The Princess Fugitive by Melanie Cellier

Now an award-winning poet and essayist (a short version of her tale originally appeared in Harper's and received a National Magazine Award), Grealy's tale ends not with magical deliverance, but with hard-won self-acceptance. Eventually, as she grows up, she finds solace and inspiration in the company of horses and other animals, and as a young adult, she cultivates an enriching inner life through reading, and later writing. And somehow I transformed that blanket into a tent, beneath which I almost happily set up camp.'' Still a young girl, she must cope not only with her own fear but with the awkwardly expressed fears of her parents as well. She writes, ``I felt as if my illness were a blanket the world had thrown over me.

Once a buoyant, sociable tomboy, Grealy, through her suffering, becomes isolated-finding human comfort mainly among the patients she meets in her numerous hospital stays. This retelling of the classic fairy tale, The Princess and the Pea, reimagines the risks and rewards that come when one royal family goes searching for a true princess.A gracefully written account of one woman's physical and spiritual struggle to surmount childhood cancer, permanent disfigurement, and, ultimately, ``the deep bottomless grief.called ugliness.'' After surviving relentless medical horrors-the removal at age nine of half her jaw due to Ewing Sarcoma, two and a half years of chemotherapy, and two years of reconstructive surgery-Grealy's true battle begins when she looks in the mirror and finds herself trapped behind a face, in a ``self'' that she hates, and for which her peers cruelly punish her. What she doesn't know is that the royal family is about to be swept up in unexpected danger and intrigue, and that she just might be the only thing standing between her kingdom and destruction. When Alyssa accepts the job of Princess Companion she knows her life will change. What she finds is two unruly young princesses and one very handsome prince.

After a lifetime spent in the deep forest, Alyssa has no idea what to expect on the other side. One dark and stormy night, lost and alone, Alyssa finds herself knocking on the door of a castle. This retelling of the classic fairy tale, The Princess and the Pea, reimagines the risks and rewards when one royal family goes searching for a true princess.ĭanger and romance await a woodcutter's daughter in a royal palace. After a lifetime in the deep forest, Alyssa has no idea what to expect on the other side. About the Book One dark and stormy night, lost and alone, Alyssa knocks on the door of a castle.

The Princess Fugitive by Melanie Cellier