The Frog Prince from Planet Marecage
by Samantha Winston

Once upon a time, in a time not yet come, there lived a beautiful young princess. The princess, named Shari, lived in a beautiful castle on a beautiful world and had beautiful things and beautiful places to visit. But Princess Shari's fondest wishes—to leave her world and do exciting, useful things, and to marry a handsome prince— would never come true. Her father, the king, and his fathers before him, had decreed that no Princess Royal of the House of Teres should see a male before her one hundred and fiftieth birthday!

Poor Shari!

When a game of space chase goes awry, Princess Shari finds herself searching for her beloved golden ball in the vile muck of Planet Marécage. Despondent, she promises a wide- mouthed, primitively dressed frog, that she'll do anything if it fetches her ball, and the frog, along with her spaceship the SS Marissa and her father, the king, hold her to that promise. The frog is not what it appears, and that "anything" turns out to be better than lucky Princess Shari ever dreamed...

Sexual Content: Borderline NC-17. Genre: Not-So-Grimm Fairy Tales.

Samantha Winston's Bio

Samantha Winston is the pen name for Jennifer Macaire, an American freelance writer/illustrator. She was born in Kingston, NY and lived in Samoa, California and the Virgin Islands before moving to France. She attended Parsons school of design for fine art, and Palm Beach Junior College for art and English literature. She worked for five years as a model for Elite. Married to a professional polo player, she has three children.

After settling in France, she started writing full time and published short stories in such magazines as Polo Magazine, PKA's Advocate, The Bear Deluxe, Nuketown, The Eclipse, Anotherealm, Linnaean Street, Inkspin, Literary Potpourri, Mind Caviar and the Vestal Review. One of her short stories was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In June 2002 she won the 3am/Harper Collins flash fiction contest for her story 'There are Geckos'.

As Jennifer Macaire, she has written a series of seven fiction novels based on the life of Alexander the Great -- the first, Time for Alexander published by Jacobyte Books in April 2002. Book two, Heroes in the Dust, will appear in March 2003, also with Jacobyte. Her science fiction novel Virtual Murder will be published by Novel Books, Inc. in March 2003, and Angels On Crusade, a fiction novel about the ill-fated eighth crusade, will appear in October 2003.

She's had several novels accepted from Ellora's Cave, the first of which is A Grand Passion.