Sleeping Beauty (A Novel) [Kindle Edition]

Elle Lothlorien (Author)

Book Description

*Sleeping Beauty & Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up! were named Best Reads of 2012 by Kindles & Wine!* (http://alturl.com/7smju)

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE FROG PRINCE COMES SLEEPING BEAUTY...

Sure, Claire Beau thought about sleeping with her doctor. With his moss green eyes and sexy petulance, neurologist Brendan Charmant is definitely worth fantasizing about. But she didn’t actually do it…did she?

In this tale of “While You Were Sleeping” meets “50 First Dates,” Claire knows she should be able to answer this simple question, but she has no idea. What she’s sure of: She met Dr. Charmant for an appointment one day and woke up at home six weeks later to find that they are in the middle of a whirlwind love affair, a claim bolstered by her brother, their friends, and the weeks of steamy emails and text messages they’ve exchanged. But to Claire, he’s just the arrogant doctor with only a passing interest in finding a diagnosis for her debilitating symptoms.

Claire Beau is afflicted with “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome,” a mysterious disorder that causes her to sleep for days at a time, and black out for entire weeks. Dr. Brendan Charmant might have given her the best night (or two, or three) of her life, but she has no memory of ever seeing him out of his white coat. Still, she can’t help finding herself more than willing to fall for him (again). After all, doesn’t every girl deserve a Prince Charming? And waking up comes with other perks, including a plum starring movie role that appears poised to catapult her to fame.

Sure, she knows that her best friend, the hot, blond surfer, Davin Wibbens, thinks she deserves better. Still she’s crushed when he abandons their friendship over her decision to continue dating Brendan. But when Brendan’s arrested for a crime against her that she can’t recall, and Davin disappears and is feared dead—all in a matter of days—Claire realizes that sometimes the best way to make your dreams come true might be to just stay asleep. So why is she risking everything to save them all from this waking nightmare?

Movie sets, belly-aching laughs, Hollywood, love, surfing, sleeping, tears, a little bit of intrigue, and an "ending that practically sings 'And they lived happily ever after!'" Think you know what true love is? Keep dreaming…

PRAISE FOR THE AMAZON BESTSELLER:

“As an author of fairy tale-inspired novels myself, Sleeping Beauty was a delightful mix of sweet and sour, happy and sad, twists and turns, with a magical ending that practically sings ‘And they lived happily ever after!’ An absolute pleasure.” -Barbara Silkstone, bestselling author of The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters and Wendy and the Lost Boys

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Elle's first self-published romantic comedy, The Frog Prince, became an Amazon bestseller in December 2010--a distinction it kept through the summer of 2012, when it peaked at #1 on Amazon's Top 100 List for Humor ahead of both Tina Fey and Janet Evanovich. She was one of the first authors to sign on to Amazon's KDP Select and to take advantage of that program's "free promo days," which she used on Valentine's Day 2012 to give away 45,000 copies of her novels, catapulting her second novel, Sleeping Beauty, to Amazon's bestseller list. In March of 2012, she published an alternate ending version of her novel Sleeping Beauty called Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up! in response to fan feedback. Her fourth contemporary romance, Alice in Wonderland, was released in November 2012; it will followed by Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. 

Elle is considered a "reluctant expert" on the topic of self-publishing and consumer purchasing psychology, and she is well-known for taking advantage of her full creative control by pushing the envelope--and advising other independently published authors to do the same. In May 2012, Elle was invited to become an Expert Publishing blogger for Digital Book World. Her second blog for that site was named one of the "Top 10 Digital Publishing Stories of 2012." She has contributed to articles on self-publishing for Time Magazine and Writers Digest. Her interviews have appeared on USA Today's Happy Ever After blog and GoodEReader. She's appeared on the Trash Talk Show with Barb Tobias, Your Book Is Your Hook with Jennifer Wilkov, Authors on the Air with Pam Stack, and Denver's 9News.

Elle lives in Denver, Colorado, and keeps a miniature dachshund named Bacon around the house to provide comic relief.

Product Details

• File Size: 780 KB
• Print Length: 487 pages
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005K151Y4
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,579 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 44 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I had a hard time putting this down... January 31, 2012

By LadyoftheIvy

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I will admit that I was very much in the mood for a book with a happy ending when I purchased this one, but chick lit is also a genre I enjoy much of the time these days anyway. I had read the author's previous book (The Frog Prince (A Romantic Comedy)) and enjoyed it, so I decided to go ahead and take a chance on this one. I definitely wasn't disappointed. The characters are well done and enjoyable, and the plot is definitely different than anything else I've read and holds your attention quite well. It has humor, some sadness, and of course the happiness I was looking for.

