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 Name: Karen Laurel Cain Haws-Dearing Location: 205 N Park Ave. P.O. Box 383 Sugar City, Idaho 83448 United States E-mail: kandycain1587@bellsouth.net Send this user a message. FREE DOWNLOAD OF LOVE'S JOURNEY TO AWAKENING BELOW: Ron Perlman's masterful acting as the character, Vincent, in Ron Koslow's beloved late 1980s television series, Beauty and the Beast, inspired me to write this sequel to the series. Vincent's heart wrenching grief over the death of the great love of his life, Catherine Chandler, mirrored my own buried grief over the death of my eternal companion. But, is Catherine really dead? In Love's Journey to Awakening, we reenter the tunnels and caverns of Father's world under the streets of New York City, and learn how the tunnel-dwellers there, with the assistance of Helpers from the world above, work together to rescue Catherine and restore her to Vincent. Along the way, they face a new threat from a villain even more evil than Gabriel was, and they finally learn where Vincent really came from. If you haven't already purchased and viewed all three seasons of Beauty and the Beast, which are now available on DVD, please do so before you even open my book, because this story begins where the series ends. Many of your favorite characters from the series have been brought back to life in this new story line. Among them are Vincent, originally played by Ron Perlman, Catherine Chandler, originally played by Linda Hamilton, Father, originally played by Roy Dotrice, ADA Joe Maxwell, originally played by Jay Acovone, Pascal, originally played by Armin Shimerman, Mouse, originally played by David Greenlee, and Diana Bennett, originally played by Jo Anderson. These are only a few of the memorable original characters appearing in this new story. I wrote this book to put smiles back on the faces of the grieving fans who were heartbroken, as I was, over both the demise of the series and the death of Catherine Chandler. My target BATB fans are those who, like myself in early 2007 when I was writing this novel, have not yet discovered any of the other fan-fiction sequels available in the world of Beauty and the Beast. So, please read and enjoy! With love, Laurel READER REVIEWS FROM THOSE WHO DON'T WANT TO REGISTER WITH LULU (There is also a review from one of my youngest book fans in the middle of the right side-bar, and British screen writer Philip Ward's review of my novel is posted right under the book below these reviews. More reviews are available in the review section by clicking on the book link below.): Patricia, one of my readers living in Ohio, sent me the following beautiful review on April 2, 2009 after reading one of the printed copies of my books she purchased from Amazon with the alternate character spellings. I am one of many Beauty and the Beast fans that was heartbroken over the way the series ended 20 years ago. I recently heard of Laurel Cain Haws' new book, and so I watched the Beauty and the Beast TV series again - then read this lovely book. It healed my broken heart. Catherine didn't die. Ms. Haws' story is charming, addressing unanswered questions from the series, and it brought a whole new enchanting Tunnel World into being. Her novel was a feast for my heart. She wrote of love with a gentle sweetness, and there is nothing brash or offensive in her story. Finally .... once upon a time became happily ever after.
