Join Dmae Roberts for an in-depth look at Oregon author Anna Sheehan and her debut novel A Long, Long Sleep. As a mix of young adult and science fiction, this impressive work is a futuristic take on the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty picking up AFTER the heroine wakes up. Dmae happened upon this Oregon writer after a friend introduced her to her harpist friend. When she found out that Sheehan taught herself the harp to play for Society for Creative Anachronism gatherings and wrote novels as her passion, she decided to try the book herself and was won over by the book. Hear the story (accompanied by her harp music) of how the novel speaks to people’s mental health issues or physical/ emotional abuse.

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In the book-cover2book “A Long, Long Sleep” she uses Sleeping Beauty as a launching point to tell the story of 16-year old young woman Rosalinda Fitzroy who had been put to sleep in “stasis” by her parents over a period of several decades. She awakens after a period of plagues and famines to find a whole new world of strangers and slowly uncovers her own history of abuse and neglect to carve out a new life for herself.

Anna Sheehan has written seven books but this is her first published young adult novel, A Long, Long Sleep, was published by  Candlewick Press, in August of 2011. The book has also been published in Germany, France, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Hungary and the United Kingdom.

Review: “In this intriguing first novel, Rose Fitzroy, biologically 16 years old, comes out of stasis to discover that her billionaire parents and the world she knew are long dead. Having survived the plague-ridden Dark Times, the Earth is doing quite well, with Rose’s father’s former company in charge of much of it. This puts Rose — the sickly, shy, and self-hating daughter of overbearing parents — in the unusual position of ‘waking up to discover she’s the sole surviving heiress to an interplanetary empire.’ Before taking on any responsibilities, Rose simply wants to survive high school, make a few friends, and work on her art. Her plans are swiftly interrupted, though, when a strange, virtually unstoppable creature called a Plastine attempts to assassinate her. Aided by handsome Bren and blue-skinned alien hybrid Otto, schoolmates she develops crushes on, Rose must defeat the assassin, learn to live as an independent adult, and discover why her parents essentially abandoned her in stasis. With well-developed characters, a touch of romance, and a believable future that, for once, is not entirely dystopian, Sheehan’s tale should please many readers. Ages 14 — up. (Aug.)” Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Anna Sheehan
Anna Sheehan

About the Author:

Anna Sheehan says of A LONG, LONG, SLEEP, her first novel, “I always thought the interesting thing about Sleeping Beauty wasn’t why she was put to sleep, but what she had to come to terms with afterward. Everything would have changed radically– technology and politics as well as social structure. She would have seemed like a foreigner in her own country.” Anna Sheehan lives in rural Oregon.

A Long, Long Sleep  is available at Powell’s Books and Amazon. 

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