THAW: Fairytale Series Launch
Good morning, dear Readers! I'm so excited to be participating in a blog tour today to help fellow author E. Kaiser as she launches not one, but THREE books in her wintry fairy tale series: THAW.I have not yet read this series, but I love fairy tales, and I love winter, so this is a match made in heaven!Make sure you check out the other posts in the tour! Also, there is an awesome giveaway where you could win copies of these books at the end of this post, so make sure you enter that, as well!
Okay, first, a little bit about the books themselves - clicking on the images will take you to their purchase pages on amazon (except for the third book, which has had its release date pushed to January 20).
A barren king and queen pray for a child, and when in their loneliness, they make one out of snow, their prayers are answered in a special, and unusual way.
Sometimes, when we get what we wish for, we don't know what to do with it.
Combining elements from the Snow Maiden, Schneekind, Snegurochka tales with those of the Snow Queen; Winter's Child introduces a new series: THAW.
A slig
htly pampered girl allows her avoidance behavior to isolate her from the world... and it's only when she takes the final step that she realizes the wall she's built in the name of safety is also the one that will hold her prisoner forever... unless she discovers how to destroy it.The only one who can break a neurosis... is the one who has it. 
The whole world knows his guilt, and is absolutely correct about it, but how far can a man go to regain respect so swiftly lost? Or is an honorable death the best a fallen star can hope for? The only person who can help him... is the one he most deeply wronged.
And a little bit about the author, E. Kaiser:
Born in the Midwest, I had a unique childhood of many moves, giving me the opportunity to experience an array of locales and characters all over the nation. We always had three things; faith, family and animals... and I always had dreams. Now we're finally back to the Plains and make our home on a farm filled with critters!
E. Kaiser Writes credits her nearly nomadic childhood for the vast reach of her fictional worlds; she has lived (and gotten to known the locals) in the Rocky Mtns, the Smoky Mtns, the plains, the deep forest, the searing Texas summer and frozen Minnesota north.She wears many hats: writer and editor of ad copy, web copy, office correspondence & fiction; a cowgirl, animal trainer, seamstress, jeweler, artist and... authoress!
I got to ask Ms. Kaiser three interview questions for the blog tour!
I love your cover art! Who did you get to do the cover art and can you tell us a little bit about the covers and how they relate to the stories?
As a author/artist/illustrator, I did the cover art in traditional mediums, but since I have as the other half of my publishing team my sister who is a Photoshop genius, I took advantage of both sides of the fence. Since bringing my own vision to life is harder than bringing someone else's vision, (weirdly enough, I'm a stickler on my own ideas!!!) I worked the art in pieces, and then it could go online for Abi to tweak in PS3. This way I didn't have to finalize exactly what size we wanted the images to be in comparison with each other, we could shrink and enlarge to our hearts content on the computer.
The most problematic of all of them would be young Ilise on Winter's Child: I had originally had in mind to just have a single one of her in a sort of wistful looking back over her shoulder pose. I did that up and it went digital, and even though Abi tweaked it, I just grew more and more dissatisfied. I resolved to make it again on paper, hoping that might cure it... but when I went to do that another idea came to me.
Now, this was all just the end of December, we were under a tremendously close deadline at this point. Prince of Demargen and Winter Queen were all going along fine, but I just was still fussing with Winter's Child.
So, I pulled in a bunch of reference photos and told Abi about this brand new idea, and she looked at me like "You serious?!"
"It's got to be done!" I pleaded; and like a supportive sister, she reluctantly got on board. 
I came up with the art of the two sisters, including Girta in on the cover and kind of referencing their roles in the book. Then I came up with the thought of having the Winter Angel show up on the cover, because even though she's not a major main character, she's pretty unique and has a pivotal role. By the time we got done with all of that, Abi got it into her program and started in on it. We tweaked placements and sizing, and it became clear that I still wasn't happy with Ilise. I had started out with her dress being a pale blue, but that was so limpid next to Girta's bright crimson gown, I kept taking it darker and darker until Ilise was basically a navy with white front. But the navy was just too dark for her, and no matter what digital optimization Abi did, that fact remained.
So... I bit the bullet and went back to the drawing board with the dress. I drew up just the dress, and suddenly we could make it any color we wanted. Pale
blue would blend too much with the background, but what about pink? Or should we go...? Abi suggested gold, and that was the perfect answer. Even though it was lighter than Girta's gown by a long way, the pale golden tones make Ilise stand out against the blue sky and even the red of her sister's dress, and almost gives her a "golden child" feel. (Which is kind of how she's viewed as a child in the book.) Also, it makes the frosted rose she holds in her hand really pop against her skirt, and the waterdrops stand out clearly on the cover.
blue would blend too much with the background, but what about pink? Or should we go...? Abi suggested gold, and that was the perfect answer. Even though it was lighter than Girta's gown by a long way, the pale golden tones make Ilise stand out against the blue sky and even the red of her sister's dress, and almost gives her a "golden child" feel. (Which is kind of how she's viewed as a child in the book.) Also, it makes the frosted rose she holds in her hand really pop against her skirt, and the waterdrops stand out clearly on the cover.We were really stressing under the gun for that, but I feel the final effect was well worth it.
As an aside, none of my versions were a waste, because I was able to take the collar and front treatment from the first one I did, (with the pale blue dress, looking wistful and alone) and incorporate it into the new montage. The bale blue and white details worked very smoothly into the gold gown, and it deepened the end result a great deal. Although each piece presented it's own unique challenge, the Winter's Child cover gave the most trouble! I love the details of roses and swans that we where able to put in there!