The main character, Claire, has an absolutely fascinating medical condition (in the sense that you'd never expect something like this to be real) which basically causes her to black out and sleep on and off for long periods of time, with no recollection of what happened during her episode. The story is told from her point of view. In addition to her, you'll meet her brother (West), her brother's boyfriend (Davin), the doctor she sees to try and deal with her condition (Dr. Brendan Charmant). And yes, someone at some point in the book does acknowledge the joke in Dr. Charmant's name. Basically, we get to see Claire in action, before an episode of her condition, and what happens after that episode. As Claire learns what happened during her episode, we do too.

There's both happy and sad features to the story, but none of the sad parts get too dark for anyone worried about that. And I never got the feeling of being led along an already done path as I have with some other chick lit books, which is part of what made this one hard to put down. The story has enough originality and twists to it that it doesn't feel like just another formula chick lit book. It's also quite well written with almost no spelling/grammar errors, which is a plus - there's not much to detract from the good writing or great story.

Ultimately, since I don't really want to give much away about this book, I have to say that I'd definitely recommend it. It's nice to see something that seems very different in the chick lit genre, and this one is very well done.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars This Started Out So Well February 25, 2012

By Patricia Bell Erickson

Format:Kindle Edition

I got this book from the Kindle Lending Library. When it started out, I thought it was hysterical. However, halfway though the book there was suddenly a very confusing court case and quite a bit of distracting peripheral action. I thought it took away from the book. Good start, dumb finish.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Did not like characters. February 20, 2012

By Susan W.

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

There's spoilers in here.

Okay, my title of this review is a little bit of a lie. I LOVED Davin. I hated Brendan. As a doctor, as someone that researched all of her symptoms and the disease that she had, you would think that he would have known that she wouldn't remember what was going on. I hated him. I wanted him out of the story. I disliked him from the moment that he rudely asked her if she needed to be wearing a helmet. What kind of doctor says something like that? A BRAIN surgeon no less. Everything about him grated on my nerves.

I really disliked how everyone was always covering things up from Claire. Her brother refuses to tell her what day it is? Childish, and could be dangerous. She's left alone for huge chunks of time when they know (in the previous episodes) she can't take care of herself adequately.

Oh the entire book just irked me. I have it 3 stars only because *SPOILERS* Davin didn't die, and I kept expecting him to. And because I cried when she was watching the video Davin made for her of CB.

I had to force myself to finish it. And even then...I only did because I was hoping she would end up with Davin.

Also...it's not funny. I apparently missed everything in this book that would make it a comedy...

More About the Author

Elle's first self-published romantic comedy, The Frog Prince, became an Amazon bestseller in December 2010--a distinction it kept through the summer of 2012, when it peaked at #1 on Amazon's Top 100 List for Humor ahead of both Tina Fey and Janet Evanovich. She was one of the first authors to sign on to Amazon's KDP Select and to take advantage of that program's "free promo days," which she used on Valentine's Day 2012 to give away 45,000 copies of her novels, catapulting her second novel, Sleeping Beauty, to Amazon's bestseller list.

Elle's appearance on the Digital Book World's (DBW) Successful Self-Published Authors panel in January 2012 alongside New York Times bestsellers Bob Mayer and Bella Andre was noted in Publishers Weekly. In February 2012, she was named to Expert Messaging Group's "25 Self-Published Authors to Watch." She is considered a "reluctant expert" on the topic of electronic, independent-publishing (self-publishing), and consumer purchasing psychology, and she is well-known for taking advantage of her full creative control by pushing the envelope--and advising other independently published authors to do the same.

In March of 2012, she published an alternate ending version of her novel Sleeping Beauty called Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up! in response to fan feedback. That same month, she gave a two-hour self-publishing workshop at Left Coast Crime to a standing room-only crowd of (mostly) traditionally published authors.

In May 2012, Elle was invited to become an Expert Publishing blogger for Digital Book World, a industry blog with 20,000 subscribers. She almost immediately created a firestorm of controversy by suggesting that authors should respond to negative reader reviews, a blog that was named one of the "Top 10 Digital Publishing Stories of 2012."

Elle was a featured Author Speaker at the DBW Discoverability and Marketing Conference in New York City in September 2012 alongside John Fine from Amazon and Sasha Norkin from Barnes & Noble and Patrick Brown from GoodReads. She has been interviewed for articles on self-publishing for TIME Magazine and Writers Digest. Her interviews have appeared on USA Today's Happy Ever After blog and GoodEReader. She's appeared on the Trash Talk Show with Barb Tobias, Your Book Is Your Hook with Jennifer Wilkov, as well as Denver's 9News.

Her fourth contemporary romance, Alice in Wonderland, was released in November 2012; it will followed by Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Elle lives in Denver, Colorado, and keeps a miniature dachshund named Bacon around the house to provide comic relief.