History Literature / FairytaleNovels

** After falling into her coma, the next few Rose POVs show that she's able to hear those around her and is actively trying and coming close to getting her body to work again. Then, after a dream in which a snake bites her, her feeble control slips away from her, her POVs become disjointed and hallucinatory, and she's unable to hear anything from the real world. [[spoiler:That's because from then on, she's actually being kept in a drugged state.]]

* ExtravertedNerd:
** Rose's guy friends at college, but Alex the most by far.
** Rose herself definitely counts, being able to both quote Shakespeare and make thirty new friends in one week at college.

* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Bear and Blanche.

* AdultFear: Lots of this- Your child getting stalked and attacked while you're out of state, getting framed for drug possession, your daughters getting put into mysterious comas (at different times), kidnapping, [[spoiler:your son being sexually harassed at school by one of his teachers]]...

* AdultFear: Lots of this- Your child getting stalked and attacked while you're out of state, getting framed for drug possession, your daughters getting put into mysterious comas (at different times), kidnapping...

* BigBrotherInstinct: Bear got his nickname in juvenile detention when he saw three inmates trying to drown Fish. He threw one against the wall, the other two ran away, and we can assume both the Denniston brothers were carefully respected afterwards.

* ChristianityIsCatholic: Given that the author is a devout Catholic, Protestant characters don't exist.
** Not true, as of Midnight Dancers.

* DamselInDistress: Usually the girls, but the guys have their moments, too.
** For Blanche, who has the looks and demeanor to go with it, it's even Lampshaded.
* DanceBattler: When Kateri finally does the fan dance in Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyberthieves.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: As revealed over the second and third books, Bear and Fish have a whopper: [[spoiler: while their mother was dying of cancer in a hospital, she and they converted, enthusiastically, to Catholicism, so the boys started going to St. Catherine's high school; they were nerds and bullied - especially Fish, who was thought to be gay and was sexually taunted by an adult man; Father Raymond, the closest thing they had to a normal dad, died under mysterious circumstances, and they started investigating; Mr. Freet, fearing they would suspect him, planted cocaine in their lockers; when they got out of juvenile detention, Bear discovered his father was having an affair; the other woman moved in, and married their father after their mother had finally died; she resented the boys, especially Bear because he had preached unsuccessfully against the affair; but she was also attracted to Bear, and when he refused to give her the wrong kind of kiss, ''he and Fish got framed for drug possession AGAIN''; the charge didn't stick, but their father turned them out of the house without giving them their inheritance from their mother; so they lived at their friend Stephen Foster's house while still illegally investigating Father Raymond's death.]] That's excluding what happened to Fish offscreen in The Shadow of the Bear.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Black as Night. Blanche is on the run after being framed for drug possession and grand theft...
** As of Rapunzel Let Down, which deals with teen pregnancy, illegal immigration, homelessness, prison, kidnapping, and worse, we have a new winner in this category.
** The author states she intended the books to alternate between this and LighterAndSofter, but didn't completely succeed. ''Black as Night'' - darker and edgier. ''Waking Rose'' - even ''more'' dark. ''The Midnight Dancers'' - serious, but more gentle and philosophical in tone. ''Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyber Thieves'' - even the ''title'' is lighter and softer; there's a lot more humor, and the action scenes get decidedly [[{{Camp}} cartoony]]. ''Rapunzel Let Down'' - isn't even put in the YA section with the others; it was published as adult fiction.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Fish in "Waking Rose" is a male example. Rachel Durham from "The Midnight Dancers" also qualifies.

* ExtravertedNerd: Rose's guy friends at college, but Alex the most by far.
** Rose herself definitely counts.

* GeniusBruiser: As it turns out, Bear writes poetry.

* MassiveNumberedSiblings: The Durhams have fourteen kids. The Kovachs have plenty, too.

* MeaningfulName: Rose (has red hair, a fiery spirit, and is named for the fairy tale character Rose Red and Briar Rose); Blanche (means white, is quiet and gentle, and named after both Snow Whites); Brier, their surname, means Rose. So their names mean Rose Red ('rose' is a shade of red) and Rose White (in some variations of the story, Snow White's name is changed to this).

** It gets better. The name Arthur means Bear.

There are currently six books in the series: [[Literature/SnowWhiteAndRoseRed The Shadow of the Bear]], [[Literature/SnowWhiteAndtheSevenDwarfs Black as Night]], [[Literature/SleepingBeauty Waking Rose]], [[Literature/TheTwelveDancingPrincesses The Midnight Dancers]], [[Literature/AliBabaAndTheFortyThieves Alex O'Donnell and the Forty CyberThieves]], and [[{{Literature/Rapunzel}} Rapunzel Let Down]].

* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: Rose has a theory that no one is really what they seem. Fish is her Prince Charming, her godmother is a fairy, and so on.

** [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome "Remain still. Or you, sir, are dead."]]

** "Pipe down, TrixieBelden."

* ExtrovertedNerd: Rose's guy friends at college, but Alex the most by far.

* Rose herself definitely counts.

*** Hermes is the god of thieves and gambling. Hermes 'stole' Raphaela's innocence and loves risks.

* GirlyGirl: Blanche and Rose, in different ways.

** The author states she intended the books to alternate between this and LighterAndSofter, but didn't completely succeed. ''Black as Night'' - darker and edgier. ''Waking Rose'' - even ''more'' dark. ''The Midnight Dancers'' - serious, but more gentle and philosophical in tone. ''Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyber Thieves'' - even the ''title'' is lighter and softer; there's a lot more humor, and the action scenes get decidedly [[Camp cartoony]]. ''Rapunzel Let Down'' - isn't even put in the YA section with the others; it was published as adult fiction.

** The author states she intended the books to alternate between this and LighterAndSofter, but didn't completely succeed. ''Black as Night'' - darker and edgier. ''Waking Rose'' - even ''more'' dark. ''The Midnight Dancers'' - serious, but more gentle and philosophical in tone. ''Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyber Thieves'' - even the ''title'' is lighter and softer; there's a lot more humor, and the action scenes get decidedly cartoony. ''Rapunzel Let Down'' - isn't even put in the YA section with the others; it was published as adult fiction.

** Bear is named for being brawny and protective of his younger brother, Fish, who is named for managing to slip out of bad situations. However, there proper names are Arthur and Benedict (Fish's other nickname is Ben).