Category: Seventh Star Press Week

Blog Book Tour | “Silver Tongue” by AshleyRose Sullivan a story where Seventh Star Press tackles ‘alternative historical fiction’ and the #revwar!

Posted Friday, 4 September, 2015 by jorielov , , 2 Comments

Ruminations & Impressions Book Review Banner created by Jorie in Canva. Photo Credit: Unsplash Public Domain Photographer Sergey Zolkin.

Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a stop on the “Silver Tongue” genre-bending alternative historical fiction release tour from Seventh Star Press. The tour is hosted by Tomorrow Comes Media who does the publicity and blog tours for Seventh Star Press and other Indie and/or Self Published authors. I am a regular blog tour host with Tomorrow Comes Media and originally had misconstrued the plot behind this novel; overlooking it’s potential! Something I read made me think it was more Horror than Historical, then after I realised my error I helped champion the blog tour to my book blogosphere friends whilst helping book bloggers come to know more about Seventh Star Press and hosting for TCM.

I received a complimentary copy of “Silver Tongue” direct from the publisher Seventh Star Press in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein. Likewise, I did not receive compensation for helping to promote the blog tour to other histfic book bloggers who might appreciate finding a ‘next read’ whilst on the tour or to review it outside the tour.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Blog Book Tour | “Silver Tongue” by AshleyRose Sullivan a story where Seventh Star Press tackles ‘alternative historical fiction’ and the #revwar!Silver Tongue
by AshleyRose Sullivan
Illustrator/Cover Designer: AshleyRose Sullivan
Source: Publisher via Tomorrow Comes Media

The Colonies lost the Revolutionary War. Now it's 1839 and the North American continent is divided into three territories: New Britannia, Nueva Espana, and Nouvelle France where seventeen-year-old Claire Poissant lives.

Claire has a magical way with words-literally. But a mystical power of persuasion isn't the only thing that makes her different. Half-French and half-Indian, Claire doesn't feel at home in either world. Maybe that's why she's bonded so tightly with her fellow outcasts and best friends: Phileas, a young man whose towering intellect and sexuality have always made him the target of bullies, and Sam, a descendant of George Washington who shares the disgraced general's terrible, secret curse.

But when Sam's family is murdered, these bonds are tested and Claire's special ability is strained to its limits as the three hunt the men responsible into dangerous lands. Along the way they cross paths with P.T. Barnum, William Frankenstein and other characters from both history and fantasy as they learn the hard way that man is often the most horrific monster and that growing up sometimes means learning to let go of the things you hold most dear.

Genres: Alternative History, Fantasy Fiction, Genre-bender, Historical Fiction, War Drama



Places to find the book:

ISBN: 9781941706800

Also by this author: Lona Chang: A Superhero Detective Story

Published by Seventh Star Press

Format: Paperback Edition

Pages: 274

Published By: Seventh Star Press (@7thStarPress)
Available Formats: Softcover, E-book

Converse via: #AshleyRoseSullivan & #7thStar

(I would have used #SilverTongue but it was being used in-progress for an event and festivities on Twitter. Perhaps #SilverTongueBook might be more advantageous?)

About AshleyRose Sullivan

AshleyRose Sullivan

Born and raised in Appalachia, AshleyRose Sullivan now lives, writes, and paints in Los Angeles. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University and her first novel, Awesome Jones: A Superhero Fairy Tale is available from Seventh Star Press. She can be found at her website or her blog, My Year Of Star Trek.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • 2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
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Posted Friday, 4 September, 2015 by jorielov in #JorieLovesIndies, 19th Century, Action & Adventure Fiction, Alternative History, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Discussions, Cliffhanger Ending, Coming-Of Age, Compassion & Acceptance of Differences, Cosy Horror, Creative Arts, Crime Fiction, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Earthen Magic, Earthen Spirituality, Equality In Literature, Fly in the Ointment, French Literature, Genre-bender, Historical Fiction, Illustration for Books & Publishing, Indie Art, Indie Author, LGBTTQPlus Fiction | Non-Fiction, Multi-cultural Characters and/or Honest Representations of Ethnicity, Native American Fiction, Parapsychological Gifts, Revolutionary War Era, Seventh Star Press Week, Tomorrow Comes Media

+Blog Book Tour+ Awesome Jones by AshleyRose Sullivan, the writer who took genre-bending to a new level!

