An American journalist is trapped in Nazi Germany in this variation on the Sleeping Beauty theme.

Briar Rose believes in fairy tales . . . And now, because of a family curse, she’s living one. Doomed to fall asleep for one hundred years on her sixteenth birthday, Briar has woken up in the darkest, most twisted fairy tale she could ever have dreamed of – miles away from the safe, boring small-town life that she has left behind. Briar must fight her way out of the story, but she can’t do it alone. She always believed in handsome princes, and now she’s met one her only chance is to put her life in his hands, or there will be no happy ever after and no waking up . . .

An allegorical retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It features a princess who dreams of a succession of kissing princes, and a fairy who inhabits her dreams, regaling her with legends of other sleeping beauties. A look at the power of romantic desire.

Praised by Robbie Robertson of The Band as "a classic & a ticket to ride," The Rose & the Briar assembles an astonishing group of writers and artists: Paul Muldoon, Stanley Crouch, R. Crumb, Jon Langford of the Mekons, Sharyn McCrumb, Luc Sante, Joyce Carol Oates, Dave Marsh, and more than a dozen other novelists, essayists, performers, and critics; to explore the ineffable power of the American ballad. From "Barbara Allen" through "The Wreck of the Old 97" to contemporary ballads by Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, The Rose & the Briar is, as Geoffrey O'Brien hailed in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, "a book full of internal echoes and provocative coincidences," featuring "historical investigation, shamanistic trance-journey, memoir, novella and cartoon," where "names and costumes change, soldiers become cowboys, demon lovers become backwoods murderer; the voices are unmistakably distinct but they share a common ground."

When the steely, practical Captain Lionel Redmayne is shot by unknown killers and left for dead, Rhiannon Fitzgerald finds him and takes him back to her ramshackle gypsy cart to help him heal. As Redmayne's confinement continues, the two attempt to ferret out the would-be killers --and find themselves falling head over heels in love.

Ugly Lady Briar, beautiful Princess Rose, and Jack plot the downfall of the evil giant who plagues their kingdom while the girls face a curse that only true love can break.

This edition contains the English translation and the original text in German. "Sleeping Beauty" (French: "La Belle au bois dormant" - "The Beauty Sleeping in the Wood") by Charles Perrault or "Little Briar Rose" (German: "Dornröschen") by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairy tale involving a beautiful princess, a sleeping enchantment, and a handsome prince. The version collected by the Grimms was an orally transmitted version of the originally literary tale published by Charles Perrault in "Histoires ou contes du temps passé" in 1697. This in turn was based on Sun, Moon, and Talia by Giambattista Basile (published posthumously in 1634), which was in turn based on one or more folk tales. The earliest known version of the story is Perceforest, composed between 1330 and 1344 and first printed in 1528. "Dornröschen" ist ein Märchen (ATU 410). Es steht in den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm ab der 1. Auflage von 1812 an Stelle 50 (KHM 50) und geht durch mündliche Weitergabe über Marie Hassenpflug auf Charles Perraults "La belle au bois dormant" ("Die schlafende Schöne im Wald") zurück. Bei Perrault erschien es 1697 in Contes de ma Mère l'Oye und vorher 1696. Ludwig Bechstein übernahm das Märchen in sein Deutsches Märchenbuch als "Das Dornröschen" (1845 Nr. 63, 1853 Nr. 52).