K.M. Shea's Blog, page 38

Apprentice of Magic: Baris

Hello Champions! Today we’re going to talk about a topic I’ve been sitting on for years: Baris!

To the new Champions who have only recently joined us, the countries in my fairy tale world are usually inspired loosely by various real-world historical empires. (Usually I try to model my countries after the country of origin of the fairy tales that take place there.) Germany was the inspiration for Mullberg and Arcainia, Trieux and Loire are reminiscent of France, Erlauf is represented by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, etc.

Baris is a country I designed long ago, even though Apprentice of Magic is the first book I’ve written that officially visits it, and it is loosely molded after the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

It’s a strange country in terms of its geography, so you’ll also see touches of German and French culture the farther north up its coastline you go, and by nature of being inspired by the Byzantine Empire you’ll also see a Roman influence as well, which makes it a bit of a hodgepodge.

The architecture is more reminiscent of the Byzantine Empire–the palace is loosely inspired by the famous Hagia Sophia–a Greek Orthodox Church that currently serves as a museum; it was built in what was Constantinople and is now Istanbul. Additionally, the Baris country color–a specific shade of purple called Tyrian purple– is actually the shade of the Byzantine Emperors. Even the Baris crest–a two-headed phoenix–was inspired by the Byzantine Empire’s symbol, a two headed eagle.

However, if you look at the government, I based it more off the stories I read in One Thousand and One Nights/Arabian Nights. Baris is rather unique in that it has one King, but many “princes” and “princesses” who are usually related to the king and rule over individual cities/territories. This was inspired by the opening text of One Thousand and One Nights as Baris will be the setting for that particular story far, far in the future. (The opening story of Arabian Nights explains why the king–who kills every woman he marries the day after he marries her–fell into that pattern and mentions his brother–a prince whom he gifted one of his territories.)

In geography, Baris became more of a catch all. It’s the only country to have a desert and a volcano, but it also has a great deal of coastline and some forests.

Baris is also known for being the most magic-friendly country in the continent–even back when magic was taboo in the times of the Snow Queen it was considered acceptable in Baris. It also is home to a lot of magical texts and artifacts, which seem to congregate there. I decided to give Baris this particular background as I am well versed in a lot of roman myths and I delight in the tales of One Thousand and One Nights. I thought it was fitting that countries with such rich stories would be the inspiration for the magic-accepting Baris.

And that concludes this look into Baris! Thanks for reading, Champions, and have a lovely weekend!

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Apprentice of Magic: Diamonds and Toads

As I mentioned on my previous post, Diamonds and Toads is another fairy tale I chose to include in Apprentice of Magic.

Most people are familiar with the Charles Perrault version–and if that name sounds familiar it’s because he also recorded Puss in Boots and Cinderella. It goes a little something like this:

Once upon a time there was a really cross/mean widow who had two daughters. The eldest was equally as cross/mean as the mother, but the youngest, beautiful daughter took after her deceased father, who was sweet tempered.

Anywho, the mother favored the shrewish daughter because she was similar to her, and as a result the youngest daughter got stuck with most of the chores, one of them being she had to draw water from a fountain twice a day.

One day an old woman approached the younger daughter when she was at at the fountain, and asked her for a drink. The daughter obligingly used her pitcher to give the woman a drink, and SURPRISE (or not because this is a fairy tale) the old woman was actually a fairy. This fairy gives the daughter the “gift” of every time she spoke, a flower or jewel would fall from her lips.

The girl returns home where her mother scolds her for dawdling but, lo and behold, when the youngest daughter apologizes jewels fall from her lips. The cross widow is astonished and orders her daughter to tell her what happened. Once the entire tale is told, the widow bids her older, shrewish daughter to go to the fountain as well and to act kindly.

The shrewish daughter protests, but the mother kicks her out anyway. The elder daughter reluctantly goes to the well where she finds…a beautiful princess. The princess was really the fairy in disguise #surprisednotsurprised who asks the daughter to give her water.

The shrewish daughter insults the the princess/fairy and implies the princess/fairy is a brat, though she does tell her she can use the pitcher if she likes. (Though it seems that she does not offer to draw the water for her.)

In response, the fairy calmly bestows a gift upon the eldest daughter: that every time she speaks a toad or snake will drop from her lips.

