Everything Else

The Switcheroo

Many books, movies, and even songs have twist endings, but a few have the unique ability to be almost a completely different experience upon going through it a second time through. In the publication of my short story “Evicted” in June 2021, I tried to write a story which is different the second time you read it. This is what I call a “switcheroo.”

There’s a subtle difference between a tale with a twist at the end and a tale worth reading or watching a second time. The Twilight Zone, a well-known series, was known for its twists in such episodes as “To Serve Man” or “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.” In the lesser-known episode  named “Spur of the Moment,” a young woman is frightened to death by an older woman who screeches at her and chases her on horseback. This episode too has a twist if you can remember it. When you finish the episode, it begs for a repeat viewing.

Not everyone loves switcheroos. The late, great Roger Ebert said “A lot of recent films seem unsatisfied unless they can add final scenes that redefine the reality of everything that has gone before; call it the Kaizer Soze syndrome.” (Referring to The Usual Suspects, on this list). His definition is as good as any, but I disagree with him in spirit. If a writer or director can do this well, it makes for an entertaining reading or viewing experience.

If you liked the idea of watching or reading a different version the second time around, here’s a list of movies and books that do just that.

  1. The Other, a novel by Thomas Tryon. A horror novel about identical twin boys, on the cusp of their teen years. The boys are completely different in temperament. One of them turns their farm home upside down. Hailed in its day next to Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, The Other has faded from most of the collective’s consciousness (e.g. I had to search on “The Other Tryon” to get it to show in Amazon), yet it remains a solid switcheroo.
  2. The Sixth Sense, a film directed and written by M. Night Shyamalan – No list of switcheroos would be complete without M. Night Shyamalan’s masterpiece. If you haven’t seen it, then watch it immediately. If you have, then you know how good it is. Shyamalan’s other movies contain switcheroos as well, notably The Village.
  3. Memento, a film by Christopher Nolan – Most people moan how movies “aren’t made the way they used to be.” I suspect people will be complaining about this in the future about Christopher Nolan’s films. We’re fortunate to have such a visionary director in our age. This film, an early example of his skill and one of his best, is engrossing to watch. A movie that moves backward through its events through a clever use of a memory lapse until the viewer arrives at the end of the film. When you reach the “beginning at the end,” you understand just what you were watching for two hours.
  4. Magpie Murders, a novel by Anthony Horrowitz – Check out Andrew Horriwitz’s fantastic murder mystery with two plots happening simultaneously. A fascinating piece of razzle-dazzle which has a cozy mystery unfold at the same time as a contemporary mystery in the real world of the author. This novel is brilliantly staged. Inspired from Agatha Christie’s novels, Horowitz proves he can channel just about any mystery writer (having done Doyle and Fleming previously).
  5. Crooked House, a novel by Agatha Christie – Who can choose among Christie’s books? Most are straight-forward mysteries with a reveal at the end that is surprising but may not want to get you to read it again (e.g. The ABC Murders). There are others that may entice you for a second read. Among her most famous are And Then There Were None. Murder on the Orient Express, and Crookied House. I chose Crooked House as it’s the least known of the three, but when you get to the end and you say “what just happened?” you know you’ve just read a great switcheroo.
  6. The Usual Suspects, a film by Bryan Singer – Often people think these plots are only for fantasy, science fiction, or horror. Mystery is also fertile ground for switcheroos. The movie revolves around the mysterious figure of Kaiser Soze. The Usual Suspects has such an interesting reveal at the end that I dare you not to rewatch certain parts over. You may not like Kevin Spacey’s personal life, but he delivers one of his finest performances in this film.
  7. The Prestige, a film by Christopher Nolan. Another Nolan. In my mind, this is two different experiences the second time around. The movie splits its time between two magicians—both with secrets—that when revealed at the end, make you look at the same scene in a totally different light. The conversations and what they really mean are wildly different the second time through even though it’s exactly the same dialogue. This is my favorite personal switcheroo and cemented me as a Nolan fan for the rest of his career.

Runners-Up: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Village (Shylamalan again), Inception (Nolan again), Vertigo (Hitchcock’s switcheroo), TV’s The Prisoner, and Shutter Island.