Posted Wednesday, 21 May, 2014 by jorielov , , , 0 Comments

Parajunkee Designs

Awesome Jones by AshleyRose Sullivan

Awesome Jones by AshleyRose Sullivan

Published By: Seventh Star Press (@7thStarPress) 10 March, 2014
Official Author Websites Site | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads
Available Formats: Softcover, E-book
Page Count: 456

Converse via: #AwesomeJones, #AshleyRoseSullivan, #superherofairytale & #7thStar

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a stop on the “Awesome Jones” genre-bending fantasy-comic release tour from Seventh Star Press. The tour is hosted by Tomorrow Comes Media who does the publicity and blog tours for Seventh Star Press and other Indie and/or Self Published authors. I am a regular blog tour host with Tomorrow Comes Media and was thrilled to bits to see this novel being offered for review. I received a complimentary copy of “Awesome Jones” direct from the publisher Seventh Star Press in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Interest in Reading Awesome Jones:

When I see a writer like AshleyRose Sullivan who not only dared to embrace a genre-bender story as it alighted inside her heart but dared to have the confidence to find a publisher who recognised her vision is not only awe-inspiring it is the foundation of how each of us needs to remember to ‘own our muse, own our work, and carry-on forward’ until our stories reach the hands of the readers who believe in us too.

– quoted from the Author’s Guest Post on writing Genre-Bending Stories

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

  Book Synopsis: 

The only thing Awesome Jones wants is to be a super hero. Until he falls in love.

Despite his colorful name, Awesome Jones is a painfully average man who dreams of being a super hero, just like the ones who patrol his city. It’s been that way since he was a little boy, raised by his grandfather after his parents’ death.AshleyRose Sullivan

The day Jones starts his new job as a file clerk at Akai Printing Company he meets secretary Lona Chang and everything changes. Lona sees something in Jones that no one ever has and the two quickly become inseparable. But when the perfect pair’s domestic bliss is threatened by a super-powered secret from the past, Awesome Jones has to make a choice. He must decide whether he should play it safe or find the strength to live up to his name and risk everything he’s come to love to save the day like he always dreamed.

  Author Biography:

Born and raised in Appalachia, AshleyRose Sullivan has a BS in Anthropology and an MFA in Creative Writing. She lives, writes and paints in Los Angeles with her husband and their many imaginary friends.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comOn analog technology & the heart of the story:

An appreciator of the hidden world of typewriters via the typosphere (yes, there is such a thing! it runs counter-current to our regular blogosphere where typecasters post their typewritten blog posts!), I cannot even fully explain how wicked happy I was to see there were ‘typewriters’ clacking about in ‘Awesome Jones‘! Long live analog! I will always grow a smile of a whisper towards the joy in finding old world tech knitted into the stories I love to read! And, the blessing here is that this isn’t a historical fiction novel! This is a modern alternative world in which ordinary people are attempting to determine if their ancestral roots are strong enough to transcend their present lives. That in of itself is an accomplishment worth reading!

What I truly was unsure about what to expect when I read this novel, is how I would feel about being connected to a story whose heart was hinged to the stories of my youth. I always am quite eager to re-examine my past, especially when it comes to books and the bookish culture which are attached to certain volumes, authors, and stories. The fact that this particular novel gave me back my joy of comic superheroes and the style in which comic stories are told is pure bliss. The heart of the story harkened me back to remembering why I loved The New Adventures of Super-Man as much as I had! Lona and Awesome remind me so very much of Clark and Lois! Their connective spirits give you something to chew on rather than running on presumption. Nothing is cliché nor is anything predictable. Honest choices are threaded through the narrative, and I appreciate the choices the author made whilst creating it!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comMy Review of Awesome Jones:

You are immediately drawn to Awesome Jones as a character because of his introverted confidence in understanding his place in the world and how his everyday life is lived as a bachelor. He has a particular way of attending to each of his needs as well as his wants. From the order he reads the newsprint to the manner in which he eats the takeaway food he orders! He is a man of prediction not contradiction, of sincerity and of genuine curiosity for the bits of the everyday world that is not readily known to him; as he has more or less led a bit of a sheltered life. Not that he would be one to feel sorry for what he lacked in experience (such as having a pet; a dog perhaps?) but artfully steered his mind towards self-awareness and self-education practices which gained him the knowledge of what was absent. He’s the type of bloke you might overlook if you had not taken a keen interest to want to know him. He’s a bit understated, but that is part of his charm!

