No Missing Parts: And Other Stories about Real Princesses — Anne Laurel Carter

Resource Links Best of the Year

Centuries ago, Princess Sheila NaGeira finds herself stranded with her lover on a rocky outcrop ten leagues from Newfoundland's shore. In the late nineteenth century, Sybil finds love in the parched badlands of Drumheller. During World War II, Ruthie retrieves the ring that her dead brother gave to an unfaithful girlfriend before he left to fight in the war. Today, Tess fears that her new-age boyfriend, Guy, had flown the coop and left her pregnant.

No Missing Parts is for those who like princesses that are nothing like Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. It is for those who believe that love can save us, but that it never appears as a handsome prince. It is for those who would like to confront the princess myth and, instead of bowing politely, challenge its very foundations.

The stories collected here range over centuries, celebrating real princesses: women who become leaders, who defy social conventions, and who learn the hard way what it means to fall in love without giving up part of oneself.