Category: Guest Post

Morgan’s Favorite Fairytale Retellings | Book Blogger Guest Post

Posted September 22, 2017 by Jana in Guest Post / 2 Comments

Magic, Myth, & Mischief, hosted by me and Bonnie, is a month-long event that celebrates fairy tales and mythological retellings, as well as retellings of favorite classic novels and books featuring mythical beasts such as mermaids, dragons, and fae! Find the schedule of events and other information here.

I’m so excited to have my friend Morgan (The Bookish Beagle) on the blog today to talk about her favorite fairytale retellings! I’ve added a bunch of her recs to my TBR. Thanks so much, Morgan!

Morgan’s Favorite Fairytale Retellings

When Jana approached me about being part of the Magic, Myth, and Mischief event I jumped at the chance! I love all of those things, especially in books. And I particularly love retellings, the way they are able to take a favorite, familiar story and twist it into something original and new. I also love being able to find allusions to the original tale! Any sort of retelling is great, including Jane Austen and historical, but for this post I’m focusing on fairy tale retellings. Without further adieu:

Cinderella Retellings

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine: a classic! Ella Enchanted was my very favorite book until Harry Potter came along. I loved her bravery, the fairy tale twist, the made up languages, CHAR! The ball was fabulous and the ending was so perfect I cried. Gail Carson Levine’s writing is wonderful and whimsical and never feels too young.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer: one of the first YA retellings I read, and book one in The Lunar Chronicles, this futuristic sci-fi take on Cinderella is action-packed and filled with characters to root for! It also has some wonderful Cinderella references.

Geekerella by Ashley Poston: the perfect mix of geeky fandom culture and A Cinderella Story with a diverse cast of characters. It made my heart squeeze.

Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella by Megan Morrison: Disenchanted does a wonderful job of capturing a diverse group of characters within its pages, everything from race to culture to class. It’s timeless but modern and I love all the allusions and details from the first book and from fairy tales. It’s also very romantic and focuses as much on Ella’s character growth and her family as it does the more traditional Cinderella plot points.

Gilded Ashes by Rosamund Hodge: As much as I would love this to be a full-length novel, it works so very well as a novella. Gilded Ashes dovetails nicely with Cruel Beauty; it is dark and horrifying and sorrowful, yet romantic and full of love. I loved how the story unfurled and I loved the echos of Cinderella mixed with unconventional details.

Ash and Bramble by Sarah Prineas: This Cinderella/mash up retelling isn’t for everyone- it’s dark and a little confusing at first, but it also has one of the most original villains/story mechanics I’ve ever come across.

Other Retellings

Princess of Thorns by Stacey Jay: the rare book that has everything I love in a fantasy and also manages to be an original retelling/sequel of sorts to Sleeping Beauty.

Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis: A sci-fi retelling of Snow White! Essie is self-sufficient, badass, and brave, and I loved the droids. The world building was extensive but not confusing, the villains were disturbing, and I loved all the Snow White allusions.

Hook’s Revenge by Heidi Schultz: A really fun Peter Pan-inspired adventure! The writing was sharp and descriptive and had that humorous winking bite, and Jocelyn is a heroine worth following.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge: Beauty and the Beast meets Greco-Roman mythology in this lush, strange, and darkly romantic retelling. It’s a little confusing but worth the read!

Heartless by Marissa Meyer: a marvelous, enchanting, and oh so heartbreaking retelling of Alice in Wonderland. It also made me want to bake all the things!

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan: an extremely unique, heartbreaking, and thought-provoking Sleeping Beauty retelling set in a futuristic world.

Bonus: Retellings On My TBR

Traitor’s Masque by Kenley Davidson: a fantasy romance inspired by Cinderella.

The Secrets of Eden by Brandon Goode: a m/m Cinderella retelling with magic!

The Truth About Happily Ever After by Karole Cozzo: Cinderella retelling at a theme park! Be still my Disney heart.

The Seafarer’s Kiss by Julia Ember: a Norse-inspired f/f Little Mermaid retelling.

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi: a lush, magical retelling of Indian mythology.

Hunted by Meagen Spooner: a Russian-inspired Beauty and the Beast tale.
(Note from Jana: This one is AMAZING. I loved it!)

