Author: cherylmahoney

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).

The Fairy Tale Behind the Ballet

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews4 Comments

The holidays are creeping up on us!  I always like thinking about favorite books and movies to help put me in the spirit.  This year, I was fortunate to find a new (to me at least) book with a Christmas theme: Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffman, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

You may be familiar with the Nutcracker ballet–and this is not quite that.  The ballet is based on the story, and you can certainly see the same outlines.  But as often happens when stories are translated from one medium to another, things changed along the way!  The plot is a bit different and, in this particular edition, so is the atmosphere created by Sendak’s illustrations.

Like the ballet, the story begins with Christmas Eve, as Marie (or in the ballet, Clara) and her brother Fritz open their Christmas presents.  Marie’s favorite is the wooden Nutcracker.  That night, after everyone else has gone to sleep, Marie is in the parlor with the toys.  She witnesses a fight between the toy soldiers led by Nutcracker, and the fearsome, seven-headed Mouse King–or did she just dream it?  Here the story diverges from the ballet.  Marie is injured in the fight (or did she just put her arm through a glass cabinet?) and while she’s sick in bed, Godfather Drosselmeier tells her a fairy tale story of how the Nutcracker was cursed, and the roots of his enmity with the mice.

This is a lovely Christmas tale, with much the same charm and feel as the Brothers Grimm (though maybe less grim than their darkest!)  The book is really a novella, including the long story-within-a-story in the middle.  The odd story about the cursed princess who can only be cured when a magic nut is cracked is great fun, and Marie has her share of adventure too.

The illustrations are obviously a big part of this book, and there are some beautiful ones.  Don’t expect the tinsel and glitter of most productions of the ballet, but Sendak brings the characters to life with his own unique style–and with particularly elaborate costume details.  There are many full-page spreads, including a series of pages in a row when Marie and Nutcracker travel to the magic country.  There’s even what looks like a “Wild Thing” peering around a rock in one of those pictures!

My favorite thing about the book may be the charming narrative voice.  J. M. Barrie has won my heart forever by being the most charming of narrators, and so when I say Hoffman reminded me of Barrie in some moments, it’s a high compliment.  He has the same trick of addressing the reader that I enjoy so much, and there’s also some great tongue-in-cheek humor.

The edition I have was just released last October, and it’s physically a beautiful book.  It’s a large hardback, and seems designed to make a wonderful holiday gift!

Other reviews:
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
Minding Spot
A Patchwork of Books
Anyone else?

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

It’s…Sunday, What Are You Reading?

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations, What Are You Reading?30 Comments

itsmondayAs I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there’s a fun meme by Sheila at Book Journey inviting people to share their reading plans.  Normally it’s on Mondays…but I have a book review already scheduled for tomorrow, so I’m posting early!

I went through my pre-Thanksgiving stack, and weathered the long library close over the holiday weekend.  Legacy was, well, a behemoth.  Mort was enormous fun (of course!) and Roughing It was excellent when Mark Twain demonstrated his talent for tall tales.  When he got into actual history, it was (with exceptions) not as exciting.  But the tall tales and weird adventures were good fun.

Reading Stack

I’m currently reading Lady Friday by Garth Nix.  Next in my line of books is Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier, the next book in her Sevenwaters series–and another book for my Finish-the-Series challenge, though I don’t expect to finish this one by year’s end.

After that, I’m deeply curious about The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, ever since seeing his TED talk.  I’m hoping he’ll help me solve that moment, when you’re on Netflix’s streaming catalog and there are ENDLESS choices and yet nothing looks quite interesting enough.  Not exactly a large-scale problem, I admit!  But I’m always fascinated by why the brain works the way it does.

And after that, probably, Villette by Charlotte Bronte, because I so love Jane Eyre, and this was recommended to me as another good one.

However, everything gets rearranged if either of my two on-hold-at-the-library books come in.  I’m presently #1 of 142 holds for The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom–when I got in line I was around #65.  I’m also #6 of 46 holds for Son by Lois Lowry; I was about #25 when I got in that line, and I’ve had time to reread all three previous books in the quartet while waiting.  Sometimes the library is a little slow about new books…but no matter, they come eventually!

So covers my plans for the next couple of weeks.  What are you reading?

Saturday Snapshot: Teatime

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot20 Comments

It’s raining all this weekend.  I thought about sharing rain pictures, but found out that it’s not so easy to photograph rain.  But rain makes me want to curl up somewhere cozy and drink tea, so I thought I’d share tea pictures–particularly fun tea pictures, from my London trip.

Tea at the Orangerie (4)This is the Orangerie in Kensington Gardens.  If you’re ever there, it’s off the Broad Walk near Kensington Palace.  They’re known for their excellent afternoon teas–two different friends who had lived in London recommended them to me!

Tea at the Orangerie (5)

This was my experience of tea–not actually the fancy version, which they serve on a pretty tiered tray and has cakes and sandwiches and enormous amounts of food.  But I wasn’t that hungry and they kindly let me just have very tasty tea and scones, even though the option wasn’t on the menu.

Tea at the Orangerie (3)

This is the view from the Orangerie’s patio.  Somewhere beyond that path is Kensington Palace.