~pat, Ohio Jan Adams, one of my readers living in England, sent me the following lovely review of Love's Journey to Awakening on December 19, 2008: Dear Karen, This woman really cares about her fans and gives them what they want; a happy ending, how it should have been!! 10 out of 10 and here's to the next one! jan :0)xx
Gail, one of my readers living in the United States, sent me her unique perspective on Love's Journey to Awakening on February 2, 2009: Hi Karen,Love's Journey to Awakening was great. I loved the book. I enjoyed the story creating a family for Vincent. The thing that was redeeming in your book is that you took Diana Bennett and made her more likeable. The writers of the TV series tried to force her on us the fans to be a replacement for Catherine, and the fans didn't have a chance to mourn the loss of Catherine. That being said, if they had taken more of an approach to it as you did, I think the series would have had the potential to last a little longer than it did after Linda Hamilton left the series. Anyone who is discovering the TV series and comes across your book will be able to enjoy it even if they don't watch the whole series. You did an excellent job explaining the characters in the beginning of the book, although watching the series gives faces to the characters. Gail
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! Another Vincent-like man, a widower himself, has found me in my seclusion and has rescued me from loneliness. His name is Arthur Dearing, and we were married on June 15, 2009. He has now taken me to his home in Sugar City, Idaho which he has put on the market, because he wants to buy a new home for us someplace that doesn't have such harsh winters. For that reason, I have suspended my eBay ads for the inscribed and signed copies of my book temporarily until we are resettled in our home together. Unfortunately, I have had to further delay listing my books and getting back on the main communication grid while I help my dear Arthur to recover from a very serious recent illness for which he was hospitalized. He is improving daily, but his full recovery will take time. He is, of course, my number one priority. Please see my note below about the original versions of my printed books that are still available in bookstores and from some sellers on eBay. Thank you, my dear readers, for all of your loving supportive e-mails that you have sent me since I published my book in May of 2008. Some of you cheered me on with lovely e-mails before I had even finished writing my book, and that gave me a great deal of strength to continue this project. Ladies, never give up. I assure you that there are more men like my Arthur out there for you to find. Love, Laurel
PLEASE NOTE! To my horror, Lulu suddenly decided to discontinue their blog option which ended up deleting my own blog including my explanation for the alternate character spellings in the orginal printings of my book. When I was writing my book I didn't yet have access to the newly released DVDs with all of the credits intact, and so I used spellings I was familiar with for some of the characters. If you decide to purchase a printed copy of my book, you need to know that the version still available in bookstores has the alternate character spellings. This free download and the personally inscribed and signed books available on eBay under my own seller ID kandycain1587 are the fully corrected versions with the spellings used by the creators of the series. The story itself, however, is identical no matter which version you are reading. You should also know that the books still available in the bookstores are a little less expensive than the fully corrected copies I have on eBay, because they don't reflect the recent manufacturing price increases here at Lulu. I hope that you will enjoy adding a printed copy of my book to your library if you find that you are pleased with your free download of my story. Thank you-I love my readers! Laurel P.S. I have addressed the other character name issue concerning Dr. Peter's last name at the bottom of the right side-bar.
NOW AVAILABLE! I have finished my new free e-booklet entitled Laurel's Personal Regimen for Healthy Hair at 50-Plus. I have had so many compliments on my thick waist-length hair that I decided to share what I do to keep it that way. You can download it below.
ATTENTION! If you have found this webpage, then I need to make you aware that in mid-June of 2008 my novel became the subject of great controversy in the BATB fan-world. That was definitely not my intention, and the furor broke my heart. All I wanted to do was to share a story which had given me great joy to write. As a result of this unfortunate conflict, my book is no longer available to buy as an hardcover or paperback book here on my website. New copies of the three printed original versions, the two paperback sizes as well as the hardbound original versions, are still available in the worldwide marketplace. If you would like an actual book from the original printings, you can find them with almost any Internet search engine. Please know that my wonderful friends and supporters in BATB fandom, who carry with them the true spirit of the tunnel-world, have helped me to solve this problem. In the middle of the right column, you will find an eloquent letter posted by a British screen writer, who became very cross over the actions of those opposed to my book, and I think that you will find his opinion of their behavior interesting. He was truly a knight-in-shining-armor in defending me. His review of Love's Journey to Awakening appears right below the book on this page. I invite you to carefully read all of the information here about my book, and you can now enjoy this free download of the entire novel. Then, you can make an informed decision about whether it is worth your effort to try to obtain a published copy of my original book. The story itself is identical, whether you are reading the original version, with the alternate character spellings in the bookstores, or the fully corrected version in this free download.
HAPPY UPDATE! With the loving support of all of my BATB friends, I have now been able to have all three versions of my book produced here on Lulu as "private projects," and they are now available to purchase on eBay under my seller ID kandycain1587. All three, the 6" X 9" paperback, the 8 1/2" X 11" large print paperback, and the 6" X 9" hardbound books, are the fully corrected versions with the character spellings chosen by the creators of the series. Lulu's quality is outstanding, and the books are beautiful. If you decide that you enjoy the story enough to want a keepsake volume of it for your library, I will be able to ship it to you from the eBay selling forum personally inscribed and autographed.
