Spindle's End

Description

A magical retelling of the fairy tale, The Sleeping Beauty, for older readers. An exceptional retelling of The Sleeping Beauty which takes the reader into a magical world filled with modern characters, encountering adventure, love and loss. Rosie is very, very ordinary. No-one, not even an extremely powerful and evil fairy who is out for the princess's blood, would give Rosie a second glance. But then, even Rosie doesn't know the secret of her own birth...and she cannot be hidden forever as her twenty-first birthday approaches. The curse placed on her at her christening will hunt her down through the years, gathering strength, and at some point a princess must become a queen, even if she would rather just stay ordinary-

Robin McKinley is an American writer and has won many awards in the US, including the Newbery Medal for THE HERO AND THE CROWN and a Newbery Honor for THE BLUE SWORD. She now lives in Hampshire with her husband, author Peter Dickinson, three whippets, five hundred rose bushes and a 1965 cream-coloured MGB convertible.

A fairy tale, but also a long, leisurely, sophisticated narrative which makes no linguistic compromises. . . . Spindle's End's subject is magical perils, but as a novel it is an almost utopian love story. A curious and distinctive book * Books for Keeps * A skilful retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale. . . . This is electrifying story-telling, a must-read for fans of quality fantasy of any age -- Anne Marley * Financial Times * I would recommend very few of the novels written for teenagers that pass through my hands to a discerning adult reader. So this is a bit of a find. An extraordinarily imaginative retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale, McKinley's book is genuinely enchanting but emotionally tough * Guardian * Written with rich inventiveness, good characters and real stylistic skill and flair, it is a fat treat in which to lose yourself -- Nicolette Jones * The Sunday Times *