Everything Else

Review of When Your Beauty IS the Beast

When Your Beauty IS the Beast is an anthology by Ye Olde Dragon Books and the first in their fairytale series. Instead of “give us retellings of Beauty and the Beast,” the editors have cleverly asked for stories where the beauty is the beast. How to interpret that directive—looks, personality, actual beast—was left to the author’s imagination. As such, the reader is treated to eleven varying tales on a theme.

The stories are not all fairytales either. Many were fantasy but some entries were thriller, science-fiction, and LitRPG/Game lit. While Beauty and the Beast is the guiding star, the stories didn’t necessarily have to reflect its plot. Stories where a prominent female character inhabited the role of “beast” is the only common thread woven through this tapestry of tales.

When I read an anthology, I judge based on both the quality of the stories and how it matches its theme. I may come across a superb mystery, but will be disappointed if it appears in an anthology that is hawking itself as all romance. So while I give more weight to the story itself, following the marketing of the book makes a difference.

Of the stories here, I’m happy to say that most nailed the theme. While a few strayed, a majority kept true to a theme of a “beastly beauty.” Some are retellings with a flip of genders, some don’t resemble the fairytale at all but have a savage female as its main character, and there’s even a couple of entries where the characters from Beauty of the Beast appear, but they’re not the main characters.

All the stories were well-written and creative. Most I would rate very good for an anthology—a great start to this fairytale series. The book starts on the right note with “After Happily Ever.” In this offering, marriage counselor Poly has clients such as Beauty and the Beast. Humorous, sweet, and breaking with the romantic tradition of B&B, the anthology is off to a good start.

As evidence of the variety of the novel, “The Beasts of Blackwell” takes a more high fantasy approach than the original fairytale. The “Shadow Of Cinchona Grove” creatively removes the original from its European origins into a South American setting. And both “Skin Deep” and “Daughter of the Beastly Beauty” are the results when authors think outside the box.

Beauty and the Beast in space? Not quite the same story, but the science-fiction offering of “Hen House” builds a world in a few short pages. Poignant and humorous, it’s a treat in the middle of the other tales.

“Gaston and the Beast” extends the Beauty and the Beast story. I’m a sucker for fairy tale continuations so this one caught my interest. What happened if Gaston lived at the end of that tale as old as time? This story answers that question.

“Curse of the Roses” is a delightful retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I was impressed with the way it unfolded and will remember the setting and characters for a long time afterward.

Finally, “Between Dog and Wolf” is something special. I was blown away with how this story took me by surprise. Every time I thought I knew where it was going, it went in a different direction. Very well-researched, gripping, and thought-provoking, this story is one to treasure.

The other stories are equally good and entertaining. I encourage you, whether Beauty and the Beast is your favorite fairytale or not, to give this a read. If you like variety, creativity, and a set of stories Belle would admire, try this anthology out.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091QDB5PW

Everything Else

Review of Don’t Date the Haunted

Every horror reader knows the basics: “Don’t go into the basement (or attic)”, “Don’t stare at your reflection in the lake for too long”, “Don’t play some creepy old game you found in a trunk (unless it’s Jumanji),” etc. Pansy Finster lives her life by these rules, and they have served her well as she resides on a continent called Horror. In Horror, approximately every six months, the residents encounter a Haunting. A Haunting is any horrifying, supernatural occurrence from werewolves to ghosts to murderous dolls. Pansy’s brother has written the book on how to survive in Horror, and Pansy knows the text by heart. As such, she’s a survivor.

But Pansy has experienced too many Hauntings in her young life and lost her fiancé to a Haunting. When she has the opportunity to move to another continent, she takes it. Pansy becomes a transfer student to the continent of Romance, where love is always en vogue. Now she must adopt new ways. Talking to handsome strangers is encouraged, dressing in heels is normal because nobody runs in fright, and people wear masks to dances but not to slaughter each other.