You can download Love's Journey to Awakening--Beauty and the Beast--Happily Ever After to your computer from this page.
If you don't have space on your hard drive for it, you can also read the entire book by clicking on the book label link, "Laurel's Love's Journey to Awakening." In the new page, click the "preview" button just under the book cover, and then use the page turning buttons (< >) in the top right corner of the preview page. Lulu has changed the way the preview button works. I would suggest that you grab the top of the preview screen with your mouse and pull it up to the top of your viewing web-page. Then, as soon as you see the book cover loaded, use the (+) & (-) buttons to the left of the page turning buttons to re-size the preview pages to fit your screen. I have set each of the download previews so that you can read the entire book that way without having to download any of them. My novel is a very long book, 500 plus pages, so if you choose to read it that way, when you get tired of reading and want to stop, just write down the page number you want to start with next time. I've been playing with this new preview format, and you can actually just type the page number into the page-turner that you want to go to during your next reading session, and then hit "enter." If you enjoy my book, I would love to see your rating and review of it here. You can access the rating stars and the "write a review" button below the book on the "Laurel's Love's Journey to Awakening" page. Thank you for helping others to decide if this story is what they are looking for as an happy continuation of the series. With Love, Laurel
British screen writer Philip Ward sent me the following review of Love's Journey to Awakening after generously spending some of his valuable time reading it: I really am so pleased that after all the problems caused earlier for your book publishing that you are now doing so well. It is good that you have also had such a lot of support from your family and friends with your book, particularly during the bad times you endured with the nasty comments and campaign against you by fellow fans of BATB. So let me start, yes you are probably right in saying that it is more a book for women than men, too much romance and not enough adventure and action, but I enjoyed reading your book and was kept interested in the story and enjoyed the back history that you kept referring to as the story progressed. I liked the family history you have created for where Vincent came from, with the Tandins living in another underground community with advanced technologies. The introduction of these sci-fi'ish / vampiresque creatures could give you plenty of scope for other offshoot stories from this book. You said you were concerned about my masculine reaction to your handling of the sexual topics mentioned in your book, well I thought you handled them very well and as I said in an earlier message to you, compared to a lot of books nowadays and to a lot of the fanzines and postings in fandom it was very tame! As someone who does not normally read books, I thought your story was excellent and I found it very easy to read and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Therefore, overall, I give your book 10 out of 10. Love's Journey to Awakening editor, Dr. Thayle K. Anderson, English Professor-Emeritus from Murray State University, has the following to say about the author, Laurel Cain Haws: In a letter dated August 18, 2007, not long after my retirement from the English Department Faculty of Murray State University, Karen Haws, a family friend and long-time fellow member of a small church congregation here in Murray, Kentucky, asked me to edit a novel, her first, which she had just enthusiastically undertaken to write. Long aware of how bright and how verbally articulate Karen has always been, I consented to help her out in any way I could, and during the last seven months or so, I have had the immense pleasure of proofing Karen’s work, chapter by chapter, of suggesting how she might improve this sentence or paragraph or chapter, and of discussing with her the varied and complex purposes she had in mind as she wrote a carefully conceived, exhaustively developed sequel to Beauty and the Beast, the popular television series which ran for three years during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It’s time for a full disclosure: No doubt I was Karen’s one readily available, but by no means her ideal, choice for this work. I served on the English Department faculty at Murray State University for thirty-seven years, but never during that extended stint did I teach creative writing. I have, moreover, had little experience with the romantic fantasy genre, the characteristics of which are most evident both in the TV series and in Karen’s novel. Indeed, the romantic fantasy is simply not my cup of tea, and consequently I passed on the opportunity to view the recently released DVDs of all three years of the series episodes, insisting to myself that while Karen’s novel may supplement and build upon the TV series, it should be able to stand on