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    Briar Rose
    Briar Rose
    Briar Rose
    Ebook36 pages41 minutes

    Briar Rose

    By Alexandra Benedict

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    About this ebook

    CASTLES IN THE SKY is a series of bedtime stories based on classic fairy tales; each short tale ranges in heat from spicy to kisses so there is something for every romance lover. A perfect, quick read for a night of sweet dreams!

    Next up is BRIAR ROSE - a sensual short story based on the fairy tale THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD - where a young woman is sold into matrimony to a handsome stranger who claims she is a long lost queen ... though she has no memory of her regal past.

    HEAT LEVEL: sensual

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlexandra Benedict
    Release dateMay 25, 2018
    ISBN9780463639030
    Briar Rose
    Author

    Alexandra Benedict

    Alexandra (AK) Benedict is a bestselling, award-winning writer of short stories, novels and scripts. Educated at Cambridge, Sussex and Clown School, Alexandra has been an indie-rock singer, an actor, an RLF Fellow and a composer for film and TV, as well as teaching and running the prestigious MA in Crime Thrillers at City University. She is now a full-time writer and creative coach.   As AK Benedict, she writes acclaimed short stories, high-concept novels and award-winning audio drama for Big Finish, Audible UK, Audible US and BBC Sounds among others. She won the Scribe Award for her Doctor Who radio drama, The Calendar Man, and was shortlisted for the eDunnit Novel Award for The Beauty of Murder and the BBC Audio Drama Podcast Award for Children of the Stones. Her Christmas mysteries, The Christmas Murder Game and Murder on the Christmas Express, were both bestsellers, and The Christmas Murder Game was longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. Alexandra lives on the south coast of England with writer Guy Adams, their daughter, Verity, and dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

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      Book preview

      Briar Rose - Alexandra Benedict

      BRIAR ROSE

      BY ALEXANDRA BENEDICT

      COPYRIGHT

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      BRIAR ROSE

      Copyright © May 2018 Alexandra Benedikt

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      www.AlexandraBenedict.ca

      BRIAR ROSE

      England, 1801

      Who ‘ere wants this black witch? She’s yours fer a shilling? A farthing? Come now! She’s a cold fish in bed, but she’s a hard worker.

      The villagers howled with laughter.

      Look at her hands, gnarled like an old hag. And she’s got the strength of ten men, I swear.

      With each demeaning pitch, Dawn’s husband jerked her rope halter and lead, parading her around the town square. She cast her gaze downward, never wavering from the muddy ground, and maintained a stiff spine. Not a tear filled her eye or throat, nor even her belly. She was cold indeed, impervious to the humiliation after a ruthless marriage to her cruel husband.

      A part of her was grateful he’d decided to sell her to another man. The circumstances were humbling, but she was certain anyone was preferable to the swine she’d been shackled to for the last miserable year.

      Is there no one who will take her? I beg you! Work her like the dog that she is.

      One pound, came a steely voice from the crowd.

      Dawn bristled. A pound was more money than her current husband would see in a lifetime; and after the heinous way he’d treated her he deserved no such riches. Who dared award him for his wickedness?

      After a moment of startled silence, the brute at her side shouted, Sold!

      The throng parted, whispering, and Dawn soon saw mucky boots approaching her.

      At last she lifted her gaze.

      A spasm in her breast. It was her first real emotion in

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