If you like fairy tale retellings and paying only a few pennies apiece for them, your moment has come.
Once Upon a Forbidden Desire, with 20 fantasy romance fairy tale stories, is a limited-time anthology that will go poof next month like an enchanted object at the stroke of midnight.
And right now it's on its very last sale: 99 cents for the whole shebang.
Yup, just under 5 cents per story.
One of those 20 stories is mine, and I can't make any promises about when it'll be available on its own after the anthology is gone.
So if you'd like to read a tale about a woman who strikes an unwise deal with a very intriguing wizard's assistant, your best bet is to snaffle it now. 😉
The fairy tales include all the ones you're probably expecting (Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, Cinderella and more), the one I yelled DIBS on (Rumpelstiltskin) and some I hadn't run into before and absolutely loved.
Here's the opening to my tale, "Into the Bargain":
The wrong man answered the door.
Pen put on her well-worn polite smile, hoping it concealed her anxiety. “Hello. I have an appointment to see the omnimancer.”
The man—a typic, no long queue of silver hair to mark him as a wizard—gave her a look that went straight through her. Did he suspect why she was here?
“Omnimancer Porten was called out of town.” He leaned against the impressively arched doorway. “An emergency, you understand.”
“When do you expect him back, Mr. …?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” he said, unsatisfactorily answering one of her questions and ignoring the other.
She took in a shaky breath. “I’ll wait, then.”
“I very much doubt he’ll be back today.”
“Nevertheless, I will wait.”
He quirked his lips, one side only, in there-and-gone amusement. “You’re welcome to it. But there’s no one here except me, I should warn you.”
Pen stole a glance at his left hand, hoping to see a wedding ring. No such luck. Well—in for a penny, in for a pound. He moved aside, and she held up the long skirt of her dress to step in, the cheerful noises of midday shoppers on Washington Street fading as he shut the door.
If her father were still alive, he’d be appalled. Alone with an unmarried man, Penelope!
But he was dead. That was the reason she was here, after all.
📚🌟📚🌟📚
More cool & bookish things
You guys, look at these gorgeous book covers on fantasy romance author Nicolette Andrews' Tales of Akatsuki series, a melding of Japanese and European fairy tales:
These retellings of the Little Mermaid, Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood come with beautiful undercover character art.
This is a Kickstarter-only deal. If you haven't dipped your toe into Kickstarter, check it out — some of the coolest bookish offerings are there these days.
Nicolette is especially creative. Click to see what she's got for readers in addition to these special-edition books:
Do villains and morally gray characters deserve their own happy endings? Snaffle the novels in this book fair and decide for yourself. (Inquiring authors want to know: Do you think Peter Blackwell counts as morally gray?)
Looking for free-for-everyone books? Find those gaslamp and steampunk reads here, from The Fire in the Glass (she can see the future, he wishes he knew less about the past) to A Lady of Truth (can she convince a prince not to ruin her brother?).
You made it to the end! You're awesome. (Of course.) And oh hey, here are my latest books.
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