more on Waking Rose…

…and Regina Doman’s other fairy tale novels….

Speaking of Regina Doman, author of Angel in the Waters, I received a lovely email from her last week thanking me for my previous review of the most recent of her young-adult novels, Waking Rose.

In the comments to my review of Waking Rose, a reader asked me about the suitability of the novel for boys. I didn’t know quite how to answer as 1. I’ve never raised boys and 2. every boy is different, some hate mushy romantic stuff, others seem to be able to tolerate even Jane Austen fairly well. But I gave it my best shot, saying I though in general it was probably a little heavy on the romantic angle for boys who are strongly allergic to such content; but that the adventure and mystery might be enough to propel more open-minded lads to tolerate the “kissing bits” (as the boy in the Princess Bride terms them) for the sake of the greater story.

Fortunately, In her email to me, Regina was able to give me better information, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. She told me that she’d received positive feedback on the first novel in the series, from male readers as well as female ones:

I just wanted to say that the first book, The Shadow of the Bear, is one
that many teenage boys have enjoyed, and you might want to recommend that
for the teenage sons of your blog reader, Judy. A fan of mine actually just
opened a message board last week for my books, and today the first male
reader signed on. His opening post read in part,

As I am a boy, and have not much interest in what prom dresses look like,
but really liked “The Shadow of The Bear” (I like to capitalize The Bear,
because there really is only one Bear.) My question is, what where you Three
Favorite things in The Shadow of The Bear? (Parts included.) Mine are, The
Hotel room that Arthur takes Blanche too, The vast Chalice collection of the
Missisipi, Mr Freets Basement, and Bear’s fight with the maniacs.

…so, although I rarely hear from my male readers (unless I meet them in
person), I think it’s safe to say that boys will at least find the first
book interesting and put up with the romance in the other two books.

So all you moms of boys, you might think again about giving The Shadow of the Bear a try. Meanwhile, I’m going to get hold of a copy soon so I can post my own review.