What are some of your favorite retellings? Have you read any of the ones I mentioned? Thanks again to Jana and Bonnie for letting me take part in Magic, Myth, and Mischief!

Morgan @ The Bookish Beagle

Well-rounded nerd. Bookworm. Blogger. Fangirl. Disney enthusiast who watches too much WWE.

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Tobie Easton Guest Post | Submerge Blog Tour

Posted September 19, 2017 by Jana in Blog Tour, Giveaway, Guest Post / 3 Comments

Welcome to my stop along the blog tour for Tobie Easton’s Submerge, hosted by Chapter by Chapter Blog Tours! As part of my month-long event that I’m co-hosting with Bonnie, Magic, Myth, and Mischief, I’ve asked Tobie a very important question.

If you were a mermaid, what kind would you be? Tail and hair color? Sparkles or no sparkles? Any special talents or abilities?

Sparkles! Definitely sparkles. Actually, a fun fact about the book covers for the series is that the addition of sparkles was one of the only parts of the cover design that was my idea; the original cover of Emerge that my publisher sent me (which I LOVED) was nearly identical to the finished version except that there were no sparkles. I asked if we could do something to the title to make it more magical and suggested sparkles or starbursts of some kind. The cover designer, who is extremely talented, played around with different versions of the idea and the whole team fell for the one you see now. Then, of course, we continued that theme on the Submerge cover. I’m so happy because I think it really matches the fantasy feel of the book and hints at the mermaid magic within.

In addition to sparkles, I’d wear a traditional Mer siluess, which translates to chest-covering in Mermese and refers to the garment Mermaids wear on their torsos when the bottom half of the body is in tail form. Siluesses are cut kind of like fancy crop tops. They’re made of luxurious fabrics and often embellished with seashells and precious stones. I’d definitely have some seashell and pearl hair accessories (since my tears would turn into pearls, they’d be easy to come by!).

As for the color of my tail, that’s a hard one. When I first started writing Book 1 of the series, I asked a bunch of my friends and early readers what color tail they’d have, and everyone had a different answer! I incorporated so many different tail colors into the series so that everyone can picture themselves as Mer. I love when readers message me and tell me what their tail color would be! I originally thought mine might be gold like Lia’s or a deep green like her eldest sister Em’s, but then I did a photo shoot with Project Mermaids to help raise awareness for ocean conservation, and I fell in love with the light turquoise tail we chose on the set. Since then, I can’t really picture my Mermaid alter-ego any other way ;) And as you might have guessed from my author photo, I do wear a lot of turquoise, so it really fits. The makeup artist at the shoot even added sparkles to my hair and face (to match the cover, of course!).

Here are some behind-the-scenes pics and the behind-the-scenes video of the shoot:

And the final image in all its magical, Photoshopped glory from the photographer:

I still can’t believe I got to be transformed into a mermaid for a day! WAS THIS EVEN REAL LIFE? Six-year-old Tobie is still squealing. At home afterwards, I sat around for the rest of the day in my pajamas with all the makeup still on because I couldn’t bear to take it off!

Anyway, as for hair color and special abilities, I will give you a hint at a detail in Submerge and say that those might actually be related. I don’t want to give spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that. Submerge will definitely dive deeper into the secret workings of Mer magic. I’m so excited for you to read it when it comes out this week and to learn more about the Mer world!

I’d LOVE to hear about what kind of mermaid you’d be, so let me know in the comments or on social (@TobieEaston)!

xo Tobie

Now that Lia and Clay’s love has broken the Little Mermaid’s curse, everything has changed. Will Lia’s family remain on land, leading the only life she and her sisters have ever known, or will they move below the waves, to the sparkling new capital city? Lia is adamant about staying on land with Clay for her senior year. But at Melusine and her father’s trial, new revelations threaten what Lia holds most dear.

The verdict will shake Lia’s whole world, calling into question her future with Clay, her feelings for Caspian, and the fate of all Merkind. As she wonders who to trust, Lia sets out on a treacherous path that will lead her away from her sheltered Malibu home to a remote and mysterious school for Mermaids—Mermaids who may hold the secret to ancient magic Lia can use to either get back all she’s lost or to embark on a thrilling and dangerous journey.