That is awesome that you get to work with your sister on the covers! I am super jealous of anyone who can draw/paint!
Wow, you've lived in a lot of places! Which was your favorite place to live? And which place gave you the most inspiration for your THAW series?
A winter spent in Northern Minnesota, and six in the far northern Rockies gave me plenty of inspiration for the cold and snowy aspects of all three books. The mountain living gave me a good place to start with Noran's high country terrain, and the rest of the areas that we touch briefly had a real life counter part in a place we have lived somewhere alone the line.
As an aside, I based Noran's timber industry and shipbuilding prowess on the real life fact that during the age of sail the best masts basically had to come from Norway. Noran is mainly based on Norway, although we wanted it to be closer to everywhere else in our upcoming books, so switched places with Sweden. Now Noran is on the inside, and "Svesser" is on the outside. We've still not totally finalized our map - at this point it's only for reference when writing - but I love how detailed we get to be because we're drawing from actual places, and I can stick in historical facts to build a deeper story.
The Lord just keeps improving our situation, so... I guess, my favorite place would have to be the one we're at right now!
That is so cool. I figured Minnesota must have been where you got some of the inspiration! My husband is from there, and I know the winters can be brutal (but beautiful).
What was your favorite thing about writing this series?
I really related a lot to Ilise, so writing her was very cathartic, and at the same time a little raw... I wanted to be really honest about her faults, because as a base principle this book is about what happens when your parents don't do all the work for you of building your character, and then you have to do that yourself as an adult. So her parents are so happy to have her and her sister after years of barrenness that they really do kind of coddle the children in a soft and inconspicuous way. Which is, I think, directly relatable to our real life situation; a lot of us got away with stuff all our childhoods, and that's fine, but as adults we need to learn how to take a stand against bad behaviors within us and change it. So writing that arc was very satisfactory as an author, seeing her just triumph little by little over her strong natural impulses.
Hess's arc is also very rich, because we gave him the role of being affected by the Devil's Mirror (in powder form this time, not a piece in his eye.) So he in effect very suddenly gets a roaring bad attitude, very selfish with a bad temper, (I know people like this!!!) And his arc basically explores the effects of that, how damaging that is for oneself and those around one. This was a hard thing, because I love that boy, but I felt it was important to go as black as the character and circumstances realistically required, so at one point he really does hit bottom in every sense of the word. (Actually, he has several "hit bottom" moments, but we learn he has depths yet to explore, so to speak.)
His journey is so dramatic that some of us worried a little that people might not like him, but that's a chance his tale had to take. I tried to be true to the material, and that's what happens if you let selfishness get the slip on you; it can really trash your life and relationships!
In the end, he emerges as a much more deepened person, and although he was never an arrogant type originally, he is much more humble by the end. Because I don't write stories that don't have happy endings!
I never want to be preachy in my writing, but I do want to have a moral-of-the-story theme underlaying it all. I started out writing these books just for fun,but as the stories came together, layers and layers of undertones started showing up! I hope some people (children & adults) may be encouraged to think more deeply about life and how their reactions have major impact. As I went through this story it seemed like it just got clearer and clearer that this was about learning to rise above the impulses of the moment and make wise decisions, instead of reacting in the most natural way possible to you. 
I was talking with my sister and mom the other day, and it came up that perhaps people would think about this side of it more if we put some discussion guides in. So I have taken that and applied it to Winter's Child; and will be doing the same for the other two. Not big long, hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-
Anyway, back to your question! I enjoyed every bit of writing this... except for the times I was worried that everyone would scream bloody murder that it was too much like Frozen. (Totally honestly, I couldn't write at all when I was worried about that.) In the end, there are a lot of similarities to Frozen; the biggest difference is that Disney's theme (as Disney so often does) is "Whatever you are, don't worry, just be it!" So "Let it Go" (which don't get me wrong, the song is gorgeous) means "don't bother trying to improve." That is just so infuriating!!! The story doesn't have to be read that way. Anderson's original (which I sum up in the Introduction to all three Thaw: books for those who aren't familiar with it) is all about maturity and what that actually means, of coming to grips with the fact that the world isn't as rosy as you thought in childhood, but now that you're an adult you can find the strength to find good in it still. So that was the main impetus for Thaw: ... and the theme is "Don't Run away" and "Accept your own responsibility". None of the characters can actually grow and begin to overcome their problems until they step up to the plate and say "I'm stronger than this hurtful part of myself, and I will do what it takes to control it."
Girta is the character that actually doesn't grow much in these first three books, so she will be more fun to write as she slowly encounters more "growth opportunities" in the next two; Reindeer King and Princess of Noran.
I love the idea of putting in discussion guides. The original Snow Queen is one of my favorite fairy tales, and while I did love "Frozen" I think we can all agree that to say that movie is "based on" Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen is really a bit of a laugh. From what I can tell, it sounds like your stories are much closer retellings, and I truly cannot wait to read them! (I'll have to wait for the paperbacks, though, as I don't do e-books!)
Thank you so much for letting me jump in on this blog tour. I am really excited about your books!I hope you all enjoyed this feature! Check out the links below to connect with E. Kaiser and learn more about her stories. Also, don't forget to enter the giveaway!a Rafflecopter giveaway