SurLaLune Fairy Tales Blog: February 2025

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Forest Ceramic Candle Holder

I received this candle holder for free to review recently and really liked it so I thought I would share it here. It is a White Ceramic Candle Holder available in a forest theme (my pick) or a fairy (they say elf) theme which is just as whimsical but less my own taste. I think I have some dryad blood in me as I usually pick trees. I am not putting a candle in but a string of rechargeable fairy lights which makes it really glow, too. I put it on my end table to live with it for a few days before reviewing it but I think it will be making a permanent home there for a while.

Many years ago, a friend had something similar, a floral one that was painted inside so it was white on the outside but when lit within the soft colors shone through. This doesn't do that but this is pleasing all unto itself.

This one reminds me of Aschenputtel, the German Cinderella, with her birds and tree helpers.

Here's the fairy one:

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New Book: Order of Swans by Jude Deveraux

A new book released in the last month: Order of Swans: A Magical Romantasy Journey of Love and Destiny in a Fairy Tale Kingdom, Filled with Suspense, Romance, and the Power to Change Fate by Jude Deveraux. I included the full subtitle here because these new marketing techniques amuse and fascinate me.

Jude Deveraux is a bestselling mainstay in the romance genre. So when she releases a new fairy tale inspired book--not just a sword and princess fantasy labeled a fairy tale--I pay attention. Mainstream publishing has been mostly quiet on the fairy tale inspired novels recently but this may be a one-off or the start of a new uptick. Deveraux apparently plays with several in this novel. Be warned that it is a duology so there are some complaints about the unsatisfactory ending to this one that I am sure will be resolved in book two.

Book description from the publisher:

"A captivating blend of science fiction, fantasy, and fairy tale reimagining that challenges traditional genre boundaries. . . . an engaging, thought-provoking reading experience that challenges and delights in equal measure.” —Medium
In this spellbinding, fantasy-rich romance, a woman is swept into a world where she has the power to alter fairy tales, and change a kingdom’s destiny…
To Kaley Arens, a PhD student and expert in folklore, fairy stories have always had a power and an allure beyond mere entertainment.
It’s only when Kaley accompanies her lifelong friend Jobi on a visit to his home that she realizes how much she still has to learn. Bellis isn’t the remote island that she believed it to be. It’s another world—a stunningly beautiful and seductive one, with its own royalty, its own rules, and inhabitants who breathe life into the tales she was taught were fiction.
Kaley’s presence is no simple holiday. She has a mysterious connection with Jobi and with Bellis, and abilities that may help determine this world’s fate. Tasked with locating a lost prince, Kaley and her companions—the enigmatic Tanek, a member of the Order of Swans, and Sojee, Kaley's colossal bodyguard—journey through a land both thrilling and terrifying, where the uncanny and the familiar go hand in hand.
But in fairy tales, heroes and villains are easy to discern. Here, nothing is quite as it seems. And though Kaley is discovering that she can change the outcome of the fairy tales she knows so well, her own story is unfolding in ways impossible to predict, with a destiny she could never have foretold…

Bargain Ebook: The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth

The ebook edition of The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth is on sale for $2.99 perhaps through the end of the month since the sale has lasted a few days but it could end anytime and go back up to $9.99. It is inspired by the real Dortchen Wild who provided many of the tales for the Brothers Grimm and ended up marrying Wilhelm.

Book description by the publisher:

One of six sisters, Dortchen Wild lives in the small German kingdom of Hesse-Cassel in the early 19th century. She finds herself irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the handsome but very poor fairy tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm. It is a time of tyranny and terror. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hesse-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, Wilhelm and his brothers quietly rebel by preserving old half-forgotten tales that had once been told by the firesides of houses grand and small over the land.
As Dortchen tells Wilhelm some of the most powerful and compelling stories in what will one day become his and Jacob's famous fairy tale collection, their love blossoms. But Dortchen's father will not give his consent for them to marry and war, death, and poverty also conspire to keep the lovers apart. Yet Dortchen is determined to find a way.
Evocative and richly-detailed, Kate Forsyth's The Wild Girl masterfully captures one young woman's enduring faith in love and the power of storytelling.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

New Beauty and the Beast Inspired Book: Black Woods, Blue Sky: A Novel by Eowyn Ivey

For all of Beauty and the Beast fans, a new book inspired by the tale and set in Alaska: Black Woods, Blue Sky: A Novel by Eowyn Ivey (Author), Ruth Hulbert (Illustrator) is officially released today.

Book description from the publisher:

Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Snow Child Eowyn Ivey returns to the mythical landscapes of Alaska with an unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks the question: Can love save us from ourselves?

“No one writes like Eowyn Ivey.”—Geraldine Brooks
“You will find yourself in places you have never been.”—Louise Erdrich
“A stunning tale told by a master of her craft.”—Jason Mott

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover, sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie, he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well.

Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains, on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic and she can picture a happily ever after: Together they catch salmon, pick berries, and climb mountains so tall it’s as if they could touch the bright blue sky. But soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have ever imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.

Black Woods, Blue Sky is a novel with life-and-death stakes, about the love between a mother and daughter, and the allure of a wild life—about what we gain and what it might cost us.