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by Mercedes Lackey

ISBN: 037380315X
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Language: English
Publisher: Luna; Original edition (June 29, 2010)
Pages: 352
Category: United States
Subcategory: Literature
Rating: 4.8
Votes: 683
Size Fb2: 1232 kb
Size ePub: 1677 kb
Size Djvu: 1983 kb
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Mercedes Lackey United States English

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The Sleeping Beauty is a novel by Mercedes Lackey, published in 2010 as the fifth book of the Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series.

The Sleeping Beauty is a novel by Mercedes Lackey, published in 2010 as the fifth book of the Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series. As in the previous book, The Snow Queen, characters from earlier books are either mentioned or appear as secondary characters.

Five Hundred Kingdoms Series. 9 primary works, 13 total works. Shelve A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms Volume 3: The Sleeping BeautyBeauty and the Werewolf. Book 1. The Fairy Godmother. In the land of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, if yo. ore.

MERCEDES LACKEY'S magical A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series continues with a captivating new adventur. eavy is the head-and the eyelids-of the princess who wears the crow. n Rosamund's realm.

Lackey’s satisfying fairy tale will captivate fantasy readers with its . A delightful fairy tale revamp. Lackey ensures that familiar stories are turned on their ear with amusing results.

Lackey’s satisfying fairy tale will captivate fantasy readers with its well-imagined world, and romance fans, who will relish the growing relationship and sexy scenes. Appealing characters faced with challenging circumstances keep the plot lively. lenty of twists and laugh. ost of the fun comes from finding all the fairy tale in-jokes peppering the pages.

MERCEDES LACKEY Beauty and the Werewolf Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author MERCEDES LACKEY and her Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms The Fairy Godmother Lackey’s satisfying fairy tale will captivate fantasy readers with its well-imagined world, and romance fans, who will relish the growing relationship and sexy scenes. Booklist One Good Knight Delivers the lite. Beauty and the Werewolf. Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author MERCEDES LACKEY. and her Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms.

MERCEDES LACKEY'S magical A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series continues with a captivating new adventure. Heavy is the head-and the eyelids-of the princess who wears the crown. In Rosamund's realm, happiness hinges on a few simple beliefs. For every princess there's a prince.

A series of fantasy books, mostly light romance, by Mercedes Lackey. In the realm known as the "Five Hundred Kingdoms," a force known as "The Tradition" tries to force people to live out "traditional" stories from fairytales, fables, and even bawdy bar songs. The books center on the Fairy Godmothers. These women have huge amounts of magical power as a result of the Tradition trying to force them into a role that either circumstances or their own personalities made impossible.

If it had been possible to exclude The Tradition from every one of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, she would have done so in an instant. That powerful, yet completely unintelligent force of magic that the Fairy Godmothers called 'The Tradition' quite literally made stories come to life

The Scottish fairy tale Katie Crackernuts, as it happened in the 500 Kingdoms. A poetic retelling of the wonderful story "One Good Knight" from the Five Hundred Kingdoms series. In which: - Two stepsisters get along just fine, thank you; - A prince succeeds in writing good poetry, Godmother Elena has concerns about a coworker, A lot of people on a long trip speak in (I hope) accents, A unicorn shows up quite late in the game and fails to advance the plot at ALL, the Tradition manifests itself more physically.

She had been in charge of the Kingdom of Eltaria for three hundred years now.

If I can be half as witty and funny on my best days as he is on his worst, I will be a happy woman. Here we have a truly fractured set of fairy talesemdash when Sleeping Beauty gets hijacked by Snow White, then punted right off the field by the Siegfried saga. All three have sleeping princesses in them, which is how they manage to get crossed up, but how theystay entangled is what made this so much of giggle to write. She had been in charge of the Kingdom of Eltaria for three hundred years now.

Heavy is the head—and the eyelids—of the princess who wears the crown…In Rosamund's realm, happiness hinges on a few simple beliefs:For every princess there's a prince.The king has ultimate power.Stepmothers should never be trusted.And bad things come to those who break with Tradition….But when Rosa is pursued by a murderous huntsman and then captured by dwarves, her beliefs go up in smoke. Determined to escape and save her kingdom from imminent invasion, she agrees to become the guinea pig in one of her stepmother's risky incantations—thus falling into a deep, deep sleep.When awakened by a touchy-feely stranger, Rosa must choose between Tradition and her future…between a host of eligible princes and a handsome, fair-haired outsider. And learn the difference between being a princess and ruling as a queen.The moral of the story? Sometimes a princess has to create her own happy endings….

Comments:

Granijurus

It starts out by turning a classic fairy tale situation (widowed King about to be targeted by Evil Stepmother-to-be) and turns it upside down. Then it does the same upsy-daisy routine with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and the Ring of the Nibelungs. (The penultimate scene is an especial hoot for anyone even passingly familiar with Wagner's operas! Yes *of course* 'Hilda would have a stentorian voice, and too bad we don't see more of her!)

