I'm a book review blogger and writer. I have published four novels, The Wanderers; The Storyteller and Her Sisters; and The People the Fairies Forget; and The Lioness and the Spellspinners. All can be found on Amazon as an ebook and paperback. In my day job, I'm a Marketing Specialist. Find me on Twitter (@MarvelousTales) and GoodReads (MarvelousTales).
After all these weeks building up, it’s finally here–Launch Day! My novel, The Wanderers, is now available!
You can get a copy on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), Barnes and Noble (Nook) or Smashwords (alternate ebook formats). It’s $2.99 as an ebook or $11.99 in paper–though right now Amazon is offering a sale on the paperback. I don’t control that and I don’t know how long it will last, so you may want to jump now!
If you’ve somehow missed previous posts on this subject and are feeling a little perplexed, you can jump over to the Novel News page for more information about the book. If you’ve been following along, the journey doesn’t end today! Starting next week, I have a series of interviews, guest posts, giveaways and coupons lined up that I can’t wait to share with you.
And I have to give a big thank-you to all you wonderful people who have been so supportive along the way. It’s always hard for writers to send their words out into the world. Sharing my blogging words with such a great community has made the next step a little less intimidating. 🙂
One of the rereads I planned this year was Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which are among the very best fairy tale retellings I’ve ever read (and that’s saying a lot!) I’m midway through a reread right now, so because of that and because I consider this series an inspiration for my soon-to-be-released fairy tale novel, it seems an appropriate time to share this particular review again!
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I was recently sketching over the plotline of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede for a friend, and realized that I actually remembered all the character names. As I’ve mentioned, I am bad at character names. Oh sure, I remember the main character (maybe!), but the main character’s best friend? Probably not.
But for The Enchanted Forest Chronicles…Cimorene is the heroine, and her best friend is named Alianora. And I could give you at least another six or seven names besides. All of which should say something about how great this series is!
Don’t mind the creases–they’re well-read
It all starts with Cimorene, a princess who decides that she’d rather be kidnapped by a dragon than marry the boring prince her parents picked out. Princesses are kidnapped by dragons sometimes, you know. Taking advice from an enchanted frog, Cimorene goes off to find a dragon and volunteer. The dragon Kazul agrees to take her on, especially after hearing that Cimorene can cook cherries jubilee.
Is that already enough to convince you these are wonderful books? If not, I can also tell you that the story goes on with evil wizards, all manner of enchanted creatures, a magical forest (of course) and endless fun references to fairy tales. They’re funny, exciting, and even romantic in spots.
It’s not a romance with that boring prince from the beginning–Prince Therandil does turn up, but he stays insufferable. He comes to fight the dragon to rescue Cimorene; he would have come back earlier in the book, except that he was waiting for Kazul to defeat an impressive number of challengers first. He’s very put out when Cimorene explains no one’s actually fought Kazul–she’s been talking the challengers out of it, which has been very inconvenient and time-consuming.
Wrede has created one of those wonderful things in retold fairy tales–a world where there are strange and marvelous things like djinns and enchanted swords and magical caves and (of course) dragons, but where you also have to deal with getting the right pot for your cherries jubilee, and cleaning the dust out of (non-magical) caves.
The series is a quartet, plus a couple of short stories. I think my favorite book is the third, narrated by the witch Morwen, who has nine talking cats (who only she understands). This one also features a rabbit named Killer, who has a penchant for stumbling into spells, piling layer after layer of enchantment on himself. In a magical, rabbit sort of way, he’s not unlike my character, Jones.
I don’t think any of the books retell any specific fairy tale, but they’re all riddled with references, sometimes made quite casually. When Cimorene’s parents want her to get married, she says she’s too young. Her mother replies, “Your Great-Aunt Rose was married at sixteen…One really can’t count all those years she spent asleep under that dreadful fairy’s curse.” In the second book we meet a giant who’s very friendly as long as your name isn’t Jack, and a dwarf named Herman who tried the Rumpelstiltskin trade, but got stuck with tons of children when no one could guess his name (and he thought Herman would be easy).
I could probably go on citing incidents and examples for a long time…but better to just read the books. They’re good adventures, very funny–and obviously, have memorable characters!
I was feeling like some Terry Pratchett recently, and elected to read The Last Hero. This one is described as “A Discworld Fable,” and is shorter than most of the other books–and it’s beautifully illustrated!
