Thornspell (review)

Crown prince Sigismund is tired of being sequestered in a castle far away from his father and the court, but he is fascinated by local legends of the ancient wood that borders royal lands. People are forbidden to enter the wood, which is said to have a castle at its heart, and none can say whether the occupants of the mysterious castle are friend or foe; Sigismund himself encounters a lady through the castle gate who is clearly gifted with power as well as beauty. When Sigismund is finally allowed to come to court, he takes part in a stag hunt that claims the life of one of his retainers, and his grief distracts him so that he finds himself captured and imprisoned in a fairy hill, at the mercy of the evil Margravine zu Malvolin, the lady whom he had encountered at the castle. The Margravine must control Sigismund because he is destined to break the hundred-year-old enchantment on the castle in the wood, where a princess and her kingdom sleep behind a thorny veil. Once the enchantment is broken, the sorceress will be unable to bind the human and fairy worlds together, and her power will be gone forever. This "Sleeping Beauty" retelling skillfully expands the basic story of an uninvited guest seeking revenge into a full-bodied tale of ambition and romance. Additional richness accrues from the prince's having magical powers of his own, and the loopholes in the sleeping counter-spell that allow prince and princess to meet before her awakening are clever indeed. The charming modifications hang together nicely with the traditional elements of the story, and romance readers as well as fairy-tale aficionados will delight in this deft handling of the tale.