by Regina Doman
Again, I owe much to my violence experts, Andrew O’Neill, Ben Hatke, and Nick Marmalejo, whose knowledge of the minutiae of weapons and martial arts continues to amaze me.
While acknowledging the contributions of all the above, I want to claim any errors contained in the book as my own, since many times I extrapolated from data that was provided for me to fulfill the purposes of the plot. I won’t tell you what I fudged.
Grateful thanks to: Beth Fettes, who consented to pose as the model for the cover (several times!); to Craig Spiering, who took many, many photos of me in order to take one perfect one; to Joan Drennen, who once again provided lovely frames for the chapter titles. Also special thanks to Julie McDowell of the Hal Leonard Corporation who quickly processed my application to reprint the words of the Supreme’s song “You Can’t Hurry Love” in this book so that we could make our summer deadline.
I want to acknowledge some of those artists whose love for the tale “Sleeping Beauty” helped me in my retelling, particularly Peter Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Arthur Rackham’s iconic illustrations (some of his motifs I cribbed for the cover and interior design), the paintings of Henry Waynell Rheams, Edward Burne-Jones, Edward Brewtnall, and others, and of course, Walt Disney’s film.
A special debt of gratitude goes to the men and women of CWOD, whose male members lived in the late maverick men’s dormitory at Christendom College, some of whom found themselves cameoed in the book (with or without their consent). And I should also acknowledge my creative debt to the men’s household, In His Image, at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Though they never bore swords (but did have to fight to defend their flag), I was honored to be one of their “ladies,” however brief and loose the title was applied, during the time I was at school.
Some will surmise that the fictitious Mercy College is actually an amalgamation of my Alma Mater, Steubenville, and my “adopted” college, Christendom. And of course they would be correct. Mercy College’s location is fixed at the approximate halfway point between the two schools, in the fictional Pennsylvanian town of Meyerstown (not to be confused with the real Myerstown, PA). I will always be grateful for my time at Franciscan University, and I am also appreciative for my friends at Christendom who enabled me to participate, sometimes vicariously, in their own college adventures.
More than ever, I must thank my children Caleb, Rose, Marygrace, Thomas, and Joan for their help and their patience during the writing process. And I know my son Joshua has been helping me as well from heaven. And again, I thank my biggest fan and harshest critic, my husband Andrew, who tolerates being called Mr. Doman (though that is not his name) and who honors me every time he tears up when he reads the ending of Waking Rose. And I must credit him with writing both Fish’s and Rose’s final words of the book. Personally, I think he did a great job.
Regina Doman
Shirefeld, Strasburg, Virginia
2007
About the Author
Regina Doman lives near Front Royal, Virginia with her husband and their six children.
More information about her Fairy Tale Novel series can be found at www.fairytalenovels.com. Regina always welcomes email, feedback, and questions from readers.
www.FairyTaleNovels.com
Table of Contents
1 …Once upon a time...
2 …there lived a king and queen who were made glad by the birth of a daughter…
3 …and they prepared a great feast in honor of their daughter’s christening, to which they invited the wise women…
4 ...and each of the wise women stepped forward to bestow on the princess a gift…
5 ...the first gave her the gift of virtue, and the second bestowed beauty upon her...
6 …but before the third of the wise women could speak her gift, there was a clamor and another came in…
7 ...It was the last fairy, who came uninvited, full of wrath and seeking to punish the king for his impudence…
8 …she said, ‘the year the princess comes of age, she shall prick herself on the needle of a spindle and fall down dead.’
9 ...And the princess grew to full stature over the course of years...
10 ...And the gifts of the wise women were plenteously fulfilled in the young girl, that everyone who saw her was bound to love her...
11 ...And on the day of the princess’s coming of age, there was a grand ball, and she danced with many eligible partners...
12 ...But though princes pressed for her hand, she chose none of them. Then the next day she felt in a wandering mood...
13 … she came to a deserted room she had never been in before, where a woman sat spinning with a spindle...
14 ...And the princess pricked herself on the sharp point and fell into a deep sleep...
15 ...And this sleep extended all over the palace where the princess lay...
16 …Many young men sought to rescue the princess, as she lay in sleep.
17 ...And round the castle, a hedge of thorns grew high and wide...
18 ...The thorns made it impossible for anyone to pass through to disturb the sleeping princess...
19 ...From time to time, young men would try to get through the hedge of thorns, but none succeeded...
20 …The story of the beautiful sleeping “Briar-Rose” went about the country, and spread abroad.
21 ...But one king’s son resolved, against all dire warnings, to pass through the thorns which had claimed the lives of so many...
22 ...the king’s son approached the hedge of thorns, on which many other young men had failed...
23 ...and though the thorns let him pass through unhurt, they closed behind him as he passed...
24 ...And the princess awoke.. .
25 ...And the princess looked at him and declared that she would have him and none other for her husband...
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About the Author