its own; it should appeal also to readers like myself who are not familiar with its TV precedents. I am, hence, not a highly qualified judge of this novel’s merits as a romantic fantasy. I am, however, a pretty experienced judge of writing ability. I taught freshman composition, semester in and semester out, for the first thirty years of my tenure at MSU, and I have read countless towering stacks of papers written by general education students, English majors, and English graduate students in the myriad courses I have taught over the years. I have also read and taught hundreds of works of fiction—and, consequently, I’m confident that I know good writing when I read it. And here’s what I can tell you: When it comes to writing, Karen is the real thing. She is highly articulate. She knows the mechanical rules of English well, and seldom has trouble with them. She develops her settings and scenes in exhaustive detail, and she certainly knows how to create and maintain dramatic tension in her plot and in her subplots. Her tone, as a third-person, omniscient narrator, is engaging and consistent. To me, however, her most impressive strength is her ear for dialogue. Crafting highly credible dialogue is the most effective way to create complex, highly believable characters—compellingly real human beings with whom the reader can identify and sympathize—or against whom the reader can respond with ambiguous feelings, with condescending disgust, or with full-bore rage. Thanks to Karen’s marvelous sense of dialogue, not one of her major characters is flat or stereotyped. Not one of her major characters fails to engage the reader—and if the reader is so engaged, the plot tension will take care of itself. Few aspiring writers that I know of have this gift; Karen most certainly does. Indeed, I believe that Karen’s strong, highly believable characters and her careful attention to detail will pull even those not familiar with the old TV series into her highly imaginative, dramatic, unpredictable story, and while I am no romantic fantasy maven, I feel certain, damned certain, that those fans of the genre who are willing to give Karen’s novel a chance—a good read—will be richly rewarded for the time and effort they have invested. I have never aspired to write fiction, but if I had, in my maiden voyage I would have been gleefully proud to have even approached the quality level of this, Karen’s first effort. Trust me on this: Love’s Journey to Awakening, as a work of popular, romantic-fantasy fiction, richly deserves your serious attention. You won’t be disappointed. |
This hit counter has been in place since August 20, 2008. It only records unique visitors, not those who have revisited my webpage from the same computer more than once. Thank you so much for visiting my website and adding to the count and for every return visit you make. It makes me very happy to see the number of new readers finding my page grow. Enjoy downloading your free e-books, and have a wonderful day! Love, Laurel Ron Koslow's late 1980s television series, Beauty and the Beast, is my absolute favorite. The high moral standards intrinsic in this classic series are a tribute to Mr. Koslow's lofty vision of life. The strong male characters, in particular, are a stark contrast to the unflattering male caricatures being fed to the public in current sitcom entertainment. Mr. Koslow's vision was much grander and sweeter than that. I don't want his vision to die. So I have added my efforts to those of many other fan-fiction writers before me in that pursuit. I am firmly convinced that we who love this series are not just a "narrow cult-niche!" It is my idealistic belief that TV series sequel books are wanted and needed. It is essential that you watch all three seasons of Beauty and the Beast before reading my book. Even if you saw them when they first aired twenty-plus years ago, you really need to review and watch them again in order to fully understand and appreciate my book. I never get tired of watching them, and I hope that you will enjoy seeing these characters come back to life with a new story line. The questions from the series that my novel answers are: Please buy all three seasons of Beauty and the Beast, and watch them first. Then read my book, Love's Journey to Awakening. The timeline and characters are very important to me, and I have been very careful with them. I hope that you will enjoy reading my book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for visiting my site. Laurel One of my youngest book fans was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule to read my book in order to provide another opinion of my story. She wishes to remain anonymous, but she forwarded the following charming book review and gave me permission to post it here for the benefit of other potential readers of Love's Journey to Awakening. This is what she has to say: When I learned that a new novel was being published, continuing the story of Vincent and Catherine, I was excited, having just finished viewing the last episode of the third season of Beauty and the Beast and thinking to myself, “That’s