Princess of Thorns by Stacey Jay

I’m a sucker for a fairytale with a happily ever after. I’ll pick that over almost any other genre, except historical fiction/romance. This book delivered a happily ever after, but it was nail-bitingly close to failing miserably. However, it all worked out in the end.

Princess of Thorns is a continuation of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale, chronicling the adventures of her warrior princess daughter. After the death of her husband (the prince), Sleeping Beauty and her two children are captured by the evil ogre queen and imprisoned. She then sacrifices herself to give her daughter Aurora the fairy gifts she was blessed with at birth. Little do either of them know that the last blessing will turn out to be a curse – any man who loves Aurora and kisses her will lose his free will, bound to do whatever she tells them to. Aurora and her younger brother Jor manage to escape the queen and are taken in by the fairies. They are raised separately so that the queen will have a harder time to recapture them.

Years later, Jor has been captured while on his way to visit with Aurora. Upon hearing this, she sets out in search of an army to reclaim the castle and her birthright as queen. Along the way, Aurora is captured by ruffians who would sell her to the queen. Luckily, a prince from a neighboring kingdom, who happens to be in search of her to marry her so that he may break the curse his father put upon him, rescues her. However, he mistakes her as Jor, for she disguised herself as a boy. This prince, Niklaas, agrees to help “Jor” find an army in exchange for an introduction to Aurora. Through their many adventures, both keep secrets. Aurora does not tell Niklaas who she really is, nor does he tell her about his curse.

Like in all stories, this backfires on them both. When Aurora is wounded, Niklaas finds out who she really is, and then realizes that he loves her. This leads to him kissing her, and subsequently loosing his free will due to her curse. Aurora uses this to her advantage in that she makes Niklaas bring her to the ogre queen as his “captive.” Once at the castle, Aurora realizes that the queen’s brother is the one behind Jor’s capture, and the queen offers her assistance in escaping. However, the queen’s brother finds out, and tries to stop them. To prevent him from enacting his plan to destroy the world, Aurora must kill the queen. This is almost a problem for her, as one of her fairy blessings is mercy – she cannot attack a defenseless person. Aurora manages to overcome her blessing and kill the queen. Niklaas then regains his free will, but remembers everything Aurora made him do. At first, he does not want to marry her because he wants to make sure she really loves him. Once they realize they both love each other, they marry and Niklaas’ curse is broken, and we get our happily ever after.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. It was very well written, and had a nice flow. It never got boring, and there was always something happening. I enjoy stories where the heroine fights for herself and doesn’t rely on men to do everything for her, and Aurora fit this description perfectly. Not once did she sit back and let Niklaas do all of the hard work. Sometimes she even knew more than Niklaas did, and I really liked that. The story had just the right touch of magic, action, and romance for it all to come together in a neat package. I would recommend Princess of Thorns to anyone looking for an enjoyable fairytale with a female hero where everyone gets their happily ever after.


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