{Guest Post/Signed Book Giveaway} “I Dedicate This Post To You” with DEAREST Author Alethea Kontis!


Love fairy tales and mythology?
Fans of mermaids, dragons, unicorns, and other mythical creatures?
Enjoy when a beloved classic tale is retold?
A Twist in the Tail Thursdays features all this and more!
&
FOLLOW THE TOUR!
1 - Launch
2 - Lilac Reviews
3 - Special post @ Waterworld Mermaids

3 - Coffee Books & Art & The Book Lovers' Lounge
4 - Special post @ USA Today's Happy Ever After

4 - Buried Under BooksMommabears Book Blog, & Rabid Reads
5 - Interview @ J.T. Ellison

5 - Gidget Girls Reading
6 - Zerina Blossom & Geo Librarian
8 - Welcome to Book City
9 - Kelly P's Blog & Katy's Krazy Books
10 - Mel's Shelves & Jan Edwards
11 - Katie's Clean Book Collection
12 - A Backwards Story 
Wishful Endings
13 - Library of a Book Witch & The Quotable
14 - 
Biggest Literary Crushes post on @ Teen Reads
15 - The Written Adventure
16 - My Life Loves and Passion & Colorimetry
17 - I Am A Reader & The Library of the Seen

18 - Special post on @ Dear Teen Me
18 - Printcess & Living a Goddess Life & Melissa's Eclectic Bookshelf
19 - 100 Pages A Day & mrsjennyreads
20 - Books and Ashes & Addicted Readers
22 - Miss Little Book Addict YA House of Books
23 - SBM Book Obsession
24 - Deal Sharing Aunt
25 - Min Reads and Reviews
26 - Pieces of Whimsy & Wonderous Reviews
27 - The Scribbling Sprite
28 - Grand Finale


In Case You Missed It:


~*~
I previously reviewed both ENCHANTED and HERO,
along with my review of her novella BLOOD & WATER!
(And an interview with ENCHANTED cover designer Christine Kettner!)


Alethea Kontis has also stopped by A Backwards Story several times to talk about her books, fairy tales, mermaids, and more because she's awesome like that! *loves her*

Here's her interview about ENCHANTED!
a flash fiction piece entitled "Well Behaved Mermaids Rarely Make Fairy Tales,"
a guest post on "Families in Fiction,"
a guest post on "The Real Peter Woodcutter,"
and two of her famous fairy tale rant videos, one about Rapunzel and one about Cinderella and how it inspired her novel ENCHANTED!
~*~



New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a goddess, a force of nature, and a mess. She’s known for screwing up the alphabet, scolding vampire hunters, turning garden gnomes into mad scientists, and making sense out of fairy tales. Alethea is the co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter Companion, and penned the AlphaOops series of picture books. Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in a myriad of anthologies and magazines. She has done multiple collaborations with Eisner winning artist J.K. Lee, including The Wonderland Alphabet and Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome. Her debut YA fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award in 2012 and was nominated for both the Andre Norton Award and the Audie Award in 2013.
Visit Alethea's websiteYouTube ChannelFacebook, and Twitter!



“I Dedicate This Post To You”
by Alethea Kontis



One of my favorite parts of a book is the dedication. Before the interwebs, a dedication—because there wasn't always an acknowledgements section or author's note, especially in fiction—was the closest a reader came to knowing the author as a person. For some personal reason, the text I was about to read spoke to the author in such a way that it reminded them of this person. The dedicate in question might be an inspiration, or the dedication might be a way to honor someone. As a kid, those tweet-sized notes to from one stranger to another were like a glimpse into yet another world beyond my own, and even beyond that of the book.

I have known authors to use dedications to manipulate people, dedicating books and stories to significant others in troubled relationships hoping to mend fences that typically, by the time the book sees publication, are far beyond fixing. I have seen authors use it to put others down. Some authors don't use it at all, and simply jump right into the text without preamble.



The dedications in all of my books are always carefully chosen. My mixed-up alphabet book, Alphaoops: The Day Z Went First, is dedicated to mixed-up families everywhere, those we are born into and those we make along the way. The sequel to that book was dedicated to my Calculus teacher in high school...a brilliant, beloved man with the soul of a comedian who passed away right before the book's manuscript went to the printer.

The first book in the Woodcutter series, Enchanted, is dedicated to both of my parents and ends with the line, "And for my little sister who was, and always will be, ungrateful." Those who notice the dedication laugh out loud...but they're missing part of the story. The first line of the original manuscript of Enchanted was, "My name is Sunday Woodcutter, and I'm ungrateful." The word "ungrateful" was specifically chosen because it was a hot-button word for my little sister growing up...so much so that she even wrote a song about it.

However, in Enchanted, the things that Sunday writes come true, and the editor did not feel that Sunday—however much she might have felt it inside—was not truly an ungrateful person, so they made me change it. (The new and ultimately final first line owes its inspiration to the fortune cookie that used to haunt my Aunt Theda...but that's another story.)

I am especially proud of my dedication for Dearest, which begins with all the Hollywood crushes I had as a young girl (including Noah Hathaway, Jonathan Brandis, River Phoenix, Scott Grimes, Michael J. Fox, Val Kilmer, and Harrison Ford) and ends with a dedication to one man...whose name I was allowed to change at the last minute after a horrible break up. (Sometimes delayed pub dates is a good thing.) The second half of the dedication in Dearest is now made out to Murphy. Dedicated readers of mine who have read my personal essay book Beauty & Dynamite will recognize Murphy as my ersatz guardian angel who comes by his name honestly.

Regardless of the name-swap, I'm still exceptionally proud of the dedication in Dearest, and hope it is worthy of the rest of the favorites on my bookshelf.

Some examples of author dedications I have loved:

For the lost ones
            —from Lost Lake, by Sarah Addison Allen

For the children who listened,
The grown-ups who were patient,
And especially for Ann Durell.
            —from The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander

For Olivia
20th April 1955—
17th November 1962
            —from The BFG, by Roald Dahl

To Joy, Carnell, and Dr. Green,
This dream of the Moon
            —from The Darkangel, by Meredith Ann Pierce

This last dedication is especially poignant because I guess I didn't actually read it until I was in my 20s, and until then it NEVER OCCURRED TO ME that this book was set on a far-future Earth moon. See...sometimes there is vital information in that dedication!

I'm curious—do any of you have a favorite dedication?

~*~
O F F I C I A L   I N F O:

Title:  DEAREST
Author: Alethea Kontis
Release Date: February 3, 2015
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Received: For Review
SUMMARY:

In her third book about the delightful Woodcutter sisters, Alethea Kontis masterfully weaves The Wild Swans, The Goose Girl, and a few other fine-feathered fairy tales into a magical, romantic companion novel to ENCHANTED and HERO.

Readers met the Woodcutter sisters (named after the days of the week) in Enchanted and Hero. In this delightful third book, Alethea Kontis weaves together some fine-feathered fairy tales to focus on Friday Woodcutter, the kind and loving seamstress. When Friday stumbles upon seven sleeping brothers in her sister Sunday's palace, she takes one look at Tristan and knows he's her future. But the brothers are cursed to be swans by day. Can Friday's unique magic somehow break the spell?



****Giveaway*****

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Win (1) of (3) Woodcutter Series Prize Packs, which include signed copies of ENCHANTED, HERO, and DEAREST!

US Only.

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Comments

  1. You always have the best giveaways! I have been wanting to read these books for a while and now that there are three, I WILL start. :)

    ReplyDelete

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