Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson (Guest Post/Giveaway)

Today I would like to give a warm welcome to romance author, Kristine Grayson!

The Hecklers

Kristine Grayson

So far, I’ve retold half a dozen fairy tales. From Sleeping Beauty to Bluebeard (this month’s Charming Blue), I have fractured fairy tales, sometimes beyond recognition.
Oh, and I’ve added a few Greek Gods into the mix, as well as characters from literature. Other writers aren’t immune either. I’ve stolen from Dickens and Shakespeare, and had characters malign them both (even though I’m quite fond of them personally).

People keep asking me how I choose the fairy tales to fracture. I have only one unsatisfactory answer: I don’t. They choose me.
And that takes me deep into what I call “mystical writer’s talk.” At some point, writers get all woo-woo. Their characters “talk” to them. The characters “run away with” the story. The characters “gain a life of their own.”

Unfortunately, that’s all true too. I would like to think it all gets planned out, but in reality, it doesn’t. It just happens. I’m writing along, and some character raises his pudgy little hand and says, What about me?
My mistake is that I engage the heckler. What about you?
Well, you know, the heckler will respond with dead seriousness. I have mommy issues too.
Or my favorite:
I’m misunderstood.
That gets me. It gets me every time. Why are you misunderstood?
And then—whammo!—an entire novel lands in my computer. Or, at least, the concept for an entire novel. It all seems so easy in those halcyon days. Just tell this guy’s or woman’s story, and it’ll happen fast.
As if by magic.
Yeah, right.
Or I should say, Yeah. Write. A lot.
And I do. Then, somewhere in the middle of that novel, a new character raises his pudgy hand and says, What about me?

It happened with Bluebeard, and I wasn’t even halfway through the novel where he raised his Aqua-Velva covered hand. I was writing Wickedly Charming, and this pathetic drunk in blue velvet shows up. The most hard-bitten character in Wickedly Charming, a fairy by the name of Cantankerous Belle, takes care of Bluebeard—not as in killing him, but as in hauling him to rehab. Again.

And it was that again which caught me. It was the equivalent of a hand-wave. It was that What about me? question wrapped up in a single paragraph. Why did this grumpy fairy take care of this pathetic man? Who was he underneath all that blue? Why should we care?

I started answering those questions and realized that yep, Bluebeard was misunderstood. But it wasn’t Blue who told me that. It was Cantankerous Belle, and she has a lot more credibility with me. So I had to listen.
The result is Charming Blue. You see, when he’s sober and facing his demons, Bluebeard is charming. And nice. And really, what happened to him happened to him, not because of him. So he’s the ultimate wounded hero.
But I didn’t know that when he stumbled into Wickedly Charming. I had to write an entirely different novel, just to figure it all out. 

Charming Blue (Fates #8)
by Kristine Grayson

Once upon a time...he was the most handsome of princes. But now he's a lonely legend, hobbled by dark history. With too many dead in his wake, Bluebeard escapes through the evil spell of alcohol. But it's a far different kind of spell that's been ruining his life for centuries. Jodi Walters is a fixer, someone who can put magic back in order. But Blue has a problem she's never encountered. And worse, she finds herself perilously attracted to him.

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Kristine Grayson always wanted to be a romance writer when she grew up. She became one in the late 1990s with the publication of her first romance novel, Utterly Charming. Since then, she has published five more novels, including Absolutely Captivated and Totally Spellbound.  Her work has won the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, and she has been nominated for several other awards. Publishers Weekly has called her work “a delight,” and Best Reviews labeled her “the reigning queen of paranormal romance.”

http://www.kristinegrayson.com/

~*GIVEAWAY*~

Sourcebooks is giving away one copy of Charming Blue to one reader (US and Canada only please). To enter, just leave a question or comment for the author on this post and then fill out the rafflecopter below. Additional entries are available but not required. Good luck!

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