Belle also happens to be the captive of a terrifying, angry beast. She wants to explore the world, despite her father’s reluctance to leave their little cottage in case Belle’s mother returns – a mother she barely remembers. She longs to escape her poor provincial town for good. Will the sleeping beauty be able to wake herself up?īelle is a lot of things: smart, resourceful, restless. But as Maleficent's agents follow her every move, Aurora struggles to discover who her true allies are and, moreover, who she truly is. With a desperate fairy's last curse controlling her mind, Princess Aurora must escape from a different castle of thorns and navigate a dangerously magical landscape – created from her very own dreams.Īurora isn't alone – a charming prince is eager to join her quest, and old friends offer their help. But when the prince falls asleep as his lips touch the fair maiden's, it is clear that this fairy tale is far from over. It should be simple – a dragon defeated, a slumbering princess in a castle, a prince poised to wake her. What if the Sleeping Beauty never woke up? And readers will never look at the story of Aladdin in the same way again. What happens next? A Street Rat becomes a leader. But soon, their fight for freedom threatens to tear the kingdom apart in a costly civil war. To stop the power-mad ruler, Aladdin and the deposed Princess Jasmine must unite the people of Agrabah in rebellion. Agrabah lives in fear, waiting for his third and final wish. When Jafar steals the Genie's lamp, he uses his first two wishes to become sultan and the most powerful sorcerer in the world. What if Aladdin had never found the lamp? I will be seeking out the earlier titles from the Twisted Tale set and am looking forward to more. Happily, it stays true to a beloved relic from my childhood while taking on new, more mature (still teen-friendly) themes. I collect novelizations of the classic fairy tale, though, so this addition could not be overlooked.

I grew up with Disney’s animated classics, and Beauty and the Beast was one I, a bookish brunette in a small town, particularly identified with, so I was intrigued, but not quite certain how I would respond to this book. However, after the first section (about the point where Belle sneaks into the forbidden west wing), the narrative spins off in a new direction entirely.

The beginning plodded, as I itched to follow the story of young Maurice and Rosalind, but every other chapter interrupted the flow with Belle’s familiar story-basically straight out of the movie. In this story, Belle’s absent mother was a powerful sorceress named Rosalind-the sorceress, in fact, who cast the spell cursing a spoiled young prince to life as a Beast unless he could learn to love. Disney’s classic Beauty and the Beast takes a dark, yet intriguing, turn in this twisted tale.

As old as time a twisted tale