About Tobie Easton

Tobie Easton was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where she’s grown from a little girl who dreamed about magic to a twenty-something who writes about it. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Southern California, Tobie hosts book clubs for tweens and teens. She and her very kissable husband enjoy traveling the globe and fostering packs of rescue puppies. Learn more about Tobie and her upcoming books on www.TobieEaston.com.

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F.M. Boughan Guest Post | Cinderella, Necromancer Blog Tour

Posted September 7, 2017 by Jana in Blog Tour, Giveaway, Guest Post / 0 Comments

Welcome to my stop along the blog tour for F.M. Boughan’s Cinderella, Necromancer, hosted by Chapter by Chapter Blog Tours! I’m happy to welcome author Faith to the blog today! She’s here to answer a few questions about her book during mine and Bonnie’s special month-long event, Magic, Myth, & Mischief!

1. Tell us more about the real medieval grimoire your story was inspired by! What made you choose to put a Cinderella spin on it?

There’s been very little published regarding this 15th-century grimoire, and I owe a massive debt of gratitude to Richard Kieckhefer, a professor at Northwestern University, for publishing his book Forbidden Rites in which he translates the grimoire and discusses its historical value in detail. There are drawings and recitations and plenty of graphic descriptions about what the conjuring rites are supposed to do, and it’s both disturbing and fascinating. The “magic” is all based on Catholic liturgy, literal perversions of sacred scripture and prayers, which is why the clergymen who practiced necromantic magic during this period of history had to do it in secret. It was highly illegal, forbidden—anathema—and any tome that was discovered would have been immediately destroyed. It’s a wonder that this particular manuscript survived the centuries!

I think the “Cinderella spin” simply came from my brain mashing the two things together—dark magic and girls from fairy tales finally getting the chance to fight back—and I just ran with it. I certainly didn’t sit down with intention to write a necromancy book, it was more of a case of inspiration striking after reading a few history texts and thinking about stories in general.

2. Which elements from the traditional Cinderella fairytale did you draw inspiration from for your book? How did you make it your own?

I tried to pay special tribute to the well-known German and French versions of the story, the ones that are typically thought of as the “classic” Cinderella fairy tale. There’s a lengthy historical note in the back of the book that goes into detail on exactly which elements I pulled from, but in a broader sense, I wanted to follow the same structure of the Cinderella story so that readers could clearly identify that it’s a fairy tale retelling, not a brand new imagining.

With that framework in place, I drew on more surface-level details—two step-sisters, a cruel stepmother, Cinderella being worked to the bone once her father is out of the picture—and then mined the stories for smaller pieces like a name, a scent, bits of imagery. Anyone very familiar with the original stories will hopefully notice those things, but even someone who’s just a fan of the Disney animated classic will find touchstones. Mind you, there are no talking mice—sorry, spoilers!—but there is a mouse, for example. Hey, I love GusGus too!

3. Tell us about how magic and plays a part in your book.

The magic that Ellison uses in the book is directly inspired by the spells from Forbidden Rites, and I tried to keep it as “realistic” (so to speak, hah!) as possible in the sense that I didn’t want to take grand liberties with the material inside the grimoire. Naturally, I had to invent some things—this is fiction, after all!—but the magic is personal, specific, and has consequences.

What those consequences are, I can’t say, because… spoilers! But that said, I hope you enjoy the discovery along the way. Happy reading!

Cinderella, Necromancer by F.M. Boughan
Published by Month9Books on September 5, 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Retelling, Young Adult
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Darkness can only be controlled by those with the darkest of hearts.

Ellison lost her mother at an early age. Now, sixteen, her father has found love again. He’s happy and doesn’t quite notice that Ellison does not get along with his new wife or her vicious daughters.

When Ellison discovers a necromantic tome while traveling the secret passages of her father’s mansion, she wonders if it could be the key to her eventual freedom.

Until then, she must master her dark new power, even as her stepmother makes her a servant in her own home. And when her younger brother falls incurably ill, Ellison will do anything to ease his pain, including falling prey to her stepmother’s and stepsisters’ every whim and fancy.

Stumbling into a chance meeting with Prince William during a secret visit to her mother’s grave feels like a trick of fate when her stepmother refuses to allow Ellison to attend a palace festival where she might see him once more.