The story centers around Cohen the Barbarian and his friends, the greatest heroes Discworld ever knew…some sixty years ago. They’ve grown old, and are decidedly unhappy about it. They set out on the ultimate final quest, to the mountain-top home of the Discworld gods, with enough explosives to blow the mountain up–creating a chain reaction that will destroy all of Discworld. Meanwhile in Ankh-Morpork, the wizards of Unseen University and Lord Vetinari assemble a team to stop Cohen, relying on the technical genius of Leonard of Quirm, who devises the first ever ship designed for flying outside the Disc.
The plot is a bit convoluted, with a lot of players, but suffice to say we get lots of satire of traditional hero stories, with some space travel satire thrown in. And the real brilliance is that we get it all with Pratchett’s wonderfully hilarious characters and wit.
My favorite part may be all the excellent plays on hero story tropes, especially as we see them through Evil Harry. He’s a Dark Lord Cohen and company know from way back, who joins forces with them here–warning them that of course he’ll have to double-cross them eventually, because that’s how things are done. He’s also very proud that he found the stupidest henchmen possible (because Dark Lords always have stupid henchmen…) and takes comfort from the rule that the Dark Lord always escapes mysteriously at the end.
The best part, perhaps, is that Cohen and his friends all agree that Evil Harry knows the rules, and none of them can fathom the young people these days who don’t understand how things should be handled.
This is a fun one for Discworld fans, because we get a lot of regular characters putting in appearances. Rincewind and Carrot go with Leonard on the journey, lots of wizards feature, and even Death gets a cameo. He’s in the middle of trying to understand Schrodinger’s Cat, and never quite grasps the metaphor–but doesn’t approve of the whole business, as he doesn’t hold with cruelty to cats.
This is also excellent just for the gorgeous illustrations. They’re beautifully-drawn and frequent, throughout the whole book. I do love a beautifully-illustrated book for grown-ups every now and then!
If you’re new to Discworld, the rule is always, “jump into the series wherever you feel inclined.” Considering this one is short, covers a lot of major characters, and has gorgeous illustrations, it wouldn’t be a bad choice…
I’ve mentioned a time or two 😉 that I have a novel coming out…and we’re getting close! Launch Date, November 15th, is less than a week away! The Wanderers will be available in paperback and ebook. Ebooks aren’t so easy to photograph, so today I’m sharing pictures of the paperback. Technically this is the final proof, but it’s what the published book will look like too…
Every writer I know agrees that the arrival of the proof is one of the most exciting parts of the process…suddenly it’s all real! 🙂
I hope you have a wonderful weekend–and you can visit West Metro Mommy for more Saturday Snapshots.
This week’s Book Blogger Hop question: When you are out of town, do you still participate in weekly memes or do you have your post scheduled to appear on your blog and perhaps check back? Or do you not participate at all?
Handling memes while out of town isn’t too challenging for me, because all the memes I regularly participate in are ones I can easily prepare ahead of time. With only the occasional exception, I schedule all my blog posts (for instance, I’m writing this on a Monday…) You may have noticed they all publish at the same time of day! Scheduling ahead lets me avoid the stress of needing to do last-minute writing, which for me works much better.
Anyway, the challenge when I’m out of town isn’t putting the memes on my blog, but getting my post linked on the host blog. Sometimes I link up very early before I leave town, or use my smart phone later.
So all that adds up to–yes, I do generally still participate while traveling. It’s not as much fun, of course, because I usually don’t have time/opportunity to interact with the other participants…but I can still be involved a bit by posting.
Anyone else who’s run into this? What’s your strategy on memes-while-traveling?
Addendum: So it turns out I misread the schedule, and answered last week’s question! Meaning you’re getting a double-feature today… This week’s question is: Do you post your book reviews as soon as you have completed the book or do you wait a few days?
As noted above, I don’t post hardly anything immediately. The more relevant point may be whether I write the reviews as soon as I finished the book or wait, and…I don’t have a definitive answer. Often I wait a few days until I have a convenient space to write up a review. Sometimes I’m so inspired that I write a review immediately. Other times books sit around for a couple of weeks before I get around to writing the review. Oddly, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with how much I enjoyed the reading…
So–how do you schedule your writing and/or posting?
After all these weeks building up, it’s finally here–Launch Day! My novel, The Wanderers, is now available!
Tales of the Marvelous 