Don’t Date the Haunted by C. Rae D’Arc is a dark comedy big on both the laughs and thrills. The author uses the fish out of water theme of Pansy in Romance-land to her advantage for the early part of the novel. Several passages will evoke a chortle if not a belly laugh. The comedy builds out of the setup, but the characterization contributes to much of the humor. Enjoyable characters in a unique setting drives the novel forward to its conclusion. But make no mistake—this book isn’t a one-trick pony. It takes an interesting turn midway through that builds to a creative climatic scene.

I was impressed with the world-building in this novel. More than two continents, Horror and Romance, belong to the world of Novel. Mystery, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and others exist here too. I love the concept that the different continents represent literary genres. The world-building is such a unique concept that when I read the blurb for this book, I knew I had to buy it. The description of Pansy’s airport layover in Mystery in order to get to Romance had me in stitches.

Often light-hearted but also with surprising depth, Don’t Date the Haunted lives up to its promise of a dark comedy. The humor is earned, the darkness is delicious, and the payoff is legitimate. Clearly, no one should date the haunted, but everyone ought to read about those who do.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HSWYRMN

Everything Else

Review of The Wish Granter

C. J. Redwine’s The Wish Granter is the second novel in her Ravenspire series in which a popular fairy tale is reimagined into a more realistic (yet still fantasy) setting with serious consequences for the main characters. In this novel, she highlights the town of Sundraille where the royal family has recently died. The king’s bastard son, Thad Glavan, is next in line for the crown and becomes the king. Meanwhile Ari, Thad’s rebellious sister and best friend, struggles to learn how to become a princess.

Ari doesn’t realize exactly what Thad has gotten himself into until she encounters a strange and dangerous man who comes to visit her brother. Alistair Teague is the mastermind behind the criminal activity in Sundraille’s main town. Teague also happens to be the Wish Granter, an evil faerie banished from his home country for some mysterious reason. When he grants a wish, he collects a soul after a period of elapsed time. It’s up to Ari and a weapons master named Sebastian to figure out a way to defeat the Wish Granter.

If it sounds like I’ve given away most of the plot, don’t worry. The Wish Granter has a lot more story to unspool, and it twists and turns with real suspense and adventure. This is a long novel, yet much like the first novel in the series The Shadow Queen, it draws the reader in deeper and deeper until the final hundred pagers fly by. It’s a testament to the strength of the characters, the intricacies of the plot, and the vile adversary (Teague) that the book is so engrossing.

Ari is not your typical heroine. She likes to eat and cook, yet her mind is shrewd and she never backs down. Calculating and endearing, she learns the cost of risking a powerful villain’s ire. Sebastian is really one word at the beginning—stoic. In a sense, he’s the one with the largest character arc, and he makes for a dashing secondary character.

The book revels in the feeling of hopelessness it gives the reader as the inexperienced Ari and the street-smart Sebastian plot against the ancient Alistair. Success seems further away the closer they get, building both the suspense and the fun.

After praising The Shadow Queen, I bought The Wish Granter without hesitation. It sat on my shelf for a while for a number of reasons. One of them was I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to the thrills of the first book. I’m excited to report it’s a worthy second story to the Ravenspire series. An entry unlike the first but full of surprises and exciting sequences of its own.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G1FFHF0

Also in this series: The Shadow Queen .

Everything Else

Review of Bingeworthy

Havok’s third anthology is based on themes that have been proven to make the world binge read story after story. With themes like “Strange New World” and “Super Duper,” numerous authors have constructed forty-six tales of one thousand words or less. A majority of the entries fall into the genres of science fiction or fantasy.

My son and I read these together, and we discussed a score, from one to ten, for each after we finished. We often had the same rating but we differed on a few. The range of tales satisfied both his need for more action-oriented stories and my preference for more introspective plots. Nonetheless, we often arrived at one score for most, but not all, of the offerings.

The quality of writing is high for this book, but the themes are hidden. I had to look them up on the website in order to understand the categories. I appreciated the prior collection because they sectioned the book into the six themes so I had a sense of what I was about to read. This is missing in Bingeworthy, and I hope Havok brings this back in the future.