The eldest rushes home and tattles to her mother (while dropping a toad and viper from her mouth.) The mother decides this is the youngest daughter’s fault (because…reasons) and banishes her from the house.

A king finds the youngest daughter, crying, and bids her to tell him what’s wrong. She explains–dropping jewels the whole time–and miraculously the King’s son, who happens to be with him, falls in love with her jewels–I MEAN HER! He totally fell in love with her! In the span of a single conversation. Yep.

Since the girl could drop jewels with a word, they decided it didn’t matter that she’s a peasant, and she’s taken off to the palace where she weds her prince. The shrewish older daughter, however, continues to act so spiteful the window banishes her from the house as well, and eventually she starves and dies.

And…er…Happily Ever After??

So I decided to mix up this story a bit in Apprentice of Magic. I knew I wanted to make the oldest daughter good, because as a kid I never really understood why it was such a bad thing that she spoke toads and snakes. (I made a toad farm every summer as a kid, and I was fascinated with amphibians and reptiles in general.)

Moreover, I knew as a law-abiding adult who pays taxes, that miraculously producing bucketfuls of gems would also be a gigantic pain because of the logistics of selling them, and being taxed for them. (Not to mention the mysterious ability would likely be questioned by officials, who would muck up the girl’s daily life. And does anyone really think the prince fell in love with the youngest daughter because he heard how she was kind to a fairy one time??)

So instead, the tale worked perfectly into Apprentice of Magic as a teaching moment–not for the girls, but Angelique.

In fairy tales, enchantresses, fairies, and the like usually run around, tossing out curses and granting boons without actually talking to their victims. Frankly, that’s a horrible way to grant magical gifts. So I wanted Angelique to learn discernment. And thus, my plan for Diamonds and Toads was born.

Thanks for reading, Champions! I hope you have a lovely week.

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Apprentice of Magic: The Fairy Tales

I finally finished all edits/revisions for the first draft of Curse of Magic, which means I have spare brain cells to rub together! So let’s talk Apprentice of Magic!

For those of you who are new to my work, the Fairy Tale Enchantress series–which begins with Apprentice of Magic–is the culmination of my Timeless Fairy Tale series, which basically asks “what if all fairy tales happened in the same 5-10 year period and were interconnected?” Angelique is the enchantress that ties every fairy tale together, and so through out the series you’ll see her trot through many familiar fables and tales.

Most of this fun starts after Evariste is captured, but I wanted this to be a theme in Angelique’s life, so I threw some well known stories/fables in Apprentice of Magic as well!

The big ones were:

The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Pinocchio
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Goldilocks
Diamonds and Toads

You also get to see the start of Sleeping Beauty and Rumpelstiltskin–and even a hint of Beauty and the Beast if you really squint–but the big two stories you see play out in the book are The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Diamonds and Toads. (I did actually write Angelique’s adventure with The Emperor’s New Clothes as a bonus story/chapter, so if you haven’t seen it, you can check it out here: The Dukes Clothes)

I picked all of the above tales because they struck me as being on the sillier side–or rather they showed the potential for humor. (We’re talking about you, Wybert.) But in order to let that play out, I had to twist them a bit.

I think just about everyone has heard of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, but just in case you haven’t, here is a short summary: A bratty shepherd gets bored with his job and finds great joy in shouting falsely about wolves attacking the sheep so the villagers come rampaging to an unneeded rescue. Because no one bothers to punish the boy (because why would you, I mean, he only disrupted an entire village for a joke) he does it again and gets the same amusing results. Eventually the villagers no longer trust him so when a wolf does emerge from the woods and the morally-questionable shepherd shouts for help, no one comes. As a result, the wolf slaughters multiple sheep.

Now I’m all for showing the consequences of actions, but when I read this story it always struck me as rather unfair that its the sheep who pay for the brat’s actions. (I mean, we can assume the shepherd was punished by the owner of the sheep, but the story never tells us this.)

So when I decided I wanted Angelique to teach this kid a lesson, I knew I wanted her to do it in a way that would directly punish the shepherd, not his animals. Additionally, I needed her to do it in a way that would provide practice for her as new apprentice.

And that launched my idea of creating illusion wolves to scare the lies out of dear little Wybert.

