Slippers and ThornsA Retelling of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty
A duty-focused prince. A lonely princess. A marriage of true love…or not?
Michael and Ella thought life would be perfect after they married. True love, right? However, mixing a dutiful crown prince and a servant girl isn’t a recipe for bliss. Add a too-friendly guard, a dash of jealousy, and a mysterious, abandoned castle, and you have a recipe for disaster.
When Michael accidentally wakes his childhood sweetheart from her enchanted slumber, he’s confronted with her declaration that it’s true love. The obvious solution? Divorce his wife so they can be together. Now, he faces the choice of his life: does he stick with an imperfect marriage or cut his losses for the sake of “true love”?
When happily ever after isn’t a fairytale, is it worth fighting for?
In this reimagining of
Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, a young couple’s beliefs about love are put to the test as they discover the truth behind true love. It is the first book in The Roumaterra Chronicles, a series of interconnected, standalone fairytale retellings perfect for readers of Brittany Fichter and Celeste Baxendell.
*This story contains a struggling marriage and redemption from emotional cheating arc
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Erin Halbmaier
Erin Halbmaier is an author of clean fantasy romance and fairy-tale retellings, best known for The Roumaterra Chronicles. Her stories return to familiar tales such as Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, and The Goose Girl, then weave them into a shared fantasy world where magic and adventure are closely tied to complicated relationships.
Halbmaier's fiction favors flawed characters and hard-earned happy endings. Romance plays an important role in her books, but her stories are written without explicit sexual content and with minimal violence. Rather than making love effortless, she often explores separation, misunderstandings, forgiveness, and the work required to repair damaged relationships.
The Roumaterra Chronicles
Familiar fairy tales take unexpected paths in The Roumaterra Chronicles, a collection of interconnected fantasy romance stories set across the kingdoms of Roumaterra. Cinderella crosses paths with Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin shares a story with The Phantom of the Opera, and Robin Hood becomes entwined with Snow White and Rose Red, reshaping well-known tales into something distinctly their own.
The Roumaterra Chronicles consists of five primary books, and includes two additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