But what if Ellison could see the kind and handsome prince again? What if she could attend the festival? What if she could have everything she’s ever wanted and deserved by conjuring spirits to take revenge on her cruel stepmother? And what if she actually liked watching her stepmother suffer?

As Ellison’s power grows, she loses control over the evil spirits meant to do her bidding. And as they begin to exert their own power over Ellison, it becomes harder to tell whether it is she or her stepmother who is the true monster.

CINDERELLA NECROMANCER is CINDER meets ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD and was inspired by a real medieval grimoire of necromancy from 15th-century Germany

About F.M. Boughan

F.M. Boughan is a bibliophile, a writer, and an unabashed parrot enthusiast. She can often be found writing in local coffee shops, namely because it’s hard to concentrate with a cat lying on the keyboard and a small, colorful parrot screaming into her ear. Her work is somewhat dark, somewhat violent, somewhat hopeful, and always contains a hint of magic.

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Zoe Cruz on Flipping the Script on the Traditional Beauty and the Beast | Author Guest Post

Posted March 20, 2017 by Jana in Guest Post / 2 Comments

Welcome to my stop along the Beastia blog tour, hosted by Smith Publicity! We’ve all got Beauty and the Beast on the brain right now (I’m going to see it today in theaters!). Plus my A Week of Beauty and the Beast event ended yesterday, so things are all B&B in my neck of the wood it seems.

Beastia author, Zoe Cruz, is here to talk about her Beauty and the Beast retelling. This one is a little different than many other retellings, and I’ll let Zoe tell you why!

Flipping the Script on the Traditional Beauty and the Beast
by Zoe Cruz

Beauty and the Beast has always enchanted me as a reader. I grew up watching the Disney movie, because who hasn’t? Robin McKinely’s retellings really stick out in my mind. Her Rose Daughter and Beauty were some of my favorite books as a kid. She wrote them with such magic and intrigue, changing and adding details or the outcome entirely. I always remember in one of the books, Beauty doesn’t change the Beast. She loves him just as he is.

When I watched Beastly, the movie, several years ago I wasn’t quite satisfied with the modern retelling. I thought it needed something more. The book by Alex Flinn does a much better job providing that, but I wanted something deeper, different. Later, the Lunar Chronicles gave us Scarlet. I know it’s a Red Riding Hood retelling, but what’s cooler than a French girl falling for a genetically modified wolfman from the moon? In the end though, it was the same trope hashed out again.

As a girl from a small town, I’ve watched pretty women settle for guys who weren’t that great looking, so it wasn’t a stretch for me to imagine a girl falling into a relationship with a literal beast.

What was harder for me to imagine was a handsome guy falling for an “ugly” gal in our society and not the pretty-ugly sorts we find in movies. It was a challenge coming up with a contemporary take on a girl being ugly. It seemed easy to make it magical or a temporary curse, but life isn’t always that way.

Sometimes, when we are hurt it becomes internal baggage that we carry or a permanent badge that we wear. Some things don’t just go away. They are permanent. When I think of permanent, I think of scars or burns, but something about tattoos stuck with me, because tattoos are like art. Art can be ugly and beautiful at the same time. That dichotomy tests the boundaries of my perceptions and how biased the standards truly are. When a woman has scarring or a deformity or even a tattoo that we don’t appreciate at first, the more we look at that thing we perceive as ugliness, it can become tragically beautiful, and even just beautiful. Especially as we learn to love the qualities who make them who they are. Rather, those things we once considered bad or ugly only make them more special no matter what it is. Some of the most beautiful people I know have facial markings or unusual features that make them who they are.

That’s what I wanted for Bek, my character in Beastia: a girl with a tragic past that wouldn’t let the world define who she was going to be, because of the way she looked. I wanted her to be able to learn to love herself no matter how she looked on the outside, even if it was permanent. In life, we don’t always get to choose for bad things to disappear. We are the way we were born or something happened to us and we carry that with us. Not everyone is blessed with good looks and what are “good” looks anyway? It’s an unattainable standard and subjective. Every one of us deserves to be loved for who we are and not what we look like, but that journey must start from within.

Beastia by Zoe Cruz
March 14, 2017 from Createspace
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The meanest of the mean girls, Rebekah Austin rules her Chicago school with sharp outfits and an even sharper tongue. She has a way of making even the most beautiful and brilliant girls in her class feel like dirt. But underneath the queen-bee façade is someone who feels ugly, repulsive…beastly.

