Product Description

From bestselling author Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquleaure. In the traditional folktale of 'Sleeping Beauty,' the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her castle can only be broken by the kiss of a Prince. It is an ancient story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the mind's unconscious. Now Anne Rice's retelling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince reawakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beauty's complete and total enslavement to him…as Anne Rice explores the world of erotic yearning and fantasy in a classic that becomes, with her skillful pen, a compelling experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #696100 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-01
• Released on: 2003-10-07
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Audio Cassette

About the Author

A.N. Roquelaure is the pseudonym for bestselling author Anne Rice, the author of 25 books. She lives in New Orleans.

Customer Reviews

i could NOT put it down
I absolutely LOVED this book! I couldn't put it down from the moment it came in the mail. I think, though, you would have to be open-minded to what the book has to offer to appreciate it. I love tales of medieval times and this book just absolutely made my day by offering much more than that :)

GENIUS
For many, the concept of this book will be a turn off. But wait! S & M is alive and well and living in the castle with Beauty. Expand your mind for a moment, though: it's fiction. It's out there. Only Anne Rice could depict such a crude, erotic and lustful tale with finesse. Brilliant! Open your mind, dear feminists. It's degrading and nasty ... and it's meant to be. You don't have to want to do these things ... or even be a sexual deviant. It's literature. Rice brings you into a world you'd be too frightened to enter in real life, and sorry to leave in the safe confines of your own room, sexual fantasy and fictionland. The third book of the trilogy is equally decadent: raw and fascinating. I loved these books and was sorry to see that others here didn't "get it". If you're ready to open your mind to beautiful, lyrical and wickedly sinful plot and prose, this trilogy is for you.

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. Anne, you wicked thing!

While I am all for bringing more erotica into mainstream books, this miserable attempt at erotica will only satisfy those who feel that sex doesn't belong in 'real' fiction.

Sleeping Beauty is a disturbing fairy tale. Do your research, and they're all disturbing fairy tales. They come from the days when we didn't have to sugar coat everything before delivering it to our children.

This, however, if the concept of fairy tales for adults taken to extremes. The beautiful princess languishes in the castle. Enter the Prince, literally, and let the sadomasochism begin! How his kingdom functions with absolutely no form of commerce, where eveyone is either nobility or a pleasure slave, is beyond me. This book is flat out sex, with very little in the way of the pretensions of plot. Bad writing, boring characters, and three books of a heroine who adds absolutely nothing to the story and confirms the stereotype that women want nothing more than a firm man (again, literally.)

Read the Marquis de Sade if you want brutality for grown ups. He was a brillant philosopher, as well as an erotic genius. If, however, you want to read about a few thousand spankings, "Beauty" should be your cup of tea.