Launching the Fairy Tale Adventure Tour for HERO by Alethea Kontis #PrismBookTours

Launching on our adventure!!

On Tour with Prism Book Tours

Hero
by Alethea Kontis
Hardcover, 304 Pages
To be published October 1st, 2013 by Harcourt Books

Rough and tumble Saturday Woodcutter thinks she's the only one of her sisters without any magic—until the day she accidentally conjures an ocean in the backyard. With her sword in tow, Saturday sets sail on a pirate ship, only to find herself kidnapped and whisked off to the top of the world. 

Is Saturday powerful enough to kill the mountain witch who holds her captive and save the world from sure destruction? And, as she wonders grumpily, "Did romance have to be part of the adventure?" 

As in Enchanted, readers will revel in the fragments of fairy tales that embellish this action-packed story of adventure and, yes, romance.

Excerpt

Goodreads * Amazon * Barnes & Noble * The Book Depository * Indie Bound * Powell's * Book Tour

My favorite fairy tale writer, Alethea Kontis, pulls off another slam dunk with HERO, the second of her stories about the Woodcutter sisters. HERO is a gender-bending, swash-buckling tale...  Saturday is a strong and willful girl with plenty of heart (plus some added snark). Alethea has a knack for reminding readers why many of us love fairy tales to begin with. In this entry we are once again given a delightful story with some obvious (and some not-so-obvious) nods to classic tales...  but her overlying story and characters... are wholly unique and distinguishable – not to mention they have so much more personality. - Jenna {does} Books Giveaway of ARC 'til Sept 30!

There is hardly a fairy-tale or gender trope that Kontis doesn’t turn on its head, and readers don’t need to know about Hercules cleaning out the Augean Stables to find Saturday’s impossible task of cleaning the witch’s bird’s nest both hilarious and revolting... readers will await her next with joyful anticipation. - Kirkus Review

Enchanted by Alethea Kontis

Hardcover, 305 pages
Published May 8, 2012

It isn't easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.

When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.

The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past - and hers?

Excerpt

Alethea Kontis

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, includingThe 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.

Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea now lives in Northern Virginia with her Fairy Godfamily. She makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie.

Website * Goodreads * Facebook * Twitter * YouTube

Sail Away on the 

Fairy Tale Adventure Tour*

*Family Welcome

Sept 22 - LAUNCH

Sept 23 - The Missing Piece - Althethea Kontis
 - Video Rant on Debz Bookshelf

 - Celebration on Deal Sharing Aunt

Sept 24 - Interview with Miss Print 

Sept 25 - Interview with Carina Olsen  
 - The Grandfather Pirate on Living a Goddess Life
 - Meet the Inspiration Part I on The Wonderings of One Person

Sept 26 – Review on Shannon’s Blog
 - Meet the Inspiration Part II on Bookmarks

Sept 27 – Families in Lit on Leeana Me 

Sept 30 -- USA Today Happy Ever After interview
 - Review of Enchantment on Colorimetry

Oct 1 - RELEASE DAY!
 - "Release Day" at Waterworld Mermaids 

 - "My Favorite Bit" guest essay (with Cat Valente) - Mary Robinette Kowal

 - Review at Libraryof a Book Witch
 - Interview & Review at Tressa's Wishful Endings

Oct 2 - Video Rant Geek Girl In Love 

  - "The Big Idea" John Scalzi's blog 
  - My Bookshelf on Mel's Shelves
  - Did You See? on Cu's eBook Giveaways

Oct 3 – Hightlighting The Missing Piece on I Am a Reader, Not a Writer 
 - Review at Books for Kids

Oct 4 - Podcast with Bennet Pomeranz
 - Review of Hero on Colorimetry

Oct 5 - Hero LAUNCH PARTY at One More Page Books in Arlington, VA
Oct 7 - Character interview with Saturday Woodcutter at I Smell Sheep

 -  Craft "Stealing from the Best" on Romance Writers of America & Fantasy Futuristic &Paranormal Chapter

Oct 8 - "A Twist in the Tail" at A Backwards Story
 - Review at JL Mbewe

Oct 9 - Enchanted Inkspot

Oct 10-15 - GRAND FINALE

Tour-Wide Giveaway
Sept 22 - Oct 17

Fairy Tale Gift Basket (US only): Signed copies of both Enchantment and Hero by Alethea Kontis plus swag!

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Guest Visit and Giveaway - Enchantment by Thaisa Frank

Enchantment
New and Selected Stories
by Thaisa Frank
Paperback, 320 pages
Published July 10th 2012 by Counterpoint

Premise:

The short fiction of Thaisa Frank has captivated readers for two decades, and now many of those pieces are collected in one volume, along with several new stories. In the title story, a lonely mother and housewife orders an enchanted man from a website called The Wondrous Traveler, who arrives with instructions for use and a list of frequently asked questions about enchantment. In �Thread,” two circus performers who pass through the eye of a needle become undone by a complicated love triangle. In �Henna,” a young writing teacher must contend with an exotic student who will not write, her hands covered in dye and her fingers �sprouting innumerable gardens.” And in �The Loneliness of the Midwestern Vampire,” the undead descend upon the heartland of the country and become accustomed to its friendlier way of life, attending barn raisings and feasting on cattle in an attempt to normalize their darker passions.