When Rebekah falls prey to a madman, the bully becomes the bullied. Scarred and tormented, she abandons her previous life and adopts a new identity, but her ghastly appearance haunts her everywhere she goes. Only with the help of determined friends can she move past her horrifying experience—and maybe even let herself be loved.

And if the madman returns to finish what he started, will she be ready, or will she give up hope?

About Zoe Cruz

I love traveling, writing, reading, and binge watching my favorite shows on Netflix.

I’m a geek too. Anything from classic Tortallan and Hobbit lore to a DS9 Trekkie and a Browncoat. I love any good sci-fi and fantasy book, show or movie.

I’ve lived in Spain for almost four years, so adapting back to U.S. life for now.

Gabrielle Prendergast on “X” Meets “Y” Retellings | Author Guest Post

Posted March 19, 2017 by Jana in Guest Post / 3 Comments

Welcome to the last day of A Week of Beauty and Beast, a special blog event hosted by Bonnie at A Backwards Story and me! We thought this would be the perfect time to host an event devoted to one of our favorite fairy tales, seeing as how Disney’s live action Beauty and the Beast came out in theaters on Friday! Woohoo! We’ve really loved sharing our love of this tale as old as time with you, and hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! Make sure you enter to win a Beauty and the Beast themed book of your choice. And if you want to join in on the fun, link up your B&B themed posts so we can come see!

Today I’m pleased to welcome Gabrielle Prendergast to the blog to talk about her Beauty and the Beast retelling, Zero Repeat Forever.

X Meets Y Retellings by Gabrielle Prendergast

In the book business we have a thing called “comps”. “Comps” is short for comparables, and it refers to what other books (or sometimes movies) that a book under discussion would be compared to. So an author, say, pitching a book to an agent might explain: “It’s got the sweet romance of Stargirl but in a dystopian setting like Divergent” (I would read this!)

Sometimes comps are simply expressed like “It’s ______ meets ______” or “part ______ and part ______”. And this is where this week’s Beauty and the Beast theme comes in because my upcoming young adult sci-fi, Zero Repeat Forever, is frequently described as “Part Terminator and part Beauty and the Beast”. It’s also been described as “The 5th Wave meets Beauty and the Beast”. It is, in many ways, a Beauty and the Beast retelling.

My favorite kinds of fairy tale or traditional story retellings are always ones that have a “X meets Y” premise. And the further X is from Y the better, in my opinion. Only imagine the possibilities! I’d love to read “Cinderella meets Clan of the Cave Bear” for example. A prehistoric prince and his enchanted mystery princess? Are you kidding me? That would be awesome. Or how about “Scheherazade meets High Fidelity” about a plucky Muslim teen who keeps her disgruntled record store boss amused with stories so he doesn’t close down his failing business. (OMG someone please write this).

I could go on and on about this, but I’m at risk of coming up with premises I want to actually write. And I have a deadline on the sequel to Zero Repeat Forever. I need to focus!

What X meets Y retellings would you like to read?

Zero Repeat Forever by Gabrielle Prendergast
August 29, 2017 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
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He has no voice, or name, only a rank, Eighth. He doesn’t know the details of the mission, only the directives that hum in his mind.

Dart the humans. Leave them where they fall.

His job is to protect his Offside. Let her do the shooting.

Until a human kills her…

Sixteen year-old Raven is at summer camp when the terrifying armored Nahx invade, annihilating entire cities, taking control of the Earth. Isolated in the wilderness, Raven and her friends have only a fragment of instruction from the human resistance.

Shelter in place.

Which seems like good advice at first. Stay put. Await rescue. Raven doesn’t like feeling helpless but what choice does she have?

Then a Nahx kills her boyfriend.

Thrown together in a violent, unfamiliar world, Eighth and Raven should feel only hate and fear. But when Raven is injured, and Eighth deserts his unit, their survival comes to depend on trusting each other…

About Gabrielle Pendergrast

Gabrielle Prendergast is the author of the award-winning and multi-nominated young adult novels in verse, Audacious and Capricious. She lives in Canada with her family. Find her on Twitter at @GabrielleSaraP or her website www.gabrielleprendergast.com.