He’s the type of bloke who purchases flowers to know when they have arrived into their own full essence of splendor. One sniff of their delicate petals and the aroma which follows their mirth, and he knows how long it will take the bloom to reach its maturity. His knowledge for canines through the adverts he reads about their change of ownership lends him an eagle eye viewing of his sidewalk companions as he walksabout his business. He denotes which dog matched to which owner is either most akin to its nature or a reflection of its owner’s personality and thus, rendered differently than most.

Lona Chang took Awesome by surprise, not only for her growing affection and respect of his character, but for being endeared to him as a companion. The two took to each other quite readily, but it was how they fit into each other’s pocket that I felt bemused about the most whilst reading the story! You see, they were the near-identical half of the other, and I refer to it being ‘near-identical’ as although they each read the newsprint release of breaking news, they differed on a category or two. Little unbeknownst differences out of a sea of common threads which helped knit Awesome Jones and Lona Chang together in the bliss of conjoined living. She was quite methodical herself, yet Awesome took the cake for exacting out his observations, and for being near computeristically perfect in his actions. Whilst the two were together, they not only complimented each other in synced harmony but they cancelled each other out on their eclecticism.

Lona and Awesome were intricately entwined by their common share of loss, as they respectively never knew their proper origins. They were each raised by loving parents who adopted them as their own when their biological parents had died. They attempted in their own way to resurrect a connection fate did not allow to solidify whilst their parents were alive. In their shared ambiguous loss, they each sought ways in which they could formulate a way to connect themselves through a passion of their parents; even if the only true connection they had were fragmented pieces of their parents personal effects. These tangible reminders were a weight of a burdened yoke which toyed with their emotional well-being.

When Awesome Jones grapples with the choice between the life he’s formed together with Lona and the life he’s dreamt of living, they each have to put to test the strength of their love for each other. I sided with Captain Lightning (one of the main superheroes focused on in the story) on the outdated rules and regulations of The Guild (apparently superheroes are organised more than you realise!). He’s put in a most difficult position because as you can well imagine, he goes from knowing a scant amount about his ancestry and then, in one large dose of revelation he gets far more than he bargained to learn! I would imagine that if you wake up one day and your entire essence of who you are as a person is chucked out for this alternative version; a version you knew nothing of and had no idea of how to accept, there would be a period of adaption to adjust!

This is when I found myself reading at such a lightning clip as to beg my eyes to move faster down the page, as I had my hand at the ready for turning into the next scene! Again, I love the pace of Awesome Jones as you get to the point where you want to see him succeed. You want him to develop self-confidence and believe in his own truth. There are always forces against you in life, and there is always a chance that your going to falter in your confidence on your own behalf, but part of what endeared me to this story is that the main characters believed in each other. It did not matter what the outcome of their lives would be as far as where their place in the world would fit, as if they had each other they could overcome just about anything crossing their path.

This is why I selected this quotation to be the first I quote from a Seventh Star Press novel. You can read their love and their hope for each other inside the words Lona is giving to Awesome.

“I love you, and I’m proud of you, no matter what. I see something inside you, something bright and brilliant. Not like your parents. Not like anyone. Just you. There’s something different about you, Awesome Jones. Just keep training. And if none of this works — if you never develop stronger abilities — it’s ok. Eventually they will catch The Echo and we’ll go back to our house and find new jobs and read the paper. We’ll make a life together no matter what.”