These are vibrant, compelling stories that examine the distance between imagination and reality, and how characters bridge that gap in their attempt to reach one another.

I am very happy to welcome Thaisa Frank to Colorimetry!!  This collection of stories is unlike any I've run into. For one, there are little two-pagers with "small, jeweled worlds of wonder" just as the back cover raves. These stories come from a unique perspective, catching me off guard.  I find myself snorting or laughing or gasping outloud (since I was graciously given a copy to enjoy for this post - thank you!!) It's perfect for that odd moment when my imagination needs a bit of a jolt. Only I shake my head and pick another story to read... and then another!  If you don't believe me, read the excerpt at the end of this post. A strange mail order delivery... "mist twice a day". Lol. Who thinks up this stuff?!  I give you... Thaisa Frank... 

When readers ask me where my stories come from, I have to explain that the imagination is mysterious to me. I never know where the imagination begins or ends because the seeds of my stories have a “given” quality and I can’t make them happen. It’s as though there’s a pneumatic tube of the imagination and I hang out there when other writers are occupied so I get weird and cryptic assignments: It could be a title, like The Loneliness of the Midwestern Vampire. Or the image of a girl with feet that can see. If I play with the assignment long enough, characters appear and they make the image or title earthbound. It interests me most when my characters are bound by the laws of gravity and deal with an ordinary world. Everything in this world is slightly tilted; but the characters still have to keep appointments and worry about their families. You might say that real time and space have been invaded by one alien thing–a Midwestern vampire, a man who meets an angel who has lived his life.

It sometimes takes me a long time to find the link between the image or title and characters who are grounded in the mundane world. For example, The Loneliness of the Midwestern Vampire started with only a title. The title wouldn’t let go of me. But all I had was a first sentence: Tonight he will fly for human blood.  I sat with the sentence for a long time until a judge in the small Midwestern town showed up and began to bother the vampire about getting citizenship. Then I knew that he had to bend to life in the heartlands and this was not the usual vampire story.

In Enchantment, a child has too many mothers to remember, a man is introduced to an angel, and two circus-performers turn themselves into piece of two-ply thread to go through the eye of a needle. But not all of my stories are triggered by surreal images. I’m also fascinated by people, relationships and obsessions. Enchantment has a story about a character who wants to get a piercing (I did all my research online!), a woman who visits an old boyfriend, a cat that acts as a comforter, and two people who think they are soul mates. It also has two semi-autobiographical novellas with roots in my own life. These were hard stories to write because I had to invent and surprise myself to discover a universal element (Once more the use of the imagination!). After I finished, I felt as if I’d dived into a shipwreck and come up having lived a slightly different life.

Whether I write about what’s apparently “real,” or something more surrealistic, I have to feel captivated and enchanted myself or I don’t feel motivated to write the story. As a kid I had a viewer that held discs so you could look inside and see three-dimensional scenes. I remember looking at Little Red Riding Hood, poised in the dark forest with her basket. I could feel the quiet of the woods and she seemed real, alive in another realm. I wanted to find a way to reach her. So when I talk about feeling enchanted, I’m talking about a feeling that started when I was very young. Perhaps all resonance to fantasy and what seems impossible happens when we’re young. If this is the case, part of fantasy fiction isn’t an escape at all, but a return to a time when we dreamt and imagined more freely.

The title story in Enchantment began when I had an image of a woman on her porch getting a UPS delivery of an enchanted man she’d ordered from an online site. He came from a castle in England along with instructions.  But where was the grounding? Where were the other characters?   Read the excerpt below to see if you can guess. Or buy Enchantment and find out!

 About the Author:

Thaisa Frank grew up in the Midwest and the Bronx, the granddaughter of a Presbyterian theologian and a Rumanian Chassid, who consulted each other about Aramaic texts. Her fiction, sometimes characterized as “domestic magical realism,” draws on a bi-cultural childhood, in which she lived in a sedate suburb of Illinois for two-thirds of the year and the colorful, immigrant world of New York for the remaining third. In her stories a child has too many mothers to remember, a woman orders an enchanted man from a mail-order catalogue, a circus performer has feet that can see, and a lonely vampire adjusts to life the heartlands. Her novellas are about the journey of a daughter and her parents.

Thaisa wrote her first story when she was eight—an “unremarkable story, except it made me feel connected to a vast world, far beyond my family.” She majored in philosophy of science and perfected her writing privately, turning down fellowships and working as a copy-editor, ghost-writer, and psychotherapist. One interviewer has claimed she once gave psychic readings, but this was only a rumor, started by one of her characters. 

Read more of Thaisa's published stories and accomplishments on her Website.

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Giveaway:

WIN a print copy of Enchantment by Thaisa Frank! International giveaway (will be e-Version, if won internationally, print if within the USA), must be 13 or older. See all my giveaway rules under About Me.
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Excerpt from Enchantment (story titled Enchantment).