Tea at the Orangerie (1)I also had breakfast at the Orangerie another day–the eggs tasted better than they look in the picture!  That day I ate inside, and got this picture…

Tea at the Orangerie (2)It’s a beautiful place–and not as busy Sunday mornings as it is for afternoon tea.  If you’re in Kensington Gardens (where you MUST go if you have any interest in Peter Pan), then the Orangerie is an excellent place for a very charming breakfast or tea!

Visit At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots.

NaNoWriMo Day 30: Victory!

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo11 Comments

NaNo Winner-180x180I am happy to report I “validated my novel” on the NaNoWriMo site yesterday evening–coming in at 50,050 words according to NaNo’s counter.

So at the end of the month I wound up with…

– Almost 35,000 words of The Monster and the Prince, which puts me much farther along than the 10,000 word stalled draft I had in October.  I also now feel like I will be able to finish this eventually–once some ideas settle down a bit.

– One 8,000 word short-story featuring characters from my in-progress novel draft, The Wanderers.  For people who have been reading excerpts this month, that’s the Sleeping Beauty one (sorry, it’s title-less…suggestions?)  If I go with self-publishing for the novel, I figure a short story set after the end will have some uses–and it was enormous fun to write!

– One nearly-finished short story approaching 7,000 words, with the same characters and loose time-frame as the story above.  This one’s a bit more fluff than substance, but I might be able to do something with it.  I hope to finish it up by this weekend at the latest–at least a version where the characters get to solve the problem the easy way.  If I made them take the hard way, I’d have the beginnings of a novel sequel.  Maybe some day!

– And finally, some 2,500 words starting a short story that would fit between Chapters 1 and 2 of The Wanderers, heavily featuring Tom the talking cat, and good for promotion…when I finish it eventually.

All in all, not a straight-forward NaNo…but I’m calling that some satisfactory work done!  Next project–do one last, final, really-the-last-time pass through The Wanderers for final final revisions (can you tell I’ve revised a few times?), then send it on to beta-readers for feedback.

It’s been a fun, albeit slightly exhausting month.  I found that what really worked for me was getting up earlier than usual every day to write before work.  Result–on my lowest day (besides today), I still wrote nearly 800 words.  And by the end of the month, I’m getting tired!  Oh well–time to sleep more in December.  And revise that novel!

One last excerpt?  Well, how about just a paragraph demonstrating how much fun it is to write short stories about characters I know well.  See, Jasper has Rules, which he very thoroughly believes in.  And after an entire novel playing with his Rules, it’s easy to start a short story by flinging Rules around…

It was a very stupid argument, and one that would have been largely incomprehensible to anyone listening, considering it involved a lot of throwing back-and-forth of Rules.  In the twisting ways of conversations, Julie wasn’t even sure exactly how it had started.  They had been talking about where to travel next, and Jasper hadn’t wanted to commit to anything.  Julie had made a complaint about Rule #2 (Never make plans).  The conversation had begun to escalate when she dragged in Rule #3 (Never trust a magician), just to object to on principle.  There were heated references to Rule #23 made on both sides (Never underestimate the amount of damage that can be done by an idiot) and the entire thing culminated with Julie making an ill-considered remark about Jasper’s “stupid rules,” shortly after which he stalked out of the room muttering about Rule #18 (Always travel alone).

NaNoWriMo Day 28: End of the Tunnel

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo9 Comments

We’re coming in on the end of the month, and I am happy to report that I’m well on-track.  It’s been a busy writing week–of course, I made it easy on myself by working on the short story I knew I’d be able to make progress on!  This story may turn out to be nothing but a fluff piece, but I’m enjoying it.

And besides, as they say (and by “they” I mean Brenda Ueland), no writing in which the creative force is at work is ever a waste of time.  That’s not a direct quote, I’m not at home and don’t have her book with me, but something like that!

As things stand, I have about a thousand words left, which after 49,000 is hardly anything.  I will most likely finish tomorrow, a day early…and I find myself oddly reluctant to do that!  I remember I had the same feeling last year–I had a big push over Thanksgiving weekend and was well ahead the last few days…and I kind of hated to finish before the 30th.  I suppose because then the journey is over.

Which is silly, of course, because it’s not like I’m going to stop writing on November 30th, or December 1st.  I’m not even sure the short story will be over (most likely not).  But the loss of the goal takes some of the push out of things, and I rather hate to lose the impetus before the month is actually up.

Oh well.  I’ll most likely hit 50,000 on the 29th, and still carry on with the short story over the next few days in a slightly less intense way.

For tonight, hunting for an excerpt…and here’s one from the other short story, the one that got stuck–but that I’ll probably finish eventually and may ultimately be more useful than the fluff one I’m writing right now!  No context needed, it’s the opening page, and though it is with characters from my novel, it’s meant to be possible to read it independently…

            “So is it true that cats can see ghosts,” Jasper asked, “or is that just part of the air of mystery you put on?”

            “We don’t put on anything,” Tom said with an indignant twitch of his tail.  “We’re just naturally mysterious.” Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Day 28: End of the Tunnel” →