Three Midnight Curfews
There are so many beautiful fantasy books being revealed this month!
Good morning, dear Reader!
I am super excited about this trio of releases coming this Spring. So mark your calendars for April 27, 28, & 29, because Cinderella is about to go on some all new adventures!
What happens when you mix Cinderella with Pride and Prejudice?
Or if Cinderella were set in the Wild West?
Or how about Cinderella with a Jazz-Age take?
I don’t know about you, but these retellings all sound super fun!
Today, I’m specifically helping out with the cover reveal for Mask of Scarlet by Sarah Pennington.
But make sure you read all the way to the end of this post, because I got an exclusive interview with each of these three authors and I think you’re going to enjoy their answers to my questions!
Mask of Scarlet is the third installment in the Bastian Denell, PI files. You can read my mini-review of the first book, The Midnight Show HERE.
Mask of Scarlet
Bastian Denell, PI #3
Bastian Dennel is a detective, not a matchmaker.
But he’s also not one to turn down easy mazuma. So when one of Innsjøby’s richest young sheiks hires him to find his so-called true love — a girl he’s met only once at a masked party — Bastian is on the case. After his last few high-risk adventures, he’s ready for a job where the hardest part will be collecting his payment. Sure, all he has to go on is a guest list and a description . . . but how hard can it be?
Of course, easy money always has a catch, and what should’ve been a simple search turns out to be anything but. Everyone seems to have their own ideas of who this mystery girl should be, regardless of who she is, and even the Families are getting involved. To make matters worse, Dayo is acting cagey, and Bastian doesn’t know why.
Bastian’s business is the truth. But what can he do when everyone around him has already decided what they want the truth to be? Find out in this Jazz-Age take on “Cinderella,” book three of the Bastian Dennel, PI mysteries!
About the Author
Sarah Pennington has been writing stories since before she actually knew how to write, and she has no intention of stopping anytime soon. She is perpetually in the middle of writing at least one or two novels, most of which are in the fantasy and fairy tale retelling genres. When she isn't writing, she enjoys knitting, photography, and trying to conquer her massive to-be-read list.
Follow Sarah around the interwebs:
Author Site || Goodreads || Facebook
THE INTERVIEWS
Who is your favorite character in this story and why?
Sarah: Oh, definitely Bastian. I mean, I love all my Innsjøby characters quite a lot, but Bastian is my favorite. He doesn’t think of himself as a hero (for fairly good reason), but he is a genuinely good guy, the kind of person I wish I knew more people like in real life. And he’s just very enjoyable to write! He plays off of other characters well, and he’s observant enough that I can slip in little details when I think of them, and he just walks the line where I get to have him be sarcastic and it feels natural, but he can also be very genuine and have that feel natural too.
Jenelle: That’s what I loved about Bastian in the first book, too. He’s such a great character, and so sweet, but not in an “Oh, he’s too perfect” sort of way. He’s just very real and likable.
Kendra: Ooh. There are just so many fun characters in this one. It's a mashup with Pride and Prejudice, and that brings a lot of larger-than-life people into the mix. But, I think I might be partial to the Aunt Gardiner/Fairy Godmother character and her husband, the Uncle Gardiner/Colonel Fitzwilliam character (yes, I am aware that this is an unexpected combo, but it just WORKS, okay?). They're actually carryovers from the previous book, and it was just really great fun to see how they've grown since a year before.
Jenelle: I am super intrigued by this. I love P&P and I love Cinderella, and I really love the idea of them mixed together!
Rachel: Back in Jr. High - late 1970s, there was a lovable football player, a bigger boy, yes, he was black. Everyone loved him. He was kind - standing up for anyone bullied, generous - always the first to offer a pencil or paper in class. Keep in mind, we were all like 11- and 12-year-olds. Half of the girls had a crush on him. I was super shocked the day I realized that he knew my name - I was a nobody. ..... The "big brother" of Cindy is loosely based on this lovable boy from my childhood.
Jenelle: Awww, that’s super sweet. I love it when characters spring to life from bits and pieces of the author’s real lives!
What sparked the inspiration behind this particular twist on the fairy tale?
Sarah: Kendra suggested I write a Bastian Dennel take on Cinderella, and while I initially said no . . . I started thinking about it more and realized that I quite liked her suggestion. And then I realized I could blend in another particular fairy tale that doesn’t get retold often, and things went on from there.
Jenelle: That’s so cool! I always say that authors cannot create in a vacuum. (It’s cramped and dusty in there)
Kendra: A few years ago, I read Kelsey Bryant's Suit and Suitability, and I remembered just how much I wanted to write my own set of Austen retellings. And, since I'm the Arista of Fairy Tales, I realized that Austen/fairy tale mashups were my destiny. S&S with Snow White and Rose Red was the natural beginning, but P&P was locked in pretty quickly after that. See, in my copy of P&P, the forward actually talks about P&P being a Cinderella story, just with a few more roadblocks, and I knew that I wanted to explore that. Despite the friends in the chat I was brainstorming in insisting that P&P should be Beauty and the Beast.
Jenelle: Well, you can’t argue with destiny!
Rachel: Family banter while cooking or eating, maybe both. The table was the center of the house .. you couln't go anywhere in our little trailer without being part of the kitchen. One night we were considering how to retell fairy tales without magic, and the seeds of these stories were born. We brainstormed almost a dozen tales that night.
Jenelle: It sounds like you put a lot of yourself in this story. I love that!
Which part of this story was your favorite to write?
Sarah: It’s not one specific part, but — over the course of the story, Bastian just gets steadily more and more Done With Everything as what should’ve been a simple, low-risk case ends up being a bit more complicated than that. And that progression was just very fun to work with. A close second is that I get to have Bastian and Kona working together and Bastian trying to be a bit more active about teaching Kona the ropes than he was with Roselle! I didn’t fit as much of this on the page as I would’ve liked, but I very much enjoyed writing what I have.
Jenelle: Does it make me a horrible person that I am super excited to read about Bastian being Done With Everything? Probably.
Kendra: The bond between Lizzy and Janet, despite being stepsisters. And also Lizzy's growth as she's forced out of the mold that she's let define herself her whole life. Such fun!
Jenelle: I’m so excited about this!
Rachel: The favorite sweet part was the parts about "Prospector" ... but the favorite mean parts was the part where stepmother refused to go downstairs, but she wanted that gold!
Jenelle: Yeah… we authors do have our moments where it’s just fun to torture everyone. But hey, it’s often what makes a story so much fun to read!
Which of these three Cinderella retellings are YOU most looking forward to?
I have to admit, I can’t decide.
Continuing the journey with Bastian, my love of Pride and Prejudice, and a deep enjoyment of anything set in the Old West is making it VERY difficult. So I’m just very much looking forward to the end of April!