We had a long list of high scoring entries. We liked the action and the premise of “Seven Canisters of Dark” (Tracey Dyck). I was struck with the creativity of “Tower of 1000 Doors” (J. L. Ender) and enjoyed its playful ending. The poignant “The Light Smuggler” (Zachary Holbrook) will be remembered for quite some time. The setting of “The Last Gateway” (Cassandra Hamm) made that story a winner. We both enjoyed the pulse-pounding narrative of “What Comes Next” (Andrew Winch) as well as its not-so-tidy ending. Whoever said great fairy tales were all written in the past never read “Flowers” (Hannah Robinson). And “Raiders of Magic” (Krysta Tawlks) is a skillful demonstration in speculative fiction. Finally, “Unexpected Encounters of a Draconic Kind” (Beka Gremikova) exemplified the best of how fantasy connects to the human condition. 

At the very top of the scale, my son loved the hijinx of both “Why God Made Beer” (A. C. Williams) and “Santa’s Little Foes” (Michael Erasmus). It takes a lot to make my teenager smile, but both stories achieved that very reaction. “The Incendiary” (Abigail Falanga) had a clever premise, and we didn’t see the end coming. Finally, we were both moved by “A Healing Touch” (R. F. Gammon)—very insightful fiction in so few words.

I made my son choose his favorite. His favorite story was “The Fountain” by Teddi Deppner. He said he liked how it made him both think and feel. For me, I chose “Flew” (Pamela Love) which felt like poetry in prose form. Both entries packed a lot of emotion into flash fiction. 

Bingeworthy is a great collection with a wide variety of tales. This father and son team look forward to the next anthology by Havok. I’m sure it will be Sense-sational.

Full disclosure: I am an author and have been published in Havok, however, I did not submit during the Bingeworthy run.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HHP1HCP

Everything Else

Deliver Us – Delivered

Today is the launch of my fourth book and third novel-length book, Deliver Us. You can order it here

I have two pages of acknowledgements and all contributed greatly to this work of fiction. I remember coming up with the idea while writing my first novel. And I also remember wanting to return to it during the heavy editing periods of second novel, never sure if the day would ever come when I would get the chance to publish it. I remember talking to Dan Johnson, my illustrator extraordinaire, all about it in Starbucks and the phone conversations of what the cover would look like. November 2020 was real fun trying to get it into my editor’s hands when I was juggling publishing my first short story for Havok, an awesome online magazine. And, of course, I remember the hours I spent on Amazon trying to get the details right.

And now it’s yours. I’m pleased and proud to present it to you to review and purchase. I’ve been using the tag line: 5 fairytale queens, 4 exotic locales, 3 evil witches, 2 naive narrators, and 1 epic quest, and the countdown theme is appropriate today. Today is day 0, the day Deliver Us became a book. I know you have other choices and I recognize a lot of good books, movies, and games compete for your time, but Deliver Us is well worth your while checking out.

Everything Else

Review of Fiona

Fiona, an American tale of growing up on a farm in the mid 1800s, is a charming example of historical fiction. Set on a farm, Fiona’s family have a sports team number of children with Fiona being the eldest. After five more girls comes the boys and then disaster—the death of the mother of this brood.

As Fiona is in her mid-teens at the time, she ends up assuming the role of mother. From there, the plot evolves into the children growing up and making their way in the world. From chores to dances, and occupations to translocations, the family’s life weaves in and out of various events all told through the eyes of the mature Fiona.

Fiona herself is a likeable character. At first, she comes across more pious than most until the reader gets to know she struggles with her kindness toward others who mistreat her. She’s especially a sympathetic character when describing her impressions on the people she meets and the trials she endures.

Her brothers and sisters are painted in lighter brushstrokes except one younger sister. They represent different categories of people—aspiring, coy, delicate—and are often grouped together. As with most period literature of this nature, the novel details how they make their way in the world through either the benefit of others or on their own. It’s engaging to read how each of them turns out.

Though it has adult themes and is written for adults, Fiona brought me back to the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder in many ways. With regards to language, it captures that period of Emma and Pride and Prejudice well. Don’t expect modern language in a stylized narrative or a period style with a modern influence. The author mirrors books written long ago with all its advantages and foibles, and the novel is stronger for it.

