Desperately Ever After

After watching her fairy tale go up in flames, Belle is finally starting over. With a baby on the way, a business to run, and a new love interest she just can't shake, things are finally looking up. That is, until she learns her independence might revive broken curses the world over. Could "happily ever after" really mean staying with her unfaithful husband? Or will Belle and her steadfast friends find another way? Meanwhile, Dawn still longs for the life she had three centuries earlier-before her sleeping curse ended in two kids, an unfamiliar era, and a husband she barely knows. So when the childhood sweetheart she believed to be dead resurfaces, she must suddenly choose between the past she once wanted and the present she never knew she did. As both women struggle between love and obligation-between what's right for the world and what's right for the heart-they fail to see a great danger brewing in the capital. One that could change everything forever. With the wit of authors like Jennifer Weiner, the vision of ABC's Once Upon a Time, and the imagination of Gregory Maguire's Wicked, Damsels in Distress picks up where the original tales left off-and twists them every "witch" way.

For the women of Marestam, "happily ever after" has always come with a grain of salt. Be it infidelity or aging, deferred dreams or lost love or the pressures of raising a family, they have always seen each other through life's trials with laughter, wine, and a brand-new take on old-fashioned chivalry. But when rage and treachery take over, everything they hold dear comes under attack. Suddenly, the monarchies are crumbling, Cinderella is missing, Belle is harboring the secret of all secrets, Rapunzel is facing the one dilemma she spent her whole life trying to avoid, and Dawn could lose everything she's finally learned to love. In order to save everyone and unmask the wolf in their midst, this iconic group of friends must follow a dogmatic fairy no one trusts, invoke a magic no one understands, and face a past they thought they had buried long ago. Rapunzel, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and the rest of Marestam's favorite females return in this third and final novel in Laura Kenyon's Desperately Ever After series, which takes a whimsical look at our most beloved fairy tale princesses several years after true love's kiss . . . and asks listeners to rethink everything they believe about happy endings.