Anna Sheehan, Spinning Thorns (Gollancz)
Sleeping Beauty has woken.
The world has been renewed. Everyone is living happily ever after . . .
Almost.
Sharp, blood-seeking thorns still surround the castle. A feud remains between those who wield magic and those who were subjected to it. And while the kingdom is divided against itself, nothing can thrive.
A rebellion may be needed – and that’s where Sleeping Beauty’s daughter comes in . . .
Anna Sheehan was conceived in northern Alaska, and was born to a bohemian veterinarian mother in a hospital on the shores of Lake Michigan. She endured numerous hellish years of school, and can say with reasonable veracity that she has forgiven all her teachers and even the poor children who had to figure out how to deal with her.
Instead of a social life, Anna swam in books. She became a devoted follower of Diana Wynne Jones and Douglas Adams. She studied acting and Shakespeare with the Young Shakespeare Players of Madison, Wisconsin, and it deeply impacted her direction in life. She then discovered historicalre-enactment, where she hung about in velvet, idly strumming a harp while men in plastic armour hit each other with sticks. That too was most enlightening. Despite collecting a technical degree in commercial goldsmithing she pursued writing asher primary means of unemployment. She moved with her family to a tiny ranch in rural Oregon, where she still lives with her daughter, her mother and assorted Irish Wolfhounds.