– Lona talks to Awesome, page 276 from “Awesome Jones”

The very foundation of their relationship is trust and honesty. Giving each other the space to grow as individuals but remaining steadfast and strong as a couple. They endeavour to face everything as a unified team and in their choice to remain strong in hope, they are able to conceive of a path that keeps them united in the future. The mystery of how their future knits together holds you right in place with the narrative. Observing their everyday life and world as one incidence after another places their love in jeopardy will keep you up long into the wee hours of the night! And, for that I feel blessed to have stumbled across Sullivan’s writings as they give us all a fairytale to absorb in a day and age that has nearly forgotten how to write one! This is a story full of old-school superheroes with a bit of a modern alternative twist! These are the superheroes you want to read more about and learn more about their history. Sullivan has found a way to tap into their framework of existence and present a palpable story that you will not soon forget.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comOn the uniqueness of AshleyRose Sullivan’s deft hand in giving a reader a bit of bliss:

I had not even realised there was a distinctive difference in the manner in which the typesetting & style layout of Awesome Jones was presented to the reader in the softcover edition, until of course, I re-read the passage in her previously published Guest Post: On Writing Genre-Bending Fiction that I noticed quite readily how unique this particular novel is from the crowd of fantasy offerings! As I had lamented below her essay, I felt that perhaps my experiences in year’s past in reading stories of various mediums might have tipped my hand and arsenal of memory for stream-lining straight into the narrative itself rather than being curiously aware of its ‘format’. Rather instead of noting any outward appearances of nonconformity, I was celebrating the wicked sweet fast pace of dialogue intermixed with reflective streaming conscious thought narrative!

I liked how you could soak into the inner core of what Awesome Jones was thinking whilst seeing what he saw as he moved through his hours. He was a simple bloke, uncomplicated and true to who he was without being gracious on the details when he was around others. He’s the kind of bloke who did not take himself seriously but wanted to make a good impression on the validity of his strengths and on the merits of what he could accomplish.

Even when the narrative turns malicious to acquaint the reader with the villain of the story, such as on page forty-five and forty-six, Sullivan has this ingenious way of giving you the gruesome details of a crime with the deft hand of a writer who wants to hold back just enough bits of his character to keep you hanging in the balance of when his full form is front and center within the action! She doesn’t cross the line for me as far as Crime Fiction analogies are concerned, as I am a cosy mystery reader and the bits she includes fall under that umbrella moreso than Hard-Boiled. Anyone familiar with the Coffeehouse mysteries by Cleo Coyle will be able to handle the suspenseful climbing arc inside Awesome Jones! (either those OR any episode of “Castle”!)

Fly in the Ointment:

I was so excited to read this genre-bending story where comic-fantasy cross-over and layer upon each other to create a wholly new experience for the reader of print books. (or e-books as this is available in that medium as well; I simply only read books in print) Yet. Imagine my disappointment to find only a scarce few illustrations in the opening chapters, than the near-full of the middle part of the novel is nothing but text. Until towards the last half of the novel the illustrations resume! I was most distressed. I was a bit beyond let-down. I wasn’t even sure what could have caused the misunderstanding — as from all counts of what I knew of the novel going in to reading it as much as ahead of even requesting it for review (as I’ve known about this book since late 2013!): bespoke of the combination of illustrations and words which converge into a wicked sweet read!

The illustrations that are included are wicked awesome, don’t think for one minute they’re not! They added to the allure of reading a genre-bending comic-fantasy as I’m about to seriously consider this superhero fairytale truly is by essence of its character. Yet, for me, what began to unravel a bit of its heart is the absence of the illustrations themselves. Perhaps there was a layout issue or a formatting issue when the novel went to be printed, but to be truthful, there must be a way to circumvent this for the next Awesome Jones, right?! Where the illustrations can take ring-side seats to the action of the character’s dialogue and narrative voices?!

Please note at the time of posting the Author’s Guest Post and the commentary I added before and after Sullivan’s essay I had not yet begun to read ‘Awesome Jones’. I picked up reading the novel shortly thereafter and although as you can see I readily absorbed into the world of ‘Awesome Jones’, part of me was hungry for a bit more of its comic-minded essence!

 Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Blog Book Tour Stop, courtesy of Tomorrow Comes Media

Awesome Jones
by ashleyrose sullivan
Illustrator/Cover Designer: AshleyRose Sullivan
Source: Publisher via Tomorrow Comes Media

Genres: Action & Adventure Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Genre-bender, Superhero Fiction



Places to find the book:

Series: Awesome Jones, No.1


Also in this series: Intangible, Beneath Creek Waters


Published by Seventh Star Press

on 10th March, 2014

Format: Paperback

Pages: 456

Awesome Jones Virtual Tour via Tomorrow Comes Media

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Check out my upcoming bookish events to see what I will be hosting next for

Tomorrow Comes Media Tour Host

 and mark your calendars!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Be sure to jump over to my tour stop for “A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court” an Editor Interview as I am hosting a reader poll to determine what is the favourite fantastical character in fantasy! Be sure to leave a comment in those threads on a recommended title and/or author!

Coming up next is my Author Interview for “A Mage of None Magic”,

also a new release of 7th Star!

Stay tuned!

Watch my tweets!

And return back to this blog!

What do you love about genre-bender fiction!? What kinds of stories do you wish were bent together more often?! Which authors and books would you highly recommend reading more than once to get their full effect!? What are your thoughts on Sullivan’s gift and vision for uniting comic superheros & fantasy fiction narrative!?

{SOURCES: Author photograph, Author Biography, Book Synopsis, Book Cover, and TCM Tour Host badge were provided by Tomorrow Comes Media and were used by permission. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Selected Quotation of the novel “Awesome Jones” was used with permission of Seventh Star Press.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

Related Articles:

Superhero Fiction – (en.wikipedia.org)

I’m a social reader | I tweet my reading life

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

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Posted Wednesday, 21 May, 2014 by jorielov in Action & Adventure Fiction, Adoption, Alternative History, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Discussions, Castle, Comic Book Illustrations & Story, Creative Arts, Crime Fiction, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Fairy Tale Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy Romance, Fly in the Ointment, Genre-bender, Graphic Novel, Illustration for Books & Publishing, Indie Art, Indie Author, Seventh Star Press Week, Superhero Adventure, Superhero Fiction, Tomorrow Comes Media

+Author Guest Post+ Genre-bending stories attract me due to their dexterity to become fully realised in two separate schools of thought. This was the basis of my topic for AshleyRose Sullivan!

Posted Wednesday, 21 May, 2014 by jorielov , , , 1 Comment

Guest Post by ParajunkeeAshleyRose Sullivan

Proposed Topic: Genre-bender stories are a new favourite discovery of mine as they endear you to purport your mind to jump straight out of the expected and into the realms of where the impossible lives free. How did you conceptually perceive the format of Awesome Jones and how did you take the conception of this unique story into the finished style that it is now? Did you storyboard out ideas for the components of the comic sections before you wrote the narrative? OR did they organically fuse together as you wrote?

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com I originally revealed my intentions to read ‘Awesome Jones’ during my most recent contribution to my Feature: Jorie’s Box of Joy! Whereupon I revealed that I have a particular attachment to a certain ‘kind of superhero’ as much as I have an affinity for wicked comic illustrations; well, perhaps I did not quite go into as much detail in this last regard but it was floating through my mind to disclose! You see, I have always appreciated original art and illustrations when it comes to books, comics, graphic novels, and all formats of story-telling (including the Story Boards for motion picture!) where a sketch artist, a graphic designer, an illustrator, a painter, or digital illustrative artist is needed to bring to life the characters, setting, and world set within a story itself. I cherish original art as much as I cherish original stories — aside from the film adaptations of literary works, of course! There is a particular essence to an original artwork coinciding with that of the fictional world by which it is representing!

I have nodded a keen awareness towards my preferences in today’s flash in the fire world of book covers, where I extoll the virtues of publishers like Seventh Star Press & ChocLitUK who go the extra mile to ensure that their cover-art and/or inside illustrative plates are not only ORIGINAL and EXCLUSIVE to their stories but they create art which is a living representation of the STORY inside their volumes of creative work! You can well imagine how wicked sweet it was to see the cover-art for ‘Awesome Jones’ for the first time! I had this inertia of excitement well up inside me, wondering about the marvels of what was awaiting my eyes to drink in!

Simply look at the cover yourself and tell me what it brings to mind afterwards in the comment threads!

 Awesome Jones by AshleyRose Sullivan

 Book Synopsis: 

The only thing Awesome Jones wants is to be a super hero. Until he falls in love.

Despite his colorful name, Awesome Jones is a painfully average man who dreams of being a super hero, just like the ones who patrol his city. It’s been that way since he was a little boy, raised by his grandfather after his parents’ death.

