You know the story of Sleeping Beauty, cursed at birth by an evil sorceress. But in Georgia Leighton’s new retelling, Spellbound, there is a second princess—a secret twin, uncursed, who takes her place.
Born hours after the first princess was cursed, hidden from the public, only three women witnessed the second princess’s birth: Violanna, the queen; Meredyth, her lady in waiting; and Sel, a Master’s apprentice. In an instant, they hatch a plan. Sel will escape with the first cursed princess. The second princess, Talia, will remain with her mother, and no others will know of the switch. “You must take the Princess and hide until the time of the curse has passed,” the queen tells Sel. “There is a second Princess now, a double. A baby that no one but us knows about—that she does not know about.”
If they are lucky, even when this sorceress who cursed Violanna’s first child returns on the twins’ seventeenth birthday, the curse will fail. The wrong girl will be in her place, and although none of these three women have the magical knowledge needed to dismantle the curse entirely, they hope that keeping one crucial chess piece off the board will be enough to save the girl’s life.
Each of the three women, who provide our primary points of view, is trapped by a web of circumstances and politics. But as they grapple with the implications of the curse and the machinations of their kingdom, they each make choices motivated by love—for one another, for their people, and for their families.
The queen lies in wait, obsessed with protection and motivated by fear as the King disowns her and her cursed daughter. Meredyth, dismissed from her position in the wake of Violanna’s loss of title, remains loyal to her friend and pays frequent visits to Mont Isle, where she ensures Talia receives the education of a princess. And Sel, unable to use the magic she spent her youth training to master for fear it would now attract the attention of the sorceress, flees with the second princess. Sel’s relationship with the princess, whom she names Briar, is the loveliest driving force of this novel, as she comes to care for Briar as her own.
As we follow Sel and Briar in particular, the weight of the curse intensifies with Leighton’s fantastical language. In Spellbound, magic is tangible. It exists in the air like the weather, changing the pressure and affecting those near it as the temperature would. Briar’s curse is “dark and complex, full of energy and thickly tangled,” awakening images that harken back to gigantic walls of thorns in other versions of the tale. Leighton gives life to Briar’s curse as she grows through infancy, occasionally “dozy with the weight of the magic cast over her,” and yet, Sel observes with great fondness as Briar gurgles and teethes, “for all her other-worldly splendor, she was still a baby.”
But as time passes, Briar’s curse evolves as she grows, weaving into and amplifying her adolescence. She’s distractingly pretty, her voice is too alluring when she sings, and her “blessing” of obedience morphs into a trait closer to what readers of Ella Enchanted will recognize as a curse to always do as she’s told.
Spellbound takes us beyond the traditional tower where Sleeping Beauty lies waiting, into a wider world. We hear of lands far away, wars broiling in the distance, and political intrigue that ripples across our main characters’ lives. As Talia and Briar grow, their lives unfold in parallel—they both feel trapped, unsure of their destiny, although they never quite learn the full nature of their situations. Briar and Sel travel from town to town, skirting the notice of any citizens of Bavaugh who would take notice of Briar’s unusual beauty and charm. Meanwhile, Talia grows up in the secluded castle on Mont Isle, surrounded by the sea, with only an anxious, grief-ridden mother for company. Each twin is bound and drawn towards this curse’s inevitable conclusion. Will the deception work, or will the curse and the sorceress outsmart them?
Paced slowly, Spellbound gives its readers plenty of time to rest as the curse gradually unfolds. We stay in realms of soft magic and energy as our characters lie in wait, instead of stark motions of plot. Leighton’s retelling of Sleeping Beauty remains straightforward, with gentle musings on what it means to be a mother, a daughter, or simply a woman in a political world. As she explores the internal worlds of her characters, no longer paper dolls in a fairy tale but full people with a variety of desires and influences, Leighton lets them—and in turn, her audience—sit with questions of the heart.
What does motherhood look like when it is thrust upon you? What does it become when you are trapped by grief for one daughter who has disappeared? Is it possible to let love into one’s life, even when it’s dangerous? How does it feel to grow up as a young girl—half a princess in a tower, half running wild in the woods? Most of all, what does it take to find the courage required to rise to the hand you have been dealt?
FICTION
By Georgia Leighton
Grand Central Publishing
Published October 28, 2025
