Tag: fairy tale

Book Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

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A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas  

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Publishing Info: May 2015 by Bloomsbury Children’s

Pages: 419

Star Rating: 4/5

Back Cover Summary:

Feyre is a huntress.

She thinks nothing of slaughtering a wolf to capture its prey. But, like all mortals, she fears what lingers mercilessly beyond the forest. And she will learn that taking the life of a magical creature comes at a high price…

Imprisoned in an enchanted court in her enemy’s kingdom, Feyre is free to roam but forbidden to escape. Her captor’s body bears the scars of fighting, and his face is always masked – but his piercing stare draws her ever closer. As Feyre’s feeling for Tamlin begin to burn through every warning she’s been told about his kind, an ancient, wicked shadow grows.

Feyre must find a way to break a spell, or lose her heart forever.

Having loved the first two books in Maas’s Throne of Glass series, I was eager to dive into the first book in her other series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and I wasn’t disappointed. The book is quite slow to start but everything comes together brilliantly in the second half. The slower pacing earlier on meant I had time to get to know the characters and become invested in their fates. It didn’t drag or get boring, so if you start reading it and find it a tad slow, please persevere because, well, it gets so good.

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Author Interview: LB Garrison

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The next collection to be released by the Just-Us League is Fractured Ever After, to be released on 27th April 2019. The collection of fairy tale retellings will be the group’s seventh anthology. Author LB Garrison joins me to discuss his contribution to the anthology – ‘Beauty’.

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Have you ever watched the stars on a warm summer night and wondered if someone was looking back? Thoughts of dinosaurs and aliens dominated LB Garrison’s childhood. Adult concerns came later, but never could quite crowd out the wonder.

A microbiologist by profession, and dreamer by choice, LB has always been an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy, and recently a writer of speculative fiction.

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Author Interview: Lynden Wade

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A Bit of Magic is an upcoming fairy tale retelling anthology, and will be the fifth collection of stories published by the Just-Us League. One of the authors, Lynden Wade, joins me today for an interview about her contribution to the anthology – ‘Reed Girl, Fire Girl, Cloud Girl’.

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LYNDEN WADE AUTHOR PHOTOLynden Wade was home schooled in a village in West Africa, giving her lots of time to read. The bright colours of illustrations to fairy tales, legends and medieval history – worlds away from the dry grasslands and termite hills around her – inspired her to write her own stories. Her muses include Joan Aiken, Diana Wynne Jones and Rosemary Sutcliff. She has had stories published in The Forgotten and the Fantastical 3 and in the JL Anthology From The Stories of Old. Two more stories are due to be published in 2018 in addition to ‘Reed Girl, Fire Girl, Cloud Girl,’ her contribution to A Bit of Magic. She is working on a historical novel. She loves tea shops, book shops, period drama, castles and trees. You can find her on quillsquotesqueensquests.wordpress.com, on lyndenwadeauthor.weebly.com and on Facebook.

What inspired your retelling?

One of my favourite books as a child was ‘The Kingdom under the Sea and Other Stories’ by Joan Aiken, illustrated by Jan Pienkowski, who drew delicate silhouettes that entwined the text. I particularly loved the story ‘The Reed Girl,’ but I also felt quite impatient with the Prince, who kept letting the reed girls die because he didn’t get to them fast enough to give them water. It needed a retelling!

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Cover Reveal: A Bit of Magic

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This comes to you a day late as I wrote down the wrong date! Never mind. The next release from the Just-Us League writing group is A Bit of Magic, a Collection of Fairy Tale Retellings. The anthology will be released on the 31st May. Today I bring you a reveal for the gorgeous cover, created by Louis Rakovich at Indigo Forest Designs. Each story in the anthology is accompanied by an illustration by Heidi Hayden.

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Author Interview: Sam Waterhouse

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Today, Sam Waterhouse joins me as part of the Of Legend and Lore blog tour. This collection of fairy tale retellings by members of the Just-Us League takes a fresh look at both well-known and lesser known tales.