The day Jones starts his new job as a file clerk at Akai Printing Company he meets secretary Lona Chang and everything changes. Lona sees something in Jones that no one ever has and the two quickly become inseparable. But when the perfect pair’s domestic bliss is threatened by a super-powered secret from the past, Awesome Jones has to make a choice. He must decide whether he should play it safe or find the strength to live up to his name and risk everything he’s come to love to save the day like he always dreamed.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

}: How AshleyRose Sullivan

created her own path as a writer :{

My favorite movies are a little (a lot) weird. Buckaroo Banzai. Big Trouble in Little China. Amelie. The Life Aquatic. Everything Miyazaki. For me, their appeal comes from their endearing characters, their snappy dialogue, and–perhaps most of all–their creative use of genre and trope bending. Buckaroo is all about a super scientist/rock star/martial artist/cowboy and his gang of similarly gifted friends. It’s also a sci-fi adventure love story. And, it’s not in any way ironic. It’s 100% earnest and all I want to do is spend time in that crazy universe. It’s basically the film equivalent to seven layer dip. I can’t get enough of it.

I guess, then, it’s no surprise that when I started writing, I naturally gravitated to twisting and braiding together my favorite genres. With Awesome Jones, I mixed superheroes, fairy tales, alternate history, and art together to form what is essentially a comic book in prose. But, it’s also a love story. It features an alternate version of our history. And it’s full of illustrations. How all this comes together is evident not only in the story but in the format itself.

That formatting seems to be getting a lot of attention with readers so here’s some information about it: The paragraphs are not indented. The dialogue is indented–but it’s not tagged. And then there’s the art. All this stuff came organically as I started writing Awesome Jones. I begin books in 9.5×6” notebooks and this was the novel that started that trend. I hand-wrote the first fifty or so pages and, as I was going, that’s the format that came out. Including the illustrations. Originally they were hand-drawn on notebook paper in the middle of all the text–just as they appear now in the published version.

There have been a few changes. Originally, the dialogue didn’t have quotation marks at all. Just a hyphen preceding the line. Over the years, though, I ended up just changing it to quotation marks. Publishing industry types are incredible sticklers for manuscript format. Double Space. One Inch Margins. Quotation Marks. Indentation. Well, the manuscript I presented to my mentors and professors in my MFA program, my beta readers, potential agents, publishers etc. was single spaced with no indentation and all this weird art and that totally freaked people out. The lack of quotation marks was one point I was willing to concede. It was one less hurdle I was making them jump over. The thing is, once it’s in printed form, it’s single spaced anyway and the lack of indentation feels more subtle than it looks in a Word document or on an 8.5×11 sheet. But, what can I say? People have been typing up manuscripts a certain way for a long time–I shook up the system as much as I could without causing an earthquake of automatic rejection.

(It’s worth noting that when I approached Seventh Star with my crazy formatting, they didn’t bat an eye. They were totally onboard. That’s cool, man.)

The art itself went through several iterations over the seven years that I worked on the book. First, they were hand-drawn. When I started typing up the MS, though, I didn’t have a way to insert the art. So I made text boxes where I could (a lot of the art comes in the form of newspaper articles, postcards, etc.) and because I was doing the art as I was going along, more and more pieces grew into word-based illustrations. Then, a while back, I finally got enough money for a scanner. I started doing art on paper and scanning it in but I didn’t like the look and mostly just left text boxes in as stand-ins. Gradually, I went through a few digital art programs and figured out how to mix my artistic style with the text that needed to go into the art and I did a bunch of rough pieces. That’s where it was when I sent it to Seventh Star. I said, “I can do better versions of all this art but here’s what I’ve got right now.” Or something lame like that. Anyway, I got lucky and my publisher saw the potential in it. So then I spent a few months just re-doing every single piece in the book. And, in case you’re wondering (including the journal entries in the last third of the novel) there are 44 illustrations.

Artwork Credit: AshleyRose Sullivan
Artwork Credit: AshleyRose Sullivan

I’m working on the next Awesome Jones novel now and it’s just as much a braided together genre-bender as the first novel. I’m excited about doing a whole new novel’s art. I went through such a long process before finally settling on the style that’s in Awesome Jones and I’m glad I can skip the learning curve on that this time and concentrate on the art itself. I spent several years on the first novel and I don’t have that luxury now but those years bought me an intimate knowledge of the Awesome Jones world and its characters. So, I’m going into it excited and (mostly) unafraid. My dream is that my weirdo books will land in the hands of the people who will appreciate them the way I appreciated Buckaroo Banzai. Whether that’s five people or five million, my goal is to make someone’s day by saying, “This is the crazy universe where my heart lives. Yours can live here too.”