it? They killed Catherine?! That’s not the fairytale ending I was expecting!” I first started watching the 1980s TV show, Beauty and the Beast, just last year when I picked up the season one DVD on a whim. I saw the cover, and being who I am, someone who absolutely loves the ancient story of "Beauty and the Beast," I was interested. I was hooked before the end of the first episode! The story is unique, and the characters are lovable. (I mean, come on, what woman doesn’t melt every time Ron Perlman speaks?) I was thrilled when Karen Haws asked me if I would like to read her novel, Love’s Journey to Awakening, and write a book review for it from the perspective of a “new generation fan.” And what I found, upon reading her book, was an exciting, romantic story which turned a tragedy back into a fairytale, complete with its “Happily Ever After!” You don’t have to be afraid of being left with any gaps; the story takes off right where the series ended, with Vincent and Dianna holding baby Jacob, and the story unfolds from there. You’re given a seamless adventure that seems to continue straight out of the original series involving original characters whose personalities remain true as originally written by the creators. In Love’s Journey to Awakening, you’re given insight into all of those nagging questions left unanswered by the sudden end of the show, and the result is imaginative and entertaining. Haws’ portrayal of the characters and their story is well written and engaging, and you can sit and imagine it as if it were being played out on the screen. (Now wouldn’t that be nice?) The most important part of all is that this story is set and centered around everyone’s favorite couple, Vincent and Catherine. From grieving to rejoicing, the romance between them is as sweet, magical, and poetic as ever. Fans of the show finally get to see the way it should have ended, with the “Beast” finding his “Beauty” at last, and proving that love really does conquer all! This is what Philip Ward, a very gallant British screen writer, posted in reply to the campaign of persecution carried out against me, which resulted in the discontinuation of the manufacturing of my novel in book form for worldwide distribution in bookstores. Philip has now read my book, and his review of it appears right below the free download link in the left column. To: BBTV members: In spite of all of the adversities and the unpleasant behavior of some, writing my novel has been a very positive experience for me. Here are 10 blessings I have derived from my decision to publish Love's Journey to Awakening: 1. Before the manufacturing of my book was discontinued, I was able to obtain copies for all of my family and close friends, including my children, my elderly parents, my in-laws, my former employees, my editor, and others.
About Dr. Peter Wellington vs. Dr. Peter Alcott:
One of the character name controversy criticisms that has been addressed in reviews of my book has been about the last name of the character Dr. Peter played by Joseph A. Campanella in the "Beauty and the Beast" series. In my story, I chose last names for some of the characters that were not given them in the series episodes. I chose the last name of “Wellington” for Dr. Peter. I have been criticized by some who have stated that I don’t know the series well enough because it has been posted on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) website that Joseph Campanella played the character “Dr. Peter Alcott” in the BATB series. However, it also states that, “The content of this page was created by users. It has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff.” The fact is that Joseph Campanella’s character, Dr. Peter, appeared in three episodes of the series that were aired in this order, “Ashes Ashes,” “Dead of Winter,” and “The Rest is Silence.” I and several of my readers have gone over all three episodes with a fine-tooth comb, and Dr. Peter’s last name is not mentioned in any of them, not in the beginning nor the ending credits nor in any verbal interaction between the characters in any of the scenes in those episodes. I even studied very carefully the setting of the scene in “The Rest is Silence” in which Catherine is sitting in Dr. Peter’s office to see if the last name “Alcott” was written on a diploma on the wall or on a desk plaque, and it was not there anywhere. It is true, according to Philip Ward in England and another of my readers, Susan Anneveldt in The Netherlands, that the name Dr. Peter “Alcott” appears in at least one other piece of fan-fiction literature. It is my opinion that the author of that work did exactly what I did and chose the last name of “Alcott” just as I chose the last name of “Wellington.” I believe that it is from that source that the last name “Alcott” has been widely distributed, and the assumption was made that it was the last name chosen by the series creators for Dr. Peter. Therefore, I am sticking with my choice of “Wellington” because I don’t want to copy anyone else’s original work of BATB sequel literature.
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