Last month, Cheryl released her third novel, The People the Fairies Forget (which I keep reading as The People the Fairies ForgOt because my brain is silly) and today she is on the blog again to answer questions about the book. I asked a very important non-spoilery sneak-peek question for readers of the first two books. And also we chatted about the stories and the way Cheryl plays with fairytales in her latest book.

Welcome again, Cheryl! <3

Let me give you all the plot description. I’d also like to note in advance that, though, The People the Fairies Forget is the third in a series, it works perfectly well as a stand-alone.

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Today we’re shaking things up at the blog with a guest post by JJ Sherwood, author of Kings or Pawns! I’ll let JJ introduce herself, the book and the overarching series, but first! Some of my waffling! (It’s relevant waffling, don’t worry.)

Kings or Pawns, the first book in the Steps of Power series, will be released on October 1st, 2015 (That’s in a couple of days!) in both ebook and paperback. JJ ran a successful Kickstarter for an audiobook edition, so you’ll be able to listen to it as well. You can read more news about the series on the website’s blog or the Facebook page and you can also keep up with JJ at her Twitter account.

And now… I shall hand over the post to JJ and her characters for the interview. Enjoy and go check out Kings or Pawns!

The Most Awesome Character Interview of All Time. And That’s a Fact.

Hello everyone! I am J.J. Sherwood, author of the upcoming fantasy series, Steps of Power. The first novel, Kings or Pawns, is about an elven nation riddled with corruption and balanced on the brink of all out war with the enemy warlord Saebellus. It features a wide array of characters—the mute servant girl, Alvena; the naïve king, Hairem; and the arrogant and mysterious foreigner, Sellemar—but today I wanted to do a character interview on General Jikun Taemrin, one of our primary protagonists.

But wait!—this isn’t just your typical interview. I don’t want to interview Jikun himself… Well, ok, I do, but he refused to co-operate. So we’re going to interview some of his roommates and see what they think of our dear General. (All of the interviewees today will debut in future Steps of Power works, but few are present in the four The Kings novels of the series.)

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Last year,  I interviewed Cheryl Mahoney about her debut release, The Wanderers. This year, we’re back with an interview centring on her second book, The Storyteller and Her Sisters! (I had the privilege and pleasure of being one of Cheryl’s betareaders. I’ve been sitting on my squee for so long. SQUEE! Suffice to say that if you enjoy fairytale retellings, I recommend you go out and get this as soon as possible. It’s a fantastic retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses.)

Before we get to the interview, here’s a little bit about Cheryl herself:

Cheryl Mahoney is a book blogger at Tales of the Marvelous, and the author of two books based on fairy tales. The Wanderers, published in 2013, follows the journeys of a wandering adventurer, a talking cat and a witch’s daughter. Her new novel, The Storyteller and Her Sisters, was published in October, 2014.

Welcome, Cheryl!

And here’s a bit about The Storyteller and Her Sisters too. Have the product description. ^_^

Maybe you’ve heard a tale about twelve princesses who danced their shoes to pieces. That was only part of our story.

Talya would tell you how dark and frightening the cursed forest and enchanted lake were. Vira would be too busy looking after us all to tell you many details, while Mina would try to give you every fact and figure (even though magic is rarely so logical). Each of my sisters would tell the story differently.

And Dastan—he’d write a ballad. Or maybe a love song.

As for me, I’m the storyteller, so I’m giving you my version. It’s about my sisters and me, our father, twelve princes and a cursed country—about a series of misguided champions, one even more misguided Fairy Godmother, and a great deal of dancing. It’s about twelve trapped princesses who decided to take control of the story.

I’m Lyra, the ninth princess, and this is how I tell the tale.

<3 And now, without further ado, below the cut lies the interview with Cheryl. Enjoy!

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Today, I’m welcoming one of my best friends, Becca Lusher, for an interview. Wherein we natter about Becca’s stories and engage in general silliness.

Becca Lusher hails from the wilds of the British Westcountry, where she runs around with her dogs, gets bossed about by cats and takes photos of views with rocks in them. She’s also been known to write occasionally to appease the rapacious appetite of her muse. Some of which she now self-publishes.
You can find Becca at WordPress.

Welcome, Becca!

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Fellow-blogger and friend Cheryl Mahoney from Tales of the Marvellous also published a book this month and we thought it’d be a fun thing to swap interviews and introduce people to our books. So today we’re swapping interviews! I hope you’ll have as much fun reading them as we had answering each other’s questions.

Cheryl Mahoney can’t remember when she began her love affair with stories.  She never goes anywhere (including the grocery store) without a book and a pen.  Cheryl also writes a book review blog, Tales of the Marvelous, and is on Goodreads (MarvelousTales) and Twitter (@MarvelousTales).  She has been previously published in The Ignatian, and has completed NaNoWriMo twice.

Welcome, Cheryl!

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Today I’m hosting a blog tour for crowdfunded writer K.A. Jones. This is the second stop on the blog tour and is cross-posted to my DW as well. The first stop can be found at lizcommotion’s journal on DW here.

I’m still pretty new to Kayleigh’s works, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far and am happy to be able to share one of Kayleigh’s stories with you today. If you like what you read (or know someone who would) do pass it on. If, like me, you’re easily intimidated by being faced with a large amount of stories, don’t despair. It may take a few pokes, but the stories are pretty easy to navigate once you find a method that works for you.

The story Kayleigh is letting me share with you today is a perfect introduction to one of the settings. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did (or preferably more)! And now… I pass this post on to Kayleigh:

Blog Tour

I’m Kayleigh, I’m a writer, and I’m trying to make my dream come true – to make a living from my writing – by crowdfunding. Three years ago I didn’t know what crowdfunding was, but I was lucky enough to find the crowdfunding community on Livejournal, where I started learning what it was possible for me to do. Since then I’ve experimented, to find what works for me, as I’ve been crowdfunding myself for the last two years (last month was my two year anniversary, which is part of the reason I wanted to do this), and, even though I’m not making much, I love it.

Since last year I’ve lived with my boyfriend of over seven years, but life never seems to give us a break. After the stress of last year, with moving and family issues, I was hoping that this year would be easier. Instead he’s dealing with some very painful medical issues that mean he can’t work, so my aims have changed. This year was going to be the year where I built up my audience, as last year I had to take an unplanned hiatus, with the aim for next year being to start getting a regular income. Now my aim for this year is to help as much as I can with both the groceries and the rent, especially as we’re coming up to a particularly difficult month, as we pay rent every four weeks.

With this aim in mind I’ve been working to make my work easy to get into, by creating the Beginner’s Guide to the Many Worlds of K. A. Jones, and making the crowdfunding side as understandable as possible, with my Crowdfunding Brochure. I do write a lot, because writing is the one thing I’ve always been good at, and it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to dedicate my life to – I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was six and I never changed my mind. So, if you like what you read here check me out at kajoneswriting.co.uk (my website), or I have mirrors on both LiveJournal and Dreamwidth under the name kajones_writing, and if you’d like to host your own story then email me at k_a_jones@live.co.uk or PM at either mirror journal.

The following story is from the Magi collection. I hope you enjoy it.

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