The Stolen Queen Is Here!
If you are already subscribed to my mailing list, you probably received an email this morning that my book The Stolen Queen is now available on Amazon for Kindle and paperback. I was going to wait until August for the anniversary of The Princess Blog, but with all the awful things going on right now, I thought it would be nice to give my readers a chance to relax and escape from their towers. The Stolen Queen is a sequel to The Stolen Jewel, but it can easily be enjoyed as a standalone story due to the new protagonist and setting. I decided to follow in the footsteps of the other authors I read and give each of the royal ladies of Klingland her own book. In case you missed it, I also published a short story from the perspective of Denise in my blog a few months ago as a free prequel to The Stolen Trilogy. The final book will be told from the perspective of Lady Krystal, who has a great number of misdeeds to make up for.
Just like The Stolen Jewel, The Stolen Queen started out as a screenplay that I workshopped with my UCLA writing group. I came up with the idea after many of my readers told me that Lily was their favorite character. The Stolen Jewel ended with Lily stuck in a position she never thought she would end up in, so I thought it would be interesting to explore how such a carefree character would handle the new responsibilities that were placed on her shoulders. I struggled to convey her optimism and energy in the original narrative of The Stolen Queen, so I exaggerated it to the extent that she came across as overly immature. After ample feedback from my writing group and amazing editor, Claerie Kavanaugh, I realized that the way people come off toward others is different from the way they experience the world in our own minds. Enthusiastic Disney Princess characters like Ariel and Rapunzel are not relatable because of their excitement, but instead because of their struggle to be taken seriously by their peers in spite of their innocence and carefree natures. That is what I ultimately needed to include in Lily's story in order for her to feel like a real person.
The mermaid aspect of the book dates back to long before I came up with the idea for The Stolen Jewel. It's no secret that "The Little Mermaid" is my favorite fairy tale. I wrote my own adaptation over ten years with Of Land and Sea: The Untold Story of The Little Mermaid. Alongside my other novellas, I had always wanted to tell an original story about a princess who got separated from her love due to a forced mermaid transformation. I wrote several opening chapters with this concept in mind, but they always lost steam very early into the process. I realized that concept alone was not enough to carry an entire novella. Once I developed the rich world of Klingland in The Stolen Jewel, I finally had a strong enough setting and cast of characters to turn my vague concept into a fully fleshed-out story. Lily is a dreamer who loves fairy tales, so she is the perfect candidate to discover an enchanted underwater world. I drew further inspiration from one of my favorite YouTube channels, which released a video about mermaids explaining that they represent the concept of being stuck between the worlds of childhood and womanhood, which was exactly what Lily was going through when she became queen unexpectedly. That was when it all came together for me.
When I wrote my first draft of The Stolen Queen, I failed to consider the theory of the United Sovereign Queen and how princess characters are often only seen as appealing if they are not cute and helpless. Being cute is an inherent part of Lily's character, but that doesn't mean that she cannot be capable and smart as well. This epiphany finally made its way through my thick skull after receiving similar feedback from my screenwriting group and my editor. I was still thinking of Lily as a princess archetype and failed to consider that she had already struggled with being queen for a full year before this story began. She would have inevitably picked up some skills along the way and learned to take matters seriously. My husband suggested making her a botanist due to her interest in gardening, and that was what made the second draft really come together. From there, I was able to create problems within the kingdoms that only Lily was able to solve thanks to her knowledge of plants and herbs. As a result, she completed her transition from a naive mermaid to a capable queen.
I am so pleased to share The Stolen Queen with all of you today and hope you enjoy it. If you haven't already read The Stolen Jewel, do not hesitate to pick up a copy to learn about Charlotte's story as well. My writing skills improve with every book I release, and this one was a huge leap for me. It was the first time I hired a professional editor and did a complete rewrite of a story. I intend to continue honing my skills through The Princess Blog for years to come. The third and final book in The Stolen Trilogy will be The Stolen Slipper, which I hope to share with you next year. If you have enjoyed any of my books, kindly leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads and spread the word!
Just like The Stolen Jewel, The Stolen Queen started out as a screenplay that I workshopped with my UCLA writing group. I came up with the idea after many of my readers told me that Lily was their favorite character. The Stolen Jewel ended with Lily stuck in a position she never thought she would end up in, so I thought it would be interesting to explore how such a carefree character would handle the new responsibilities that were placed on her shoulders. I struggled to convey her optimism and energy in the original narrative of The Stolen Queen, so I exaggerated it to the extent that she came across as overly immature. After ample feedback from my writing group and amazing editor, Claerie Kavanaugh, I realized that the way people come off toward others is different from the way they experience the world in our own minds. Enthusiastic Disney Princess characters like Ariel and Rapunzel are not relatable because of their excitement, but instead because of their struggle to be taken seriously by their peers in spite of their innocence and carefree natures. That is what I ultimately needed to include in Lily's story in order for her to feel like a real person.
The mermaid aspect of the book dates back to long before I came up with the idea for The Stolen Jewel. It's no secret that "The Little Mermaid" is my favorite fairy tale. I wrote my own adaptation over ten years with Of Land and Sea: The Untold Story of The Little Mermaid. Alongside my other novellas, I had always wanted to tell an original story about a princess who got separated from her love due to a forced mermaid transformation. I wrote several opening chapters with this concept in mind, but they always lost steam very early into the process. I realized that concept alone was not enough to carry an entire novella. Once I developed the rich world of Klingland in The Stolen Jewel, I finally had a strong enough setting and cast of characters to turn my vague concept into a fully fleshed-out story. Lily is a dreamer who loves fairy tales, so she is the perfect candidate to discover an enchanted underwater world. I drew further inspiration from one of my favorite YouTube channels, which released a video about mermaids explaining that they represent the concept of being stuck between the worlds of childhood and womanhood, which was exactly what Lily was going through when she became queen unexpectedly. That was when it all came together for me.
When I wrote my first draft of The Stolen Queen, I failed to consider the theory of the United Sovereign Queen and how princess characters are often only seen as appealing if they are not cute and helpless. Being cute is an inherent part of Lily's character, but that doesn't mean that she cannot be capable and smart as well. This epiphany finally made its way through my thick skull after receiving similar feedback from my screenwriting group and my editor. I was still thinking of Lily as a princess archetype and failed to consider that she had already struggled with being queen for a full year before this story began. She would have inevitably picked up some skills along the way and learned to take matters seriously. My husband suggested making her a botanist due to her interest in gardening, and that was what made the second draft really come together. From there, I was able to create problems within the kingdoms that only Lily was able to solve thanks to her knowledge of plants and herbs. As a result, she completed her transition from a naive mermaid to a capable queen.
I am so pleased to share The Stolen Queen with all of you today and hope you enjoy it. If you haven't already read The Stolen Jewel, do not hesitate to pick up a copy to learn about Charlotte's story as well. My writing skills improve with every book I release, and this one was a huge leap for me. It was the first time I hired a professional editor and did a complete rewrite of a story. I intend to continue honing my skills through The Princess Blog for years to come. The third and final book in The Stolen Trilogy will be The Stolen Slipper, which I hope to share with you next year. If you have enjoyed any of my books, kindly leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads and spread the word!
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