016
Gr 8 Up—Fifty years after the end of Ash & Bramble, the crafty machine known as Story threatens to overtake other lives. When Rose was born, bearing a triple curse and a rosebud birthmark on her wrist, she was taken by the Penwitch to be raised in the forest by Shoe. Sixteen years later, they are both dead and the spell that protected Rose is broken. Leaving home, she follows a path to the City, which is governed by the harsh Lord Protector, who has banned all storytelling, lest it revive the evil Story. There, Rose meets two Watchers—short and friendly Quirk, and Griff, the brooding son of the Lord Protector—who realize immediately that she is cursed. When her curses cannot be broken, the Watchers help Rose escape the City with the assistance of a resistance group called the Breakers. But wily Story leads them to a castle where Princess Rose is reunited with her strangely distant parents, and she must fight the curse of touching a spindle and sleeping for 100 years. Prineas once again weaves a fascinating narrative of magic, adventure, and romance and breathes new life into the "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale. The characters are memorable and distinct, and their backstories are gradually told, revealing links to the previous volume. VERDICT Although this book capably stands on its own, it is a must-read for fans of the first installment and is highly recommended for all lovers of romantic fantasy.—Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT

School Library Journal

2016-06-01
Prineas is back with another high-concept fairy-tale retelling, this time tackling "Sleeping Beauty." Raised in isolation by old Shoe (from Ash & Bramble, 2015), thrice-cursed Rose has gone 16 years never passing the magical boundary that keeps her safe. When the barrier fails, it signals that Story is rising again and Rose's destiny can no longer be fully avoided. Rose leaves home and finds her way to the grim, closed society of the City, where she meets handsome Griff and quippy Quirk, both secretly related to the larger machinations of Story. The companions are then drawn through the Forest into Story's version of "Sleeping Beauty," where only their combined strength can stop the relentless coming of the spindle and sleep curses. Prineas aims high, with conceptually fascinating scaffolding—Story as enemy, individuals forced to play out hackneyed tales and destroyed in the process—but it never amounts to more than just another retelling; curse three, beauty, when lifted, leaves Rose a lovely blonde; the narrative is circumvented by a kiss from a handsome hero; and in the end, it's mostly the same old story, truncated in some parts and lengthened in others, with charming but underdeveloped white principals and a should-be-fascinating villain that makes no sense. Pleasant but slight and, unfortunately, less than it might have been. (Fantasy. 11-15)

Kirkus Reviews