Magik & Mayhem Fantasy Blog Hop: Fantasy and Faerie

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Fantasy and Faerie
by Annette Gisby
Magik and Mayhem Giveaway Blog Hop
July 15-19

Fantasy is a very popular book genre, especially with me. Our bookshelves are groaning under the weight of so many trilogies, series (5 books, 4, books, 7, books, 14 books and more). J.R.R. Tolkien is considered the father of modern fantasy today, but even before Lord of the Rings (one of my favourites) we had faerie tales. All the stories had elves, faeries, trolls, unicorns or other mythical creatures and magic in abundance.

Faerie tales were not originally designed to be read by children. They were adult tales with adult themes and content. In the original, The Little Mermaid did not live happily ever after with her prince. As the price of having her new legs, she lost her voice and felt as if every step she took was on sharp knives and the sea-witch snagged the prince, leaving the mermaid heartbroken and suicidal.

In earlier versions, Cinderella's step-sisters mutilated their own feet to try and fit into Cinderella's shoes, hacking off toes and heels to squeeze their bloodied feet in. An earlier version of Sleeping Beauty doesn't have the princess wake from true love's kiss, but rather from giving birth, the prince having had his way with her while she was unconscious!

Rapunzel's prince fell from the tower and was blinded when he landed on thorns that poked out his eyes. Snow White's step-mother is tortured and dies at her wedding by being made to dance in red-hot iron shoes. In even earlier versions, it was Snow White's own mother who was jealous of her pretty daughter, not a step-mother. Not really children's tales, are they?

That's what I wanted to do with my fantasy book, The Chosen. I wanted to write a faerie tale for adults. I had the prince and I thought he needed a princess to rescue, only things didn't quite turn out that way. Prince Severin was gay and wanted nothing to do with princesses, beautiful or otherwise. In the end he did rescue someone, but it was a slave, not a princess. A very handsome male slave called Havyn... and that's just where the story starts.

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For my individual prize I am giving away an ebook bundle for 3 lucky winners. Each winner will get an ebook of The Chosen, New Zealand with a Hobbit Botherer and Shadows of the Rose. To enter, please just leave a comment on this post and what format you'd like the ebooks in - mobi, epub or pdf.

Don't forget to go and visit the other authors on the hop, more prizes to be won on each blog! Full list of authors and blogs are here:

http://indiebloghops.blogspot.co.uk/

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Main giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway