In Thoroughly Kissed’s version of Sleeping Beauty, the kiss put her to sleep — it didn’t wake her up. This is a mildly interesting twist on the story. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much the only mildly interesting thing.

Emma Lost was in a thousand-year coma after her “Prince Charming” kissed her, and a curse put her to sleep. She woke up at the end of the twentieth century and has spent the last 10 years getting her life together. In doing so, she became a best-selling author, famous historian (if you can credit the oxymoron), and a professor at University of Wisconsin.

Her new boss, Michael Found (yes, Lost and Found, ha ha) is not a fan, though. He thinks she is a fraud, a so-called “scholar” who has breezed by on her looks instead of academic merit. He is on the verge of firing her when he encounters her magic. Though female mages, as Emma is, don’t get their magic until they reach menopause, she’s gotten hers 20 years early — or 1000 years late, depending on how you look at it. As one of the very few mortals she can trust with her secrets, Michael is enlisted to help her travel to Portland, where her mentor lives.

Emma’s magic is out of control, but in a way that is a bit illogical and not quite believable. When she thinks, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” homeless people get rainbow horses. When it isn’t totally random like that, there are clouds of smoke and lightening bolts and hand-clapping, like an old episode of Bewitched. Why doesn’t the booming and the flashing happen when she does something unintentionally? It isn’t clear, and is just one of the points where this particular world of magic doesn’t really make sense.

I suppose it’s supposed to be a bit goofy, but the plotting comes across as unsophisticated and sloppy. The book was originally released in 2001, and it doesn’t seem like they did any editing, revising, or updating for this re-release. The ending is anticlimactic and the chemistry between Emma and Michael didn’t exactly make me melt. It was there, but only very weakly; I’m not sure I believed the pacing of them falling in love. I didn’t think Michael’s concerns about her academic prowess were totally dealt with either. Knowing that Emma has magic does not suddenly make her a strong historian; it’s not like she can cite her experiences in the Middle Ages, and Michael knowing that changes very little.

Perhaps I would have understood the plot and the seemingly random and illogical magical “laws” had I read the author’s previous novel, featuring Emma’s mentor and “Prince Charming.” As a stand-alone, this book does not make a whole lot of sense, and in the end it was more of a poorly plotted movie with bad special effects than an entertaining romance novel.