Briar Rose loves her life in the small Austrian town of Hausach, where she sings, dances, and runs wild through the woods with her best friend Frieda. But with her curse broken and Maleficent slain, Briar must leave her happy enclave to take her rightful place as Aurora, princess of Austria and betrothed of Prince Phillip of Lorraine.

She’s doing her best to come to terms with her new identity when the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire dies, and her father announces he will put his name forward for the position. While her days are a whirlwind of seismic change, her nights offer little respite. Mysterious dreams keep her tossing and turning, visions of queens throughout the ages, facing down conflict in their own nations.

Then Bavaria launches an attack on Austria, killing King Stefan and setting up Matilda of Bavaria to become empress. To save the empire from a warmonger’s rule, Aurora pledges to take the throne herself. She’ll have to compete against the top rulers from across the empire and learn to play their political games.

But there’s one more surprise in store. Hausach was home to more than one hidden princess, and Aurora must go head to head against her best friend to win the title of emperor, not just for herself but for all of Austria.

This thrilling reimagining of Princess Aurora wakes her from her fairy tale slumber and places her against a real historical backdrop—with a Disney twist.

Briar Rose is famous for having the least amount of lines and screentime out of all the Disney Princesses. That simply allows Raasch more opportunity to give Briar Rose more character and explore in-depth what her life might be like after waking up from her curse.

In this instance, there is a lot of emotional baggage for her to work through.

Foremost is who she is? She was hit with the mind-blowing reveal that she is not a simple peasant named Briar Rose, but she’s actually the long lost princess of the kingdom, her parents are royalty, her aunts are actually fairies, and she’s expected to return to the castle where an evil fairy has tried to curse her on her sixteenth birthday. Oh, and she’s engaged to a prince. Then before she has time to process all that, she touches a spindle and falls asleep.

Even though the book begins a few weeks after the event, Briar Rose still can’t believe this is her. It feels like imposter syndrome that she’s expected to become Princess Aurora with everything she could want at her fingertips. She has no connection with her parents who want her to act like the princess she’s supposed to be. She’s supposed to call them mother and father, but they still feel like the distant king and queen she never saw as a peasant.

She feels uneasy with all the money and food she has now, recalling her years as a hungry peasant all this stuff feels wasteful. She doesn’t fit in with the nobles that are dissociated with the peasantry, but she’s no longer to mingle with those she’d known before.

This is a running theme as Raasch acknowledges the complicated emotions that come with this massive change. Even though it’s for the better, it’s also traumatic. There’s grief that her life and her future plans have changed, that she feels like she has to choose between her past as peasant bard Briar Rose, and the formal, future Princess Aurora.

Raasch gives Briar Rose friends that were probably uncompatible in movie canon but seems more realistic than the fairies keeping her super isolated from everyone. Ben, and Freida are both peasants that live nearby, forming a trio of bards which is the only way Briar Rose can earn money for food since Flora, Fauna and Merryweather had no concern for that mundane necessity.

Their lack of human knowledge inadvertedly forced her into the role of breadwinner for the family and leads to her feeling a little resentment knowing now that the fairies could have solved their food problem with a little magic, at least save her the stress and fear of starvation.

Overall, Briar Rose’s relationship with her aunts was quite impactful as it hits on what happens when it is someone you love who hurts you even with the best of intentions and how to move from that. It’s easier for Briar Rose when Matilda hates her because she expects betrayal from her, she has no obligation to see more of her or forgive her. But when it comes to family or friends? It’s infinately more complicated and hurtful.

But back to the friends, I enjoyed Ben and Freida’s characterization. Ben brought the levity while Freida acted as a foil and another obstacle for Briar to work through as implied through the jacket summary. While Aurora is thrown by the revelation that she’s Princess Aurora, it turns out Freida from the orphanage is actually Princess Clara of Bavaria, daughter of the bloodthirsty Matilda of Bavaria, and yes, she has inherited her mother’s ruthlessness to win. The coincidence of this is well-done and adds to the magical mystery in the background. But I can’t say much more because spoilers.

I will say that their night and day juxtpostion (Briar Rose is more peaceful, idealistic, a performer. Freida is more strategic, realistic with a strong sense of justice under her ruthlessness) allows Raasch to explore the strengths and weaknesses of war and peace. Additionally, it continues the series’ message that a female ruler may go through many trials and tribulations, but they become great thanks to those who support and stand by them. They never truly rule alone.

