Swish by Tom Carter is a paranormal romance (PNR) for young adult readers. Adopted by her uncle, Abigail Lewis is bullied at high school. With only one friend, Abby suffers mean-spirited pranks at school and physical abuse at home. Her life seems bleak until she meets a new neighborhood boy, […]
Fairy tales are retold every year into success fantasy novels. Cinderella and her friends receive the most attention. I have an entire page devoted to Snow White retellings: The Snow White Read-Off. Alas, what about those princesses who aren’t well-known! Are they cheated out of retellings? Fear not. Below is […]
When I was researching my first fairytale novel, Kingdom Come, I wanted a mix of traditional and untraditional princesses. I chose five: two traditional (Cinderella, Snow White), one known but not known as a fairytale princess (The Little Match Girl), and two untraditional. The untraditional choices were Penta, the Handless […]
A post for Tell A Fairy Tale Day 2026. In this world of the “Big Three” Princesses of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, we forget how many other fairytale princesses/heroines exist. Sure, most remember Beauty, the Little Mermaid, Rapunzel or Red Riding Hood, but what about the others? Most […]
In a prior post, I wrote about following writing rules (then don’t). I referred to why you should follow the rules to avoid common mistakes. In this post, I’ll describe some of those mistakes and why they may diminish the writing. Indeed, I’ve made all these mistakes. Prologues and Epilogues […]
Paula Chaffee Scardamalia’s The Tempting Voice is a romance about a hidden Greek mythological world that co-exists with ours. The novel explores the tropes of forbidden love, personal achievement, the positive and negative of family, and monstrous enemies. The novel alternates point-of-view between two main characters – Nik and Marie […]
Grandfather’s Whispers, a novel by Stacy N. Elliott, examines in prose the burden that some of us bear through life. The novel is a magical realism story about Sarah, a seventeen-year-old girl, and her grandfather, Ralph. A group of raucous boys start off Sarah’s day by running her off the […]
C. Rae D’Arc’s Dead and Back Again series chronicles the life of private investigator Aeron Spade, also known as Earl Aeron Fromm, the Haunted, of Margen. He lives in the magical world of Novel where each “land” represents a literary genre. For example, on the map “Fantasy” exists across the […]
I’ve read several H.L. Burke’s novels before, including the excellent Heart of Curiosity, so I looked forward to her steampunk adventure of Nyssa Glass in the House of Mirrors. I had never read any of the other Nyssa Glass offerings and was intrigued by the title. This steampunk novella met […]
Benjamin Stevenson wins the award for most eye-catching title in recent memory for Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone. Admit that pairing this wordy title with a murder mystery has to intrigue mystery bibliophiles everywhere. But what’s in a name, or title? Does this book hold up beyond its […]