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Sam Waterhouse is a part-time writer with a full-time imagination from Hobart, Tasmania. ‘Wishes Between Worlds’ is his second published story, a futuristic retelling of ‘The Enchanted Quill’ fairy tale. He enjoys writing unusual characters, so a trickster, genie-esque crow was an opportunity too good to pass on.

Sam also contributed to the previous Just-Us League anthology Between Heroes and Villains with ‘Like You’, an original story where superpowers are treated as a disease to be eradicated.

You can follow Sam on Twitter (@SW_Wordologist).

What inspired your retelling?

I chose to retell ‘The Enchanted Quill’ partly because I like a good anthropomorphic character and partly because of how it portrays the power of the written word. I took a few liberties in the retelling – such as changing the setting to a spaceship during a multi-generational interstellar voyage and having Corvo play the part of trickster – but those were the two qualities I liked most about this particular fairy tale.

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Release Day! Of Legend and Lore

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Today is the release day for Of Legend and Lore, an anthology of fairy tale retelling by the Just-Us League group. The collection includes my own short story, Cursed Glass, which is a retelling of a Grimm fairy tale called The Glass Coffin. It blends fantasy and science-fiction to tell a story about darkness and redepmtion.

This is the fourth anthology published by the group and the second focusing on fairy tale retellings. It was exciting to be part of this for the first time and I look forward to being included in future anthologies. You can read the interview I did as part of the blog tour here.

You can purchase the book on Amazon worldwide in Kindle and paperback! It includes a beautifully designed illustration for each story.

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New life is given to eleven old stories in this second collection of irresistible fairy tale retellings.

Royalty faces magical challenges: a prince uses his powers on a rescue mission and reveals a terrible secret about his people; a king takes drastic measures to save his daughters from a troublesome curse; and a princess befriends an unusual frog.

Mythical creatures can be friend or foe: three brothers face a depressed dragon with a legendary treasure; an ancient crow brings a child’s wishes to life; and one young girl discovers dragons aren’t always the enemy.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes: a miser is in danger of losing everything one cold night; a struggling mirrorsmith meets an invisible recluse; a boy must relive the fairy tale based on his ancestor’s life; a child is rejected because of his love of drawing cats; and an evil witch is sealed in a glass coffin.

Be transported to new worlds and enjoy fresh twists on old favorites.

 

Cover Reveal: Of Legend and Lore

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the LeftLeave a comment

Today I’m excited to be revealing the cover for the Just-Us League’s latest anthology, Of Legend and Lore. The cover has been beautifully designed by Louis Rakovich, cover designer at Indigo Forest Designs. This reveal is particularly exciting because this anthology of fairy tale retellings will include one of my short stories!

So without further ado, here it is…

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New life is given to eleven old stories in this second collection of irresistible fairy tale retellings.

Royalty faces magical challenges: a prince uses his powers on a rescue mission and reveals a terrible secret about his people; a king takes drastic measures to save his daughters from a troublesome curse; and a princess befriends an unusual frog.

Mythical creatures can be friend or foe: three brothers face a depressed dragon with a legendary treasure; an ancient crow brings a child’s wishes to life; and one young girl discovers dragons aren’t always the enemy.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes: a miser is in danger of losing everything one cold night; a struggling mirrorsmith meets an invisible recluse; a boy must relive the fairytale based on his ancestor’s life; a child is rejected because of his love of drawing cats; and an evil witch is sealed in a glass coffin.

Be transported to new worlds and enjoy fresh twists on old favorites.

My short story, Cursed Glass, retells a lesser known Grimm tale and explores inner conflict and redemption.

Each story is accompanied by an image drawn by our illustrator, Heidi Hayden. Of Legend and Lore will be released by Rowanwood Publishing on 26th February 2018 – Tell a Fairy Tale Day!

Find out more about the Just-Us League here. We’re an international group of writers with a shared love of storytelling. This is the fourth anthology published by the group.

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