Romantic and dramatic, Fiona transports its readers back to a simpler and more idyllic, though still challenging, time. Those who seek a more pastoral story set in the nineteenth century of America are encouraged to give it a read.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1419641069

Everything Else

Review of Jam and Jingle Bells

The third book in the Bells Pass series, Jam and Jingle Bells: A Small Town Diner Christmas Romance, starts with cosmetologist Addie Collop giving a haircut to the town’s newly arrived yoga instructor, Ellis David. Twenty-five-years-old yet white-haired, Ellis is mysterious yet charming, and Addie resolves to get to know him better.

Flash forward six months to November and the Addie and Ellis start seeing each other on a more regular basis. As with the first two books in the series, the narrative focuses not only on Ellis and Addie’s budding romance but other subplots of the people who live in Bells Pass. First and foremost, Jam and Jingle Bells is a romance, but the book also includes elements of small town living. Much of the time is focused on the Christmas season, providing a joyous and upbeat tone, but sections of the novel contain serious events within Bells Pass’s borders. This small town isn’t the utopia it seems to be on the surface.

Kudos to author Katie Mettner for introducing a character with a medical condition. This builds gravitas into what could have been a lightweight novel. True, many scenes depict people enjoying the season and a light-hearted atmosphere, but the book contrasts these segments with acts of violence, a medical emergency, and multiple characters struggling with a significant loss in their lives. Despite the highs and lows in the plot, the novel keeps a steady tone.

The highlight of the book comes in the middle with a Santa Claus character discussing a difficult topic with a child character. The imagery Santa uses to explain what is happening to the child is wonderful—not too sappy but sweet enough to be charming. This enchanting analogy continues through the rest of the book becoming an anchor point for the novel.

With so much going on, some elements are stronger than others. The sequence detailing with outsiders plaguing Bells Pass is perhaps the weakest and is resolved rather suddenly. Other subplots are more solid. They depict how love and loss intersect at times, surfacing much deeper themes.

Jam and Jingle Bells is a delicious helping of Christmas, romance, and bonhomie. This enjoyable novel will get the reader into the spirit of the season any time of year.

Everything Else

Review of Shadows On Snow

Starla Huchton’s Shadows on Snow is a retelling of Snow White but with males taking traditional female roles and vice-versa. Yes, this means that Snow White is a man in this story. He is Prince Leopold, the evil step-mother becomes an evil step-father, and the seven “dwarfs” become seven sisters. Clever, but the story is a lot more than its flipped premise.

Rae, or Raelynn of Bern is a young princess with a gift for being unobserved. She’s working in the stables at the start of the story attempting to complete a mission. During her quest, the young prince of Sericea, Leopold comes home to be with his ailing mother. Rae and Leopold exchange a few pleasantries, but Rae sees herself as a spy against the evil king, and avoids anything that would make her stand out.

While the story follows the traditional Snow White plot points, the book contains a fascinating narrative of its own of ancient, evil magic, kingdoms overthrown, and rebels with powers. Much more action than in a traditional fairy tale, Shadows on Snow is also part-fantasy and part-romance. The scenes between Rae and Leopold come together quite naturally.

Rae is the central figure in this story, not Leopold, and it’s told from her point-of-view. With a tragic (and very dark) background, Rae isn’t your traditional fairytale princess and often mocks being one. She’s a woman of action—that part of her character is believable. Harder to invest in is her romantic side. While her relationships with the other women in the story ring true, the tension between her and Leopold ebbs and flows a bit much. Her backstory is almost too much to overcome at times so when the inevitable does happen, it feels sudden.

One of the highlights of this novel are the seven sisters. Endowed with magic, the conflict between them and the evil king is delightful. Believing that they could challenge their nefarious opponent, Ms Huchton has written a powerful adversary providing the story adequate tension all the way to its climax.

How about the Snow White story points? If you’re familiar with the real story, you’ll find it all here (including the three attempts on Snow White’s life). But isn’t Snow White effeminate? How does that work with a dude? It works quite well, actually. Instead of passive and dainty, Leopold is compassionate and caring. He looks after his troops in battle, he cares deeply for his true love, and he is kind and charming to the seven sisters. All the core kindness of “the fairest maiden” exists in Leopold, making him a fitting tribute to Snow White as well as a solid character in his own right.

