Roses, Briars and Blood: A Gothic Sleeping Beauty.

By Alyne de Winter

Blood of a King Blood of a Queen Open a portal To the Unseen.

A beautiful Sorceress yearns to be accepted back into society. A barren Queen secretly seeks her magical aid in conceiving a child. The Sorceress gives an elixir to the Queen that is charged with her own essence. This essence grants the babe within the power of magic.
In exchange for her assistance, the Sorceress asks for the honor of being chosen as the new baby's godmother.
Of course the Queen agrees, but can she keep her promise?
The birth of the Princess Marielle is accompanied by feasts, celebrations, and the long shadow of the Sorceress coming to collect her due.
As the curse unfolds, the tale unravels. The path winds through the dark forest in unexpected and macabre ways, yet always as beautiful and lovely as a fairy tale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alyne de Winter
• Release date: Mar 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466175525

Alyne de Winter

Alyne de Winter is an author of Gothic Mysteries and Occult Thrillers featuring tormented beauties, eerie settings, night religions, secret histories... After years of drawing and painting, by a fluke ended up as an English major. She wrote and published award-winning poetry but always wanted to write fiction. The stories did not come to her until she went to Europe, then they flooded in and still haven't stopped. She loves the tradition of the writer establishing themselves with short stories while building the novels, so you will find many short stories on her page. The short story requires intensity of focus, economy of language (so every word must be effective) and must keep the plot lines tight. She likes to think of the short story as poetry's second cousin. Major influences: Grimms' Fairy Tales, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Angela Carter, Tanith Lee, Daphne du Maurier,Charles Dickins, Anne Rice, Theophile Gautier, Edgar Allen Poe, the films of Barbara Steele and other 1960s horror films. (Not a gore fan) Religion, History, costume, Ancient dance and folk cultures, and witchcraft. The Gothic novel has always been a love letter to the past, a grieving for lost beauty and an elegy to the soul.

Book preview

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