Genre: MM Fairy Tales/Fantasy
It’s my pleasure to feature Warren Rochelle’s collection of adult fairytales on Hollow Hills Blog. There is also an excerpt and a giveaway, as well as my review at the end of this post, so lots of treats for you to check out!
Warren Rochelle has a new collection of gay fairy tales out: “The Wicked Stepbrother and Other Stories.” And there’s a giveaway!
Fairy tales. We all know the traditional stories, right? Prince Charming, the hero, fights evil, wins the princess, happily ever after. Three sons, three wishes, witches, dragons, a quest, and happily ever after.
These stories are part of our cultural fabric. We retell them, over and over, and the stories change in the retellings, to reflect contemporary culture, such as Princess Charming, heroes and heroines as people of color. It has been only relatively recently that queer folk have found their way into the retellings, as they have here, in this collection of stories, stories that grew out of questions:
What if the prince falls in love with Cinderella’s gay stepbrother?
What if Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t really want the Queen’s child? He wants his old boyfriend back, the King.
What if Beauty and the Beast were two men?
As fairy tales do, these stories explore the human condition, human experience, through the metaphors of magic and the magical, exploring what it means to be human. After all, all fairy tales are true. But this time, with a gay perspective.
In these tales, retellings and original ones, readers are asked to consider what price must be paid for happily ever after—which is not guaranteed. Love, on the other hand, without a doubt. These tales are love stories.
Duty or love? Is love worth great sacrifice?
So… once upon a time….
Publisher | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
Giveaway
Warren is giving away a $20 Amazon gift card with this tour:
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Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47159/?
Excerpt
From “The Wicked Stepbrother.”
“Well. Lord Culver, are we done? Are there no more women to try on the shoe?” Aidan asked as he stood from where he had sat all morning, next to my grandfather’s great tome of a dictionary.
I was about to say no when my stable manager interrupted. “There’s one more, Elena. She’s in the kitchen, washing dishes. I saw her there when I came up.”
Before I could protest, Aidan ordered her brought to the library.
When Elena came in, her hair braided and pulled back to keep it out of the sink, I knew, with a sudden certainty, who had stared at me before running away. She had to have had magical help. She glanced at me before sitting down in the chair facing Aidan and his shoe. A quick flash of triumph.
I hated her.
Of course, the crystal slipper fit. Of course, she had its mate in her apron pocket.
“I have found her—my wife-to-be,” Aidan said as he stood, taking Elena’s hand, and gesturing to the room. Every woman still in line, all the male staff around me, my stable manager, the prince’s entourage, burst into applause. I clapped, too, even though I felt like I was going to throw up.
So much for my half-loaf.
An hour before they left for the capital, after a dove was sent ahead with the news, Aidan took me aside, taking me back to the library. Holding my hand, he sat me down in an overstuffed chair in a reading alcove that overlooked the orchards.
“Cal. It’s going to be all right. I have to marry her, and get her with child, but you are my true love; you’ll be my mistress—my lover. I’ll fix that house for you. Cal?”
“Aidan, that might have worked with any other woman but not Elena. She hates me, and—I’ve not been nice to her. She won’t share.”
There was a knock at the door, and the soft voice of one of his guards: “Your Highness. The Lady Elena has bathed and dressed. Her companion is ready as well. Your car is ready; another dove was sent to the King telling him you and the Lady are due to arrive soon.”
“I will meet everyone at the car in ten minutes,” Aidan shouted back through the door. Then he turned to me. “She’ll share; she’ll have her place and you’ll have yours. Here, in my heart, no one closer. Walk with me to the car.”
I so wanted to believe him, and I did until we walked down the steps. I recognized the companion, who waited by the prince’s car, the little old lady who lived by the river, her old maid. And I smelled her: first folk, a pureblood, a true silver. I clenched my teeth. That old hag had done the magic for Elena. I learned later the old bitch had been with Elena since her birth and with the earl’s family for at least three generations. She had been biding her time in that little house by the river. Now she stared at me, with a triumphant smirk. I sniffed again: she was very powerful and she wasn’t afraid of me.
“Lord Culver.”
I jerked around to face Elena. She was beautiful, as she had been when she came to Colomendy years ago. So, the hag had hidden her weak eye—some magical disguise. She glanced back quickly to find Aidan, who was at the door, conferring with his head guard and chauffeur, then turned back to me, getting as close as she could without touching.
“You monster. You lose,” she hissed, her breath warmth on my face.
“It’s not over; he’s mine. He wants me, not you,” I hissed back.
“He wants you?” She stared at me, incredulous, then glanced again at Aidan who was still talking to his servants. She laughed. “All the better then, eh?”
Then, in a flurry of commands and good-byes and thank yous (and one furtive squeeze of my hand) they were gone.
***
A month and a half later, on New Year’s Day, they were married.
Author Bio
Warren Rochelle lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has just retired from teaching English at the University of Mary Washington. His short fiction and poetry have been published in such journals and anthologies as Icarus, North Carolina Literary Review, Forbidden Lines, Aboriginal Science Fiction, Collective Fallout, Queer Fish 2, Empty Oaks, Quantum Fairy Tales, Migration, The Silver Gryphon, Jaelle Her Book, Colonnades, and Graffiti, as well as the Asheville Poetry Review, GW Magazine, Crucible, The Charlotte Poetry Review, and Romance and Beyond.
His short story, “The Golden Boy,” was a finalist for the 2004 Spectrum Award for Short Fiction. His short story “Mirrors,” was just published in Under A Green Rose, a queering romance anthology, from Cuil Press. “The Latest Thing,” a flash fiction story, is forthcoming in the Queer Sci Fi anthology, Innovation.
Rochelle is also the author of four novels: The Wild Boy (2001), Harvest of Changelings (2007), and The Called (2010), all published by Golden Gryphon Press, and The Werewolf and His Boy, published by Samhain Publishing in September 2016. The Werewolf and His Boy was re-released from JMS Books in August 2020. The Wicked Stepbrother and Other Stories is forthcoming from JMS Books in late September 2020.
Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/warren.rochelle
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/warrenwriter
Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/WarrenRochelle
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/38355.Warren_Rochelle
My Review
I’m a sucker for the reimagining of fairy tales, especially ones written from an LGBTQIA perspective. For a community that has historically few happy endings, it’s great to see the narrative being changed. Also, reading them gives me a warm, happy feeling, even when they turn sinister, as some of these tales do.
These are no ordinary fairy tales. This book elegantly fuses Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and other well-known stories into a collection which has dark elements too. Don’t expect an easy ride to each Happy Ever After. Told in an adult, intelligent way, the book acknowledges there are no easy answers with a flick of a wand or a ride through an enchanted forest.
I particularly enjoyed Mirrors, a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story, but each story was a surprise in itself. They vary in length, some being fairly short, and others serialised throughout the book. It’s an interesting way of presenting them, but makes it hard to find particular stories when I was trying to for this review.
This book is a sexy brew of coarse language, violence and sexy scenes. And some characters are so repellent at first that you wonder how they ever deserve a happy ending, but all does come right in the end, as it does in the best fairytales.
I really enjoyed this collection. With great writing and a real sense of fantasy mixed with realism, it was a joy to read, and surprising too. Definitely a collection of LGBTQIA fairytales written with adults in mind, and a great addition to the genre.
Jayne Lockwood Books 
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