They woke by kisses; they changed rags to riches;
They defeated the curse of those dark faerie-witches.
But was it a curse? Did you ever ask her?
Did they really live happily all the while after?
Who were those princes, and how did it feel
to wake a hundred years later, your old life not real?
One fairy tale ended, but another began;
You married a beast, but must live with the man . . .
The After Ever After trilogy is a mythical tale of relationship, intimacy, and feminine sovereignty that begins AFTER the happily-ever-after endings of our familiar, classic fairy tales.
Princesses from Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast become real women who--by love, loss, and the dark-goddess, lost-mother wisdom of that eternally vilified wicked witch--transform into queens who can heal their broken worlds.
In Book One, The Ritual of Forgetting, these four women begin to discover each other through ritual and dream, letter and longing, hearsay and unexpected encounter, and to weave together the lost threads of the divine feminine in their starkly opposing cultures. Ella (Cinderella) must overcome childhood self-denial to stand for her people, and is both inspired and terrified by the rage of Lemara (Sleeping Beauty)—a fierce priestess who wakes from her hundred-year sleep to find her people colonized by Ella’s. Mina (Beauty and the Beast), queen of an outcast, repentant people, yearns secretly for the beast-man she loved before the curse was lifted. Rowan (Snow White), raised in the primeval forest by demigods of old, lives an animal life narrated always by others, and can be awakened only by another queen’s touch.
At first swept away by a marriage beyond her control, each princess takes her first steps into the responsibility of a royal life. But that dark faerie-witch haunts each one with her own repressed shadow power: the deeper, feminine magic her people fears to let her wield.
Please note that all my novels, even "fairy tales," are for ADULTS. They include heavy themes and sexual content not intended for children or teens.
Paperback 385 pages
$24.00
Ships by media mail to U.S. addresses ONLY. If you are outside of the U.S., please order through my publisher HERE.
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CLICK HERE FOR AUDIOBOOK VERSION.
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"This first volume is dense with descriptions, developments, heartache, and triumph; each page contains world-widening wonders... certain to ignite hunger for the next volume of the series. The Ritual of Forgetting is an irresistible high fantasy novel..." Click HERE to read full 5-star review in ForeWord Reviews.
WATCH Mindi Meltz read from The Ritual of Forgetting and talk about why she wrote it.
Click below to read the opening lines of each fairy-tale narrative in The Ritual of Forgetting --
The prince carried her away with him, causing the cursed apple to pop from her throat and wake her. Then he married her, and they lived happily ever after... CONTINUE
The slipper fit perfectly, revealing her true identity, so the prince married her, and they lived happily ever after... CONTINUE
After a hundred years the prince woke her with a kiss, and they married, and lived happily ever after... CONTINUE
When she wept tears of love upon him, the beast transformed into the handsome prince he truly was, and so they married, and lived happily ever after... CONTINUE
