- Rachel Rossano
Tattered Slippers Blog Tour: Wrought of Silver and Ravens by E. J. Kitchens
Of Magic Made #1
The rarest magic is the most dangerous. Athdar Owain is a hunted wanderer, one determined to keep his secrets and the treasure he carries safe at all costs. When he rescues the Kingdom of Giliosthay’s prince from raiders, he’s rewarded by being forced into the king’s elite Silver Guard. While this gives Athdar a temporary home and some protection from those hunting him, it also makes him responsible for the young prince, who still bears curses from the raiders, and seven enchantress princesses with curses as mysterious and dangerous as their brother’s.
Princess Thea of Giliosthay is a Realm Walker. Betrayed by a trusted guard, her rare gift of enchantment is used to curse her brother and trap herself and her six sisters into a nightly dance with dragons in a secret Realm. The Realm’s prince has the ability to take and twist her magic for his own purposes, and Thea fears what those might be. For when one dances with a prince, a kingdom might be at stake.
Athdar alone can save them, but to trust enchanters is to risk exposure. And Athdar isn’t sure where his loyalties lie.
Wrought of Silver and Ravens is a clean adventure-romance retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses set in The Magic Collectors story world.
Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/mglo7v
Add Book on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53937054-wrought-of-silver-and-ravens
Guest Post:
The Writer Who Pricked Her Finger
E.J. Kitchens, author of Wrought of Silver and Ravens
In stories, we expect the unexpected to happen and love when it does. This is not always true in life. Writing is one of those things for me that was completely unexpected. Fortunately, it turned out to be one of those beloved unexpected things. I like to think of it in fairytale terms, actually, like this:
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Elizabeth but affectionately called Lizzie. Now this little girl wasn’t an orphan or unloved, though she was the lone redhead in a family of blonds and brunettes, and she possessed no magic powers and was never (to her knowledge) visited by an evil witch. She had few qualities that would lead any to suspect great things from her—being captured by a dragon and rescued by a prince or suddenly discovering some magical ability of her own, for instance. No, she wasn’t born to adventure. She was simply a girl who loved to daydream and to run around outside and to play with her sister and traverse The Great Forest to visit The Mighty Creek that bordered her father’s lands. Her father’s castle was rather an old one, a bit low on treasure, and rather isolated from others of her land, so she spend much of her youth with only her family and a good many books and movies as her companions. Her father, the king, while appearing hale and hearty, suffered from a dreadful curse. Or so he claimed. This dreadful malady was passed down to him from his father, and the little girl was grateful to have escaped it. It was a very dreadful curse indeed—it was the desire to write and to write things that would be read.
To write perhaps can be considered hard, but to be read? That is nigh unto impossible. Many try but few achieve the number of readers they might wish for. So her father the king, as his father before him, bemoaned the curse of being a writer and not having the fame with it that could be wanted. But they carried on. They clung stubbornly to the curse and kept the quill in the ink, even though it often hurt to do so.
The young girl grew into adulthood, dreaming up stories but never considering writing them down—she didn’t want the curse nor did she think herself the sort of person who could be a published author (these were apparently born on very special days and visited by fairies who granted them gifts; she was born on an ordinary day with no fairies). Then, one fateful year, she simultaneously suffered from the malady of boredom and the influence of a friend who believed anyone could be a writer—whether visited by fairies at birth or not—and so, to relieve the boredom, she decided to set quill to parchment and tell a story. In the writing of that story, she pricked her finger. The curse caught up with her, caught her unawares. She discovered she loved writing, loved creating stories, loved sharing them with others. She felt as if God had suddenly revealed a part of her to herself that had always been there but that she hadn’t realized was there. It was a very great surprise to her. A gift granted by the Most High God with which to serve him. Though it may sometimes feel like a curse—it is a great deal of work, does little to enrich her coffers, and can sometimes simply be a struggle—it more often feels like a blessing. The delight of discovering new characters and what-happens-next; of bringing joy to readers; the friendships formed with fellow Knights of the Ink. It is her gift of magic and she wouldn’t relinquish it for all the treasure or other gifts of magic in the world.
The little girl has survived—and thrived with—the family “curse” for ten years now. Her father has even stopped calling it a curse, and her sister, also afflicted, commiserates with both of them, and all three carry on. The not-so-little-anymore girl now has her own little manor house and serves as an instructor in a Great Castle of Learning. She enjoys it but is always glad to have the time to take up her quill. Curse or not, she’s ever so thankful she pricked her finger on that first story.
Author Bio:
E.J. Kitchens loves tales of romance, adventure, and happily-ever-afters and strives to write such tales herself. When she’s not thinking about dashing heroes or how awesome bacteria are—she is a microbiologist after all—she’s taking photos, reading, or talking about classic books and black-and-white movies. She is the author of the historical fantasy series THE MAGIC COLLECTORS and of several fairytale retellings. She is a member of Realm Makers and lives in Alabama.
Check out the other stops on this blog tour here.