{Guest Post/Autographed Book Giveaway} Behind the Scenes with Alethea Kontis as she reveals the missing FINAL chapter from her latest published novel DEAREST!
Hey bookworms!
I'm honored to post not once, not twice, but THREE times this month for the DEAREST tour!
Today, I'm helping to close out the tour with information on a special deleted chapter that
WASN'T IN THE BOOK!!!!
I'm honored to post not once, not twice, but THREE times this month for the DEAREST tour!
Today, I'm helping to close out the tour with information on a special deleted chapter that
WASN'T IN THE BOOK!!!!
In Case You Missed It:
AND
Alethea's guest post,
~*~
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!
~*~
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!
~*~
“Messenger, or the Missing Chapter from DEAREST”
by Alethea Kontis
The storm at the crossroads when an author and editor clash is always an interesting thing. I've certainly experienced my share of challenges while writing the Woodcutter Sisters so far! ENCHANTED, a labor of love that took me almost five years from brilliant idea to completed manuscript, was originally 107,000 words. I was asked to cut it down to 75,000.
(You can watch me read a bunch of these deleted scenes
on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWqMn4KaoeufKddsC1NodyEAu6iCbwsBD )
Because of the surprise two-book contract that came on the heels of ENCHANTED, I only had about three months to write HERO. Somehow I did it--I didn't even read the first draft through before sending it off to my editor because I knew I'd end up looking at it at least six times more before it went to publication. Boy, was that revision letter a long one. Three pages of issues I needed to tackle, including the removal of a specific plot device that ran through the entire book. See, I decided that emotions that overflowed from the world below would find their way into the ice caverns of the White Mountains and be frozen there. Each emotion was a different color (there was a great scene where Saturday tasted Love and pretty much hated it). Saturday ended up killing the witch by forcefeeding her a stalagmite full of Truth, at which point the witch realized she didn't have Jack Woodcutter in her clutches after all. At the end, when the mountain was blown to pieces, the emotions were freed and became the Northern Lights.
But now I had to take out the emotions. All of them, every single instance, which meant that I had to find a new way to dispose of my Bad Guy. I cried and threw things for two whole days. Then I sat down, accepted the challenge, and in one month rewrote about a third of HERO to make it the much stronger story it is today.
Because I always knew DEAREST would be next after HERO, I had a blissful year in which to write it. My only real comments from the editor were to ramp up the romance between Tristan and Friday (which I had planned to do anyway), and to remove Chapter 20 in its entirety.
Yup, you heard that right. ENCHANTED and HERO both have twenty Chapters. Dearest only has nineteen. Since I started DEAREST with a chapter from Conrad's point of view, I thought it fitting to end the book with his point of view as well. It was also my opportunity to tie the storyline back up with that at the end of HERO, since the two novels occur simultaneously. However, it did introduce a few new characters and the intentions to continue the adventure...as the good Season Finale to every TV show would.
But DEAREST was not a TV show, and my editor thought that the novel reached a satisfying conclusion at the end of Chapter 19. She didn't want it to have a Lord of the Rings five-part ending...which I get...but the adventure still ends the way I wrote it. And the saga of the Woodcutters will continue on from that point.
Those fans of DEAREST can now read Chapter 20 -- entitled "Messenger" -- on Kindle and Nook:
or
I put a cursory price of 99 cents on them so that folks new to the series wouldn't ruin the story for themselves or other fans on the internet. I kind of hate that I had to do that...but I thought it for the best, in the long run.
And so...onward with the Woodcutters! Adventure awaits!
~*~
O F F I C I A L I N F O:
Title: DEAREST
Author: Alethea Kontis
Author: Alethea Kontis
Release Date: February 3, 2015
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Received: For Review
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*****
Enter to win...
Win (1) of (3) Woodcutter Series Prize Packs, which include signed copies of ENCHANTED, HERO, and DEAREST!
US Only.
Enter now!
i wanna try this books!
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