New Book: While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell

While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell was released in late February and has managed to get more mainstream buzz than many fairy tale inspired novels with reviews in places like People magazine. Library Journal also gave it a starred review and most of the reviews are strong for it, including reader ones. The most common comparison is to Gregory Maguire while the book description references The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel. I think this one will continue to benefit from it's Sleeping Beauty motifs as we approach the film release of Maleficent, too.

Has anyone here read it yet?

Book description:

Historical fiction at its best — The Brothers Grimm meets The Thirteenth Tale

I am not the sort of person about whom stories are told.

And so begins Elise Dalriss’s story. When she hears her great-granddaughter recount a minstrel’s tale about a beautiful princess asleep in a tower, it pushes open a door to the past, a door Elise has long kept locked. For Elise was the companion to the real princess who slumbered—and she is the only one left who knows what actually happened so many years ago. Her story unveils a labyrinth where secrets connect to an inconceivable evil. As only Elise understands all too well, the truth is no fairy tale.