2019 Fairy Tale Day Event

Last year, the Entwined Tales series authors got together and had a Facebook party to celebrate the release of our Entwined Tales fairy tale series. And we had so much fun we decided to have another party this year! Only this time we’re having it on National Fairy Tale Day and we’ve invited other clean fairy tale authors to join us!

The party is on February 26th from 8-11pm EST. Sign up on Facebook here!

There will be games, prizes, freebies, GIF fun, and plenty of fairy tale book recommendations. Some of the goodies and giveaways will be open for 24 hours so if you can’t make the event time please stop by later!

Here’s some more info about who’s attending!

Entwined Tales Authors:

KM Shea – Yes I’m attending! And I’ll be making Book 1 in the Entwined Tales series, A Goose Girl, free on Amazon to celebrate the event!

Melanie Cellier – Melanie has two different fairy tale series, and she recently launched an Epic Fantasy school-based series that I’m sure you can persuade her to talk about during the event as well.

Apprentice of Magic – The Duke’s New Clothes

Angelique’s first book, Apprentice of Magic, has been available for over a week now, and I’ve been overwhelmed at the outpouring of comments, reviews, social media posts, and more! Thank you so much Champions!

Thank you again to everyone who has left a review. As an author the reviews make my books look more “legit” (especially on a book 1 like Apprentice of Magic) and as a reader I appreciate hearing what fellow readers thought of a book before trying it myself. Thank you for taking the time to leave your thoughts regarding the book. Once thing I was a little surprised to learn from the reviews was how many of you have been following the Timeless Fairy Tales series for years! So a special thank you to the Champions who have been sticking with me for so long!

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for… Click here for the bonus short story, The Duke’s New Clothes. This story is one of the many jobs that Evariste takes Angelique on during her time as an apprentice. They actually refer to this event in Apprentice of Magic, but I chose not to include it in the actual book because it was already getting really long, and while it is fun it wasn’t strictly needed for the plot line. If you liked the Boy Who Cried Wolf scene you’ll probably like this one.

Fantastic February Facebook Event

Hi Champions!

I wanted to remind you about the Facebook Event I have coming up TODAY February 16th from 8-10pm EST. Sign up here!

There will be games, prizes, and a chance to ask these awesome authors whatever non-spoiler-filled questions you like! This is the biggest event I’ve ever organized by myself so I’m a little nervous and I would really appreciate if you dropped by to say “hi”! I realize you might not be familiar with all of these authors so here’s more about them!

Annette Marie

Annette writes urban fantasy and myth inspired fantasy. I love her Guild Codex series soooo much!! It’s a wonderful mix of fantasy and snark – if you like my MBRC series or Second Age of Retha you’ll probably love this.

Elise Kova

Elise writes epic fantasy in a variety of worlds. I’ve read part of her original Air Awakens series but for the event she’ll be focusing on her brand new spin off series, Vortex Visions. (Which just launched on February 4th so I’ve haven’t had a chance to read it yet). She was an author that came highly recommended by you Champions this summer in the reader poll!

Lydia Sherrer

If you look at Lidia’s covers you might think they look like cozy mysteries, and the books are indeed a mix of fantasy and mystery with some fun humor thrown in as well. Each book has multiple “episodes” (stories) in it so they are perfect if you can’t finish a book in one sitting but want a complete story.

Holly Hook

Holly writes wide range of fantasy with everything from paranormal, urban, to fairy tale fantasy. If you like my Timeless Fairy Tales series her Twisted Fairy Tale series should be exactly to your liking!

Julie Hall

Julie’s books have an urban fantasy feel but with a supernatural twist rather than a paranormal twist. Here main characters are a great mix of strong but humble enough to work together and recognize when they need help. If you’ve been looking to a fresh take on “strong female lead in a fantasy book” then give her series a try!

K.M. Shea

I’m attending too (obviously)!! I’ll be talking about Angelique’s new book, Apprentice of Magic, as well as some of my other series. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the spoilers to a minimum, and I’ll be removing very spoiler filled comments from others, so if you haven’t read the book yet it will still be “safe” to attend.

Happy Valentine’s Day Free Book

Happy Valentine’s Day Champions!