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Author Connections:

Site | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads

Converse via: #AwesomeJones, #AshleyRoseSullivan, #superherofairytale

& #7thStarFun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comBeing that I had not heard of any of the motion pictures Ms. Sullivan revealed as her absolute top-notch stellar favourites (aside from “Amelie”), I decided it might be best to seek out the Wikipedia pages in case this would be true of my visitors & readers alike! And, can I simply take a moment and reveal that I think its bang-on brilliant that she genre-bent comic superheroes with smashing narrative fiction story arcs!? I was always seeking a wicked good story set around comic superheroes OR a comic which was a bit more bent on story than graphics. I found The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles had run for three editions before going scarce to non-existent when I found my niche. I always fancied the Sunday Comics in the papers, but I always wanted the strips to continue past what was in front of me. This is a bit why I loved Adam West & Burt Ward as Batman & Robin because the entire show was not just slap-stick comedy but it had the air of a comic superhero about it!

I even like when superheroes are re-invented and the genre is bent even more outside its regular scope such as my penchant attachment for “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” which I am *still awaiting!* a sequel which at this point must be a canned idea! Too sad. I love when writers take us on a journey into a new dimension of story craft as much as they heighten how stories can be told as they re-define the art of how a story can be transitioned between dialogue and narrative. IF there were more pulp science fiction films hitting the silver screen like ‘Sky Captain’ I’d be plumb mesmerised more often!

Like Sullivan, I have a quirky side to my motion picture appreciation as I adored Rango” for blending motion-stop action sequences with a clever twist of Weird West(ern) & classic friend-foe set-ups inside of anime characters on the silver screen! The irony is that I had not realised how oft I am in a position to watch a ‘Weird West’ installment as I have over the years grown fond of: The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.; Legend (Richard Dean Anderson & John de Lancie – how could I not watch?); Back to the Future: Part III (my favourite aside the original!); Wild Wild West (although re-watching it lost its appeal); and others I am sure I am forgetting to mention.

My mind automatically started to read the context of the story Sullivan gave inside ‘Awesome Jones’ to the brink that I had to re-read her notation about its quirky style of typeset and layout on the pages! I think perhaps my history of always remaining keenly aware and on the forefront of story as it evolves forward towards new dimensions of immersion for the reader; my mind was able to auto-remember this style from the adventures I had when I was younger and up until now had not yet experienced again. It’s tricky finding your groove,… there is a heap of cover-art illustrations I love in Manga, but as far as the interiors of the graphic novels themselves, I found myself less than agreeable to purchase the books. I am quite curious how to learn to ‘sketch!’ Manga art, as far as monking around and being inky with a medium and range outside of my traditionally classic art training as a child. I want to push the limits of my own artistic skills and wander into new mediums which tie together my past with my present knowledge of how I’ve grown as an artist.

When I see a writer like AshleyRose Sullivan who not only dared to embrace a genre-bender story as it alighted inside her heart but dared to have the confidence to find a publisher who recognised her vision is not only awe-inspiring it is the foundation of how each of us needs to remember to ‘own our muse, own our work, and carry-on forward’ until our stories reach the hands of the readers who believe in us too.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comBlog Book Tour Stop, courtesy of Tomorrow Comes Media

Awesome Jones Virtual Tour via Tomorrow Comes MediaFun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comCheck out my upcoming bookish events to see what I will be hosting next for

Tomorrow Comes Media Tour Host

 and mark your calendars!

{NOTE: Similar to blog tours, when I feature a showcase for an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog.}

Be sure to jump over to my tour stop for “A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court” an Editor Interview as I am hosting a reader poll to determine what is the favourite fantastical character in fantasy! Be sure to leave a comment in those threads on a recommended title and/or author!

Coming up next is my Book Review for “Awesome Jones”!

Stay tuned!

Watch my tweets!

And return back to this blog!

What do you love about genre-bender fiction!? What kinds of stories do you wish were bent together more often?! Which authors and books would you highly recommend reading more than once to get their full effect!? What are your thoughts on Sullivan’s gift and vision for uniting comic superheros & fantasy fiction narrative!?

