PFS2012 Author Guest Post: Alethea Kontis

We all know about fairy tales and what kind of magic and happiness they can hold. ENCHANTED by Alethea Kontis is a collection of fairy tale retellings, focusing little on solely one fairy tale, but bringing in great romances. Today, we have Alethea Kontis giving us her absolute favorite quotes from the story she's written for us.

It's so tough to pick favorites. Sunday is the storyteller of the Woodcutter family, and almost every line in this book has its own elegance. But this handful will always make me wistful...and not always for the reasons you might think.

(Do you have favorite quotes from Enchanted? Add them to the ones here!)

Papa said some things were meant to be and some things were just meant to be good stories. If that was so, then Grumble was the greatest story of her life.

I still remember exactly where I was in my house at the moment this sentiment came to me. It perfectly summed up the relationship I had just ended at the time. You know, that guy you think is your soul mate but is actually a sociopath...and then you have all these great stories to tell future generations about what a complete idiot you were.

Sunday groaned. Royal Proclamations usually meant more work, less food, and the loss of something they had previously taken for granted.

So true, right?? I just love this line. I imagine that, realistically, Cinderella would have just wanted to sleep in and let royalty do whatever royalty does.

Despite Thursday's good intentions and omniscient magic spyglass, she still labored under the impression that Sunday was a baby...and that Saturday was a girl.

When I was a little girl, my Nana used to buy me a new dress every Easter. I was a tomboy who hated dresses, and I refused to wear them. They would sit in the closet with the tags on until my little sister was big enough to wear them. Finally, my mother told her to stop. I didn't wear skirts again--unless forced to--until I was thirty.

"You're a charming one," she said, her words soft and true and powerful. "You could have your pick of any girl in the land."

If you read Enchanted and loved it, read it again...paying special attention to every single word Mama says, because it all comes true. Every word. Like this: the second she met Rumbold, Mama pretty much pegged him as the hero of "Cinderella" in a sentence.

The Woodcutter family had dealt with Johan Schmidt many times over the years; he loved hearing good stories as much as Sunday's father loved telling them.

Johan Schmidt and Panser were characters I created for a short story I did an outline for, but did not receive the commission to write. Their adventures were shades of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza--I just couldn't let them go. Plus, I've always loved that "Johan Schmidt" is just fancy German for "John Smith."

"There are four things that make a man fight as you just did," the duke explained to Rumbold. "Love, despair, anger, or insanity."

Erik counted them off on his fingers. "Everything to lose, nothing to lose, someone's taken it, or you've lost it."

I wrote this scene in Sherrilyn Kenyon's cabin, while she was writing Acheron. We'd take breaks and share things from what we'd just written. She's still mad that I came up with this and she didn't.

Biting her unruly tongue, she uttered the first words that sprang to her mind that were not profane. "Your Highness."

Orson Scott Card taught us that it was banal to write out cuss words--they are always far more eloquent when imagined. If YOU were an introvert who just got singled out in front of half the kingdom, what would YOU be thinking?

"Ladies" apparently covered as broad a range of females as the word "eligible" did. Had anyone heard any part of the Royal Proclamation past the word "all"?

You KNOW that ballroom was a train wreck. *giggle*

"I had a sister," she said. "Women began speaking in snakes, children disappeared into the Wood, the king of Arilland lost his name, and I had a dark sister."

Ever the burden of eldest siblings, that they must look out for the younger of the flock. And even more so when that flock is fey. One wonders how much Joy regrets not being able to look after everyone else, because she's always been so tied up with Sorrow.

Rumbold rolled to the edge of the couch and emptied the contents of his stomach into the nearest potted plant.

"You be sure to send a thank-you note to Sir Jon Stafford," said Velius. "That was a wedding gift."

Jon Stafford was my very favorite teacher in high school (AP US and AP European History). He called me Harry. He introduced me to Candide, reminded us that our paths of live were going to be very windy and full of thorns (but worth it), and he passed on the most important piece of advice I've ever received: "You are the only one who can make you happy." He told me that I would be a Duchess one day. And he made the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had in my life.

My best friend Casey always wrote thank you notes to our teachers at the end of the year. I only ever wrote a letter to Mr. Stafford. Almost two decades later, I'm still thanking him.

..............................................................................

It isn't easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.

When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.

The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past - and hers?

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Thank you so much, Alethea, because now I want to read ENCHANTED more than ever! Comment down below if you've sighted a train wreck at a ball or if you're insane because you've lost your sanity.