As a special gift today through February 17th you can download Red Rope of Fate for free from the .com and .uk Amazon stores! I picked this book because it won the poll in my January Newsletter. So if you want a say in which book is free next year join my newsletter!

Get your free book: Amazon.com | Amazon.UK

I am honored that I’ve heard from many of you that Apprentice of Magic is your “book date” for Valentine’s Day this year.

Apprentice of Magic – Angelique’s Book 1 is here!

Hello Champions!

It’s here! I’ve been waiting years to tell Angelique’s story and the first book. Apprentice of Magic, is finally, almost here! It’s up for pre-order now but it will drop February 13th!

Angelique is actually what inspired me to originally write the Timeless Fairy Tale series. I thought it would be interesting if the seemingly different magic user/fairy godmother/enchantress from many different fairy tales was all the same person. This is why even though the Timeless Fairy Tale books are mostly stand alone, Angelique and the thread of her journey can be found in all of them.

Now it’s time for Angelique to have her own series!

This new series will eventually tie up all the continent wide plot points left from the Timeless Fairy Tales series, but this book covers Angelique’s adventure prior to you meeting her in Beauty and the Beast.

If you’ve been wondering why Angelique hates her magic and how she got started on the search for her master, Evariste, this is the book you need to read!

Pre-order it now: Amazon.com | All other Amazon Stores

Now lets look at that gorgeous cover in detail…

There she is! This is actually the first photo-based cover Myrrhlynn didn’t make for me, but she still helped me figure out what important design elements we needed to include. I hope you guys like it!

And as usual, as my big thank you I’ll be running my review special! There’s only one short this time–because it’s actually a quite long extra/bonus scene–but I’ll post more information about it once Apprentice of Magic launches!

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Champion Photos

While Emerys is still gloating over his second-place win, I thought it would be the perfect time to show off the work of an amazingly talented Champion, Marina! She sifted through Twelve Dancing Princesses and created an incredibly accurate Quinn outfit!

Marina (Instagram Dancefully) has the belt quiver, the bow, the arm guards, the hair, the clothes–she really nailed our girl Quinn! (Marina is actually wearing a wig she braided–I knew that when she sent me the photos because she asked about hair color, and I was STILL thought it was her real hair when I first saw the shots!)

Also mad props to her for running around a forest. That is not as easy as it looks–I’ve done a lot of unusual things for the sake of testing out scenes in real life (ie: running in a dress in snow, timing myself to see how long I can carry a good-sized male cat, etc) and running in a forest is near the top of my list of things that are no fun because of the frequency in which you get a branch in the face. Though it looks like Marina has Quinn’s athleticism so I bet she fared a lot better than me!

2019 Hero Poll Results

The 2019 Hero Poll is finished! Over 1,000 of you Champions voted for the top K. M. Shea/A. M. Sohma hero…and the results are in!

In first place, for the second year in a row, we have Merlin of King Arthur and Her Knights! He won with 609 votes–not bad for a wizard!

A very close second place is award to Emerys of The 12 Dancing Princesses. He had 591 votes. Third was a surprise “dark horse” so to speak: Solus Miles of The Second Age of Retha! He had 579 votes! Lagging in fourth place by just a few votes was Stil of Rumpelstiltskin! (He had 574 votes)

Farrin of Snow Queen came in fifth with 459 votes (a big drop from Stil to Farrin, interestingly) and Benjimir of Royal Magic snagged sixth with 368 votes. Friedrich of Cinderella took seventh with 255 votes and Arion came in a fairly close eighth place with 239 votes. Finishing up the top ten are Severin of Beauty and the Beast (168 votes) and Asher and Aaron Montamous of Life Reader (149).

But this marks the start of the second half of the poll–the 2019 Most Wanted Hero Poll! Here’s how it works for the next week or so (until comments are turned off on this post) I’m accepting suggestions for male archetypes/tropes you would like to see as a “Most Wanted Hero.” (In advanced warning, to keep the poll from being horribly long I group a lot of the suggestions together, so you likely won’t see your exact suggestion when the poll comes.)

Examples of archetypes/tropes are…

Alpha male
Villain turned good guy
Prankster
Rival character
Batman-esque

And so on! So submit your suggestions by commenting below–until comments are turned off! That’s all for this post, thanks for reading and participating in the poll, Champions!

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