Release Announcement - Once: Six Historically Inspired Fairytales

Fanfare! Trumpets! Excitement in triplicate! This time I'm breaking blog-silence to announce something actually a little bit wonderful. Too often you've opened Blogger to find The Inkpen Authoress has published a post, only to see it's just a scrap of scrappy flash fiction or another apology at having been so incognito. But this time, loves, this time I'm here to announce the publication of another novella. My novella which some of you were introduced to as "The Spindle and the Queen," to be exact. Now re-titled and being published in just over a month as She But Sleepeth, the novella and five others by my companion authors will be released in a one-of-a-kind collection. Friends and countrymen, meet:

Six fairytales you thought you knew, set against a tapestry of historical backgrounds.
A lonely girl plots revenge in the shadow of a mountain. A stolen princess fumbles a century backward. A dwarfish man crafts brilliant automatons. A Polish Jew strikes matches against the Nazis. A dead girl haunts a crystal lake. A terrified princess searches a labyrinth. A rich collection of six historically inspired retellings, Once is a new generation of fairytales for those who thought they'd heard the tales in all their forms.
Featuring the novellas of Elisabeth Grace Foley, Rachel Heffington, J Grace Pennington, Emily Ann Putzke, Suzannah Rowntree, and Hayden Wand.

I have been working on this project secretly since Suzannah Rowntree and Elisabeth Foley (the brain-parents of this collaboration) approached me to ask if I would participate by throwing She But Sleepeth into the ring. I am so proud of all the authors in this collection. Each fairy-tale is so unique, so different, and so exciting. With a retelling of  "Rumplestiltskin," "The Little Match Girl," "Sleeping Beauty," "Little Red Riding Hood," and "Rapunzel" in the mix, the novellas incorporated in Once are really something else. We will be releasing Once: Six Historically Inspired Fairytales as an e-book fairy-tale collection on December 2, 2016, so just a bit over a month until you can read the stories for yourself!

My contribution, She But Sleepeth, is a re-spinning of "The Sleeping Beauty," set in the beautiful Peles Castle in Romania's Carpathian Mountains. Guys, having been on-location of the actual setting of my story, I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for you to read it. There is so much of the palace I was unable to include because of the story's length, but I hope you will enjoy reading the partially-true story of Romania's Princess Maria. You will hear more about it in the story's "historical note," but the uncanny parallels between the real princess and the sleeping beauty story gave me chills. It seemed like the deeper I researched, the more perfect that pairing became. It is now time to spam you with a couple photos to whet your appetite:

Ahhhh, for a castle of my own. *happy sigh* I hope you'll go ahead and check out the Pinterest board for She But Sleepeth and continue on to the rest of the authors in the collection who are telling us a little bit about their own stories. Feel free (please!) spread the word about Once with the hashtag #OnceFairytales on Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, Pinterest, Facebook, your blog, and whichever form of social media you'd like! We will be spreading promo images around like confetti so ya know, why not? And if you'd like to pre-read and review the collection, please send an email to cinderella19395@gmail.com and Elisabeth Foley will get you all set! And please, travel on to see the read about the stories from the rest of my fellow #OnceFairytales authors!

Suzannah Rowntree
Elisabeth Grace Foley
J. Grace Pennington
Hayden Wand
Emily Ann Putzke