It's also a very good thing that the Forest Bird who attaches herself to Siegfried is not the bird-brain that she is in Wagner's opera - she actually gives good advice, and he has the common sense to take it.

Leopold is a delight, and some of his ancestor's booted, talking cat's tomcattish ways seem to have rubbed off on him.

And then there's Rosa (never mind the cover, she's a blonde), who manages to get herself out of everything The Tradition tries to force her into, sometimes with outside assistance.

And the mastermind behind almost all of it is a for-real Fairy Godmother - who gets a surprise romance of her own (no, *not* the King - that's just a marriage of convenience,and The Tradition terminates it with extreme prejudice).

Delicious, and it holds up even after multiple re-readings (which can't be said for *every* Lackey book).

HyderCraft

As The Tradition forces Godmother Lily's gold-rich kingdom towards catastrophe, she desperately tries to protect Princess Rosamund and her people by setting up trials to win the Princess' hand.

Plot/Storyline: 4.75 stars
When she doesn't get distracted into preaching mode, there are few who can match Lackey for sheer storytelling, as she demonstrates again in this book combining elements from several different fairy tales. From the fast start, the reader is never given a chance to draw breath as the plot-driven tale rocks from one danger to the next. There is the usual slight disjointedness as Lackey tends to write several sequential stories rather than a single unified storyline, but each story is enjoyable on its own, and Lily's desperate attempts to come up with suitable trials are sheer genius. There are a few minor plot holes. It didn't make sense that an evil sorcerer is able to hide from experienced godmother Lily but sets inept spells to control Rosa. I'm not convinced that the final great plan to protect Eltaria would be less expensive than war, although it was certainly creative! The ending was a little disappointing, but believable and consistent with the existing canon. However, these quibbles don't change the fact that the story gripped me almost immediately and never let go. There are very few series that I will buy immediately, even by authors I generally like; the turning-classics-sideways Five Hundred Kingdoms is one of them, and this is a worthy addition to an enjoyable and satisfying collection. About the only people I can think of who wouldn't enjoy this book would be those who don't like fantasy of any kind.

Characters: 5 stars
The main characters are well-drawn, and their pure goodness (as well as the pure evil of the bad guys) is believable because it is required by The Tradition. But even within those limitations, Lackey was able to make them more interesting. Rosa is eager to learn self-defense. Siegfried's thews of iron cover an actual brain, and his aid to animals is classic Hero behavior as well as foreshadowing. Godmother Lily combines Fae cleverness and human determination with a natural despair at being able to manipulate The Tradition to adequately protect her kingdom. The secondary characters include a lisping unicorn, whose dopey behavior around virgins again lends a delightful comic note, as well as obnoxious dwarves and a smart-mouthed mirror servant. Lackey also managed a character who had both good and bad qualities, and who the reader couldn't anticipate would be a help or hindrance in any particular situation. As usual, some characters did not behave as a fairy tale reader would expect!

Writing style: 5 stars
Dialogue moves along well and displays distinct voices for the characters. Descriptions are appropriate and left me feeling I could see the dwarves' hovel or find my way around the castle.

Gardataur

The Sleeping Beauty is the 5th book in the 500 Kingdom series, and is extremely enjoyable. While not a book I would recommend for first-time readers of the series, it adds more depth into the world that have always left you wondering. The 500 Kingdoms is about the Godmother Lily as much as it is about Princess Rosa, and Seigfried. Lily is a fun Godmother to read about, as she's been watching over her specific Kingdom for 300 years already, and is used to manipulating The Tradition into doing what she wants.

The Sleeping Beauty is about what happens when Rosa and Lily try to thwart The Tradition (a force of magic which is determined to see the classic Faerie Tales come true) and create their own happy ending. Lily has been Godmother of the Kingdom for generations, and she is determined to avoid some of the less pleasant endings for Rosa, and to keep the Kingdom from going to war with any or all its 5 neighbors. In order to prevent this from happening, Lily invites Princes and adventurers from all over the world, and using them as Royal Hostages. To gain from this for the Princes, is Rosa's hand. Her Kingdom is extremely wealthy, and any Prince would benefit from becoming it's King. Joining Lily and Rosa in the cast are Seigfried -- a Prince who is set on defying his own predestined path in The Tradition, and Leopold who is a second son cursed with being too likable.

Throughout the novel, characters from earlier books in the 500 Kingdoms are casually mentioned, as the series rarely takes a direct sequel approach, and more commonly just takes place within the same world. Characters from traditional faerie tales also make appearances here and there, such as The Frog Prince, and a twist on the seven dwarves.

I always have a lot of fun reading books from this universe, and they are a good light and funny read. Mercedes Lackey rarely disappoints, and I would recommend this to any fan of retold Faerie tales, with just a recommendation to start earlier in the series for those new to it.