So I’ll discuss Briar Rose’s choice to compete to be Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. Even though she’s terrified of losing herself to the Princess Aurora role, Matilda’s attack on Austria pushes Briar Rose into action. Briar Rose isn’t a warlord but she wants those she loves to be safe, and Matilda becoming Empress will lead to bloodshed. Briar Rose is a protector, and she is tired of outside forces controlling her life.

The whole situation is a great way to explore Briar Rose’s strengths and weaknesses. Unlike other princesses in this series who readers have a better sense of their personalities and how they’ll react, Briar Rose is hampered by the limiting perceptions of others, including readers.

She’s scared of being indecisive which of course, leads to more indecisiveness. She’s been sheltered, and even though she’s in this new position her aunts and vassells continue to shelter her because they think she won’t be able to handle it. Even she thinks she can’t handle it, but how can she make decisions if she isn’t given all the information?

Furthermore, what about being true to herself? She has no interest in eliminating competition or execessive bloodshed, but others seem to view her as a weak ruler for that stance.

The main message of this book is acknowledging change and that Briar Rose shouldn’t view her past and her future as two separate identities. Rather it’s an evolution of herself because humans are multifaceted.

It is also about Briar Rose coming to recognize the parts of herself that she won’t change or compromise. Others may see her as indecisive, but she no longer sees herself that way. She is simply learning. She’ll listen to advice but won’t bend to being the ruler they want to mold her into. She is making decisions, even if they’re small decisions at first because it’s important to her to gain control of her life and ensure that those she loves and her kingdom won’t be hurt.

Prince Phillip is another major character whose own arc intertwines with Briar Rose’s lessons about emotional trauma. While she’s dealing with the possibility of ruling the Holy Roman Empire, Phillip has also been changed by his fight with Maleficent. He can’t push aside the panic attacks and it doesn’t help everyone proclaims him a hero for it when he now can’t think of Maleficent without turning pale. He’s been changed by the experience and he fears he’s been changed for the worse.

This is probably the most mature relationship in all of the Queen’s Council series as Raasch shows them as a married couple trying to help one another with their baggage. They mistakes as both try not to push each other to talk because they know that means they’ll have to talk about the fears they’re avoiding. But eventually, they learn how to communicate and realize the other won’t think less of them.

Plus they’re the most steamy couple. It helps their married so we get some nicely steamy scenes before fading to black. *Insert eyebrow wiggle* It’s fitting considering the time period’s focus on romantic chivelry combined with Briar Rose’s peasant upbringing so she’s more aware of ribald situations and the fun of marital responsibilities. She’s no blushing rose. Okay, I’ll stop with the puns.

But this does lead to my one nitpick that sometimes the banter between Phillip, Briar Rose and Ben felt too modern. Not in language or context, but in their informality. Mainly from Prince Phillip’s side as he’s royal, I imagined him to be more horrified by sexual innunedo than the peasants. Though I never knew how hilarious it would be for them to discuss Prince Phillip’s impressive “lance.”

I wrote a lot more than I expected to, but the book was simply so good. Perhaps because Briar Rose is kinda a blank slate in the movie (a sweet, pretty blank slate but blank slate nonetheless) that there’s so much to talk about when she is given characterization which Raasch did very well. I must also note her style has a lot of evocative emotional imagery that added to the medieval atmosphere.

I do wish there had been a little more with Briar Rose’s parents as she had no emotional connection with them and I thought it would be interesting to see if they’re also adjusting to the desire of having their daughter back but unsure how to act around a fully grown woman with a life and experiences they don’t understand. But they were put in the background. I suppose it might have been too much considering Briar Rose was already dealing with Freida, Prince Phillip and her aunts and learning about herself.

This was a wonderful fantasy novel combining the magic of the movie with the politics of the real life Holy Roman Empire, and a fabulous character study.

Self-assured, thoughtful, passionate, envisions a peaceful future for the empire, fearless. That’s Briar Rose, and this is her story of how she comes to embody who she’s meant to be.

5 Sword of Truth.

So far there has been no announcement for book 5 of the series. If it does continue (I hope it will), who would you want? I had thought it would be interesting to see Tiana becoming queen of Maldonia but seeing how much depth the series gives to a blank slate like Aurora, Snow White might be interesting. Comment who you want below.