A modern day retelling of the fairytale of The Snow Queen, the Bitter Snow trilogy is sure to delight fans of The Iron King series! Each volume is roughly 85 pages long--long enough to tell a complete story yet short enough to finish in a sitting.
Bitter Snow
Volume One
Genre: YA
Paranormal Romance
Number of pages: 85
Word Count: 32,000
Book Description:
Whatever you do, don’t open the door.
All Gilly Breslin wants for
her sixteenth birthday is for her best friend Kai to see her as more than just
the girl next door he’s known forever. So when she receives a mysterious,
romantic invitation to meet him at midnight, she knows she has to go.
But it’s St. Nicholas’s Eve,
the ancient festival of Bellsnichol, when demons roam the dark winter
landscape. Tradition demands that everyone in the tiny town of Bremerton stay
inside, doors shut tight against evil.
Gilly thinks it’s just a
quaint old superstition. She has no idea that a malevolent power has been
unleashed in Bremerton—with Kai as its target. But when she answers her door at
midnight, her romantic date turns deadly…and she’s drawn into an ancient web of
fear and darkness that threatens everything she loves.
Dark Solstice
Volume Two
Date of
Publication: December 21, 2013
Book Description:
On St. Nicholas’s Eve, the
festival of Bellsnichol, Gilly Breslin opened her door to an ancient evil. A
demon queen who’s slowly destroying Gilly’s best friend Kai—the only guy she’s
ever loved.
But it’s not just Kai. Every
guy who falls in love with the Snow Queen turns evil—and every guy who sees her
falls in love with her.
Gilly’s only hope is to
enlist the secret guardians of Bremerton, who may hold the key to banishing the
Snow Queen and her minions. But with the town erupting in violence and the
demons’ power increasing as the winter nights grow longer, she’s in a race
against time to stop them before it’s too late.
Twelfth Night
Volume Three
Date of Publication:
January 5, 2014
Book Description:
Winter demons have invaded
the tiny town of Bremerton, and sixteen-year-old Gilly Breslin is the only one
who can banish them. The only problem is, she doesn’t know how.
Digging through the town’s
historical archives, she and her friend Niko piece together clues to an ancient
ritual to send the demons back to the dark realm they sprang from.
But the Snow Queen has plans
of her own. Her power is greatest at the darkest time of the year, and her evil
influence is spreading insidiously through the town, leaving Gilly wondering if
there’s anyone left who can be trusted.
The demons must be banished
by Twelfth Night, or the town will be lost. But to do it, Gilly may have to
sacrifice everything that matters to her—including her soul.
The Book Landers was also lucky enough to have a guest post by Laura Sweet about her thoughts on Modern Retelling of Fairy Tales:
Not Your Great-Grandmother’s Fairy Tale
As a writer, I’ve always wanted to do a modern retelling of a fairy tale. Fairy tales have themes that resonate with all of us, whether it’s Cinderella hoping for her one shot to leave a dead-end existence and find love, or Rapunzel imprisoned in her unhappy tower, waiting for someone who’s smart, brave, and determined enough to help her escape and live her own life.
The Bitter Snow series is based on the fairy tale “The Snow Queen,” by Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen’s story is about best friends, a boy and a girl, who grow up next door to each other. When they’re teenagers, the boy is kidnapped by the Snow Queen, a beautiful sorceress who holds him captive in her palace near the North Pole. The girl goes on a quest to find him and rescue him. And of course, in the end they fall in love and live happily ever after.
When I was a little girl, “The Snow Queen” was my favorite fairy tale. Who could resist a story where the girl gets to do the rescuing, instead of waiting to be rescued?
I wanted Bitter Snow to have action, adventure, and scary beasties, but underneath all that, I knew that the heart of the story was the relationships—especially the friendship between my main character, Gilly, and the boy next door, Kai. It’s the type of friendship most of us only wish we’d had—someone who’s known you forever, who’s shared all your secrets, who totally “gets” you, who’d do anything for you.
And I wanted to write about the hope and heartbreak of that emotional fork in the road, when a close childhood friendship can either grow into something more, or break apart entirely when one of the friends falls for someone else.
In Bitter Snow, Kai falls for Perchta, the Snow Queen, a demon goddess who’s disguised herself as a high school girl. She gets her power from male adoration, and she’s chosen Kai to be her consort. She enchants him so that she’s perfect in his eyes, and everything human, vulnerable, or imperfect is ugly to him. Including Gilly.
It seemed to me that a lot of people would be able to relate to that feeling, especially in our media-drenched society. Our eyes get dazzled by false, inhuman perfection, and we feel like no matter what we do, we’ll never measure up to that image—whether it’s an airbrushed supermodel or an immortal demon goddess.
To complicate things, there’s Niko—a guy who’s been crushing on Gilly for years, and whose mysterious powers and knowledge could help her fight Perchta. As the story goes on, Gilly will have to figure out if Kai is really the “forever” guy, or if she could maybe give her heart to someone else.
Bitter Snow is about fighting demons and saving the world. But it’s also about what happens when the person you’ve loved all your life starts turning away from you. It’s about that one time when you do something you’re not supposed to do, and the consequences are so much worse than you ever imagined. It’s about when following your heart can lead you down the wrong path, and the strength and courage it takes to turn that around and make things right.
I hope you all enjoy reading the series as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Thank you Laura for sharing your thoughts with us...AND here's my review of Bitter Snow: Volume One
I really enjoyed Bitter Snow. Even though almost all of the plot takes place within one day, I don't think that any part of the novella was dragged out. The descriptions were magical and I could totally relate to Gilly, the main character of the series. I absolutely adored the setting of Bitter Snow. The town Gilly lives in is a quaint little town still following ageless traditions, such as the running of the demons.
I also really enjoyed the fairy tale aspect of the story. I am not familiar with The Snow Queen, but Lauren Sweet does an excellent jobs giving readers a brief, but informative background about the beautiful, but deadly Snow Queen who haunts the dark woods and frosted landscapes.
Bitter Snow strongly reminded me of The Iron King, another series that I liked reading. There's a hint of magic in the air...perfect for the holiday seasons! I look forward to volume two and three of the series being published.
Rating:
But wait...there's more!
Enter the giveaway for the chance to win an iron necklace! In folklores, iron is used to ward off evil spirits. This necklace is HANDMADE from real horseshoe nails and stirling silver--a $80 value!
No comments:
Post a Comment