The Claiming of Sleeping BeautyAnne Rice (as A.N. Roquelaure)
Plume (1999) [first published in 1983]
253p.
A spell cast upon a lovely young princess makes her, her parents and the entire castle sleep for acentury, waiting for a Prince that will awaken her. Then, after a century, the Prince comes, dispels the enchantment (not just with a kiss) and claims the Sleeping Beauty to be his servant.
During the travel to the Prince's castle, Beauty is kept naked and humiliated in a variety of ways, which is a mere prologue to the humiliations and abuses she will have to endure (or enjoy) once in the castle.
There princes and princesses, sent by their families as tribute to the rulers of the land, are made sex toys for the amusement of the Court. This way their inner self will grow healthily and they will become good rulers in their own countries.
The Prince becomes very attached to Beauty, which quite pisses his mother the Queen (a sexy Mean Bitch and the absolute ruler of the land). Meanwhile, Beauty becomes aware of her love for the Prince and for prince Alexi, a very handsome and submissive slave prince.
In this fantasy land BDSM (of sorts) is law. Though no consensual (at least at first), irrealistically safe and not completely sane. But I don't think it is an issue in fiction anyway.
Maybe I should have waited to read the complete trilogy to make a review, but I don't know if I will (not soon, at least). The book is quite easy to read, but I found it some boring. Characters are underdeveloped, there is not much of a plot and the author seems obsessed with spanking. Oh, and everyone is so beautiful and so not-really-mean it seemed to me somethink like a BDSM Barbie & Ken medieval world.
If you feel curious about the book let me advice you to borrow it from your local public library instead of buying it. Maybe you will like it if you liked Rice's The Vampire Chronicles or if you enjoy playing toreadores in Vampire: The Masquerade.