Stuffed with action, bursting with magic, sprinkled with humorous scenes, and enchanting from start to finish, Shadows on Snow is a great retelling of Snow White.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OLHRYIE

Everything Else

Interview with H. L. Burke

I caught up with fairytale author H. L. Burke for a special interview on Tell A Fairy Tale Day. Her latest fairy tale is titled Ashen, a Cinderella retelling.

With regards to the inspiration of Ashen, did you start with the idea to write a fairy tale retelling of Cinderella? Or was Ashen an original concept that mirrored Cinderella and you adopted it as a retelling?

I came up with the story first and then kept on running into “oh, but if I do that, people will think it’s a Cinderella story” things … to the point that I gave in and actually went back in and added a few elements to make it even more Cinderella-esque. The “ball/dance” was not an element in my original plot. I upped the number of times I mentioned the ashes and created the glass shoe reference at the end. I have done fairy tale retellings before, but more often I write fairy-tale-style original stories. This one was supposed to be one of them, but that didn’t happen, obviously. 

Would you ever consider a sequel or another story set in Lizbete’s world?

Probably not. I never say never for reasons, but Lizbete’s story ends right where I want it to, and there aren’t any other characters I can see carrying the world forward. While the world is cool, it’s very insular–one small, isolated village–so going back to it would be kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find something else that could happen there … and if I left the village for the wider world around it, it would have a much different overall feel, to the point where there wouldn’t be a reason to keep them connected. 

What primary emotion do you hope to evoke from your readers when they finish Ashen?

Coziness and the feeling of coming home. Lizbete as a character has the primary drive of wanting to connect in a meaningful way. Her “condition” has kept her an outsider, and even the people who love her have to be kept at arm’s length so that she doesn’t accidentally harm them. She’s not longing for “adventure” or great things. She wants small, domestic things. That is her ideal happily ever after, and it’s what I hope readers feel through her. 

Fairy Tales

Do you believe all fairy tales ought to have a significant kiss or a significant death? Why or why not?

I’m not big on rules for … just about anything creative. There are plenty of fairy tales that don’t have these elements (Tom Thumb, The Bremen Town Musicians, The Brave Little Tailor just to name three). Even the more traditional romantic ones don’t necessarily hinge upon a kiss (Beauty and the Beast hinges on a confession of love/agreement to marry in most accepted versions, but not a kiss. Cinderella doesn’t have a kiss or a death, though her mom is already dead at the start and some people do lose toes … etc). So definitely not. There are a lot of varying aspects to fairy tales because they come out of a very broad tradition of spoken word stories across multiple cultures. I think we have kind of gotten used to the most basic of these that have been broadly shared by Disney, but it’s an incredibly varied genre. 

Technique

If you could retell one of the more popular fairy tales without using magic or the supernatural, which one would you choose and why? 

Not really an answer, but I just have to stop and say, writing a fairy tale without magic, to me, would be like baking a dessert without sugar … I’d just be like … sad. I can barely write other genres without some sort of magical element. I tried switching to contemporary romance once. I had to write it from the POV of a cat to keep myself invested, and even then I barely eked out a short novella before I lost interest and started writing about a ghost cat instead. I like my sparkly shiny magical stuff. 

What is one trap you find other modern stories fall into when they retell fairy tales?

I feel there is a need to gritty them up or twist them around to the point where the original themes are lost. I’m not saying that you can’t write a version of a classic story where the villain is the hero and the heroes are the villains–but I’m saying that once it’s been done by someone as mainstream as Disney, it’s probably not the original, edgy twist you think it is. There needs to be more. Too often these sorts of stories get rid of the things people liked (the happy parts, the parts to look up to or look forward to) but neglect to replace them with anything and they feel a little empty. 

Thanks for Reading,

H.(Heidi) L. Burke

www.hlburkeauthor.com

H. L. Burke is the author of multiple fantasy novels including the Dragon and the Scholar saga, the Nyssa Glass YA Steampunk series, and the fairy tales An Ordinary Knight, To Court A Queen and Coiled. She is an admirer of the whimsical, a follower of the Light, and a believer in happily ever after.