{SOURCES: Author photograph, Author Biography, Book Synopsis, Book Cover, and TCM Tour Host badge were provided by Tomorrow Comes Media and were used by permission. Jorie requested an Author Guest Post from AshleyRose Sullivan through Tomorrow Comes Media of which she received a reply. Her interest in genre-bending stories grew out of seeing more of the field of offerings being uniquely reflected by today’s Indie Authors. Guest Post badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers & My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

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Posted Wednesday, 21 May, 2014 by jorielov in Action & Adventure Fiction, Alternative History, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Discussions, Comic Book Illustrations & Story, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Fairy Tale Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy Romance, Genre-bender, Graphic Novel, Indie Art, Indie Author, Reader Submitted Guest Post (Topic) for Author, Seventh Star Press Week, Superhero Adventure, Tomorrow Comes Media

*Blog Book Tour* A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court {a faerie anthology of short stories} edited by Scott M. Sandridge

Posted Monday, 19 May, 2014 by jorielov , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Parajunkee Designs

A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court (edited by) Scott M. Sandridge

Chimerical World Vol 1 Anthology by Seventh Star Press
Artwork Credit by: Enggar Adirasa

Published By: Seventh Star Press (@7thStarPress) 12 February, 2014
Official Author WebsitesBlog | Twitter | Facebook | GoodReads
Available Formats: Softcover Page Count: 434
Genres: Short Story | Fantasy  | Faerie Fiction

Converse on Twitter: #AChimericalWorld & #7thStar

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Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a stop on the dual anthology virtual blog tour for “A Chimerical World”, opting to read the ‘Seelie’ Court vs the ‘Unseelie’ Court installment of the dual anthology release from Seventh Star Press. The tour is hosted by Tomorrow Comes Media who does the publicity and blog tours for Seventh Star Press and other Indie and/or Self Published authors. I am a regular blog tour host with Tomorrow Comes Media and was happy to see more anthologies being offered for review. I received a complimentary copy of “A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court” direct from the publisher Seventh Star Press in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Interest to Read a Faerie Anthology:

I should be honest, my heart is always going to be attached to #dragonfiction (I created the tag for it even!), but part of me was always equally curious and endeared to seeking out wicked quality stories of faerie fiction too! I have several authors and books slated TBR (to be read) at some junction in time, but to truly get a nice overview of what is currently been written and offered, there is not a better way to accomplish this task than by seeking out an anthology! I find myself motivated lately to keep a fingertap on those thematic explorations inside science fiction & fantasy which whet my palette of interest. Previously, it was attempting to sort out my own heart’s desire in seeing science-based Steampunk and/or inventive Steampunk which runs the gambit of traditional Steam and deviates into Clockpunk or Automation stories.

Coming out of that well of endless possibilities, and keeping myself hinged to the cosy side of everything I read, I leapt at the chance to be a part of a new anthological tour for short stories within the world of the fey! I am always most curious to learn the new approaches of revealing a particular character inside of a story as much as I am a natural bourne book cheerleader who loves to rally behind creative stories which light the mind with deeply enriching worlds of creative thought. I never quite know where I am being lead in my literary wanderings, but half the fun for me is the art of discovery! Thus, my expectations for reading this anthology is to simply soak into different perspectives of the fey and see which of the stories give me the most joy in reading them!

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Anthology Synopsis: A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court

Scott M. Sandridge
Photo Credit: Stephen Zimmer, taken on a book convention floor

Tales of the Seelie Court:

The Fey have been with us since the beginning, sometimes to our great joy but often to our detriment. Usually divided (at least by us silly humans) into two courts, the first volume of A Chimerical World focuses on the Seelie Court: the court we humans seem to view as the “good” faeries. But “good” and “evil” are human concepts and as alien to the Fey as their mindsets are to us.

Inside you will find 19 stories that delve into the world of the faeries of the Seelie Court, from authors both established and new, including George S. Walker, Eric Garrison, and Alexandra Christian.

But be warned: these faeries are nothing like Tinker Bell.

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Scott M. Sandridge is a writer, editor, freedom fighter, and all-around trouble-maker. His latest works as an editor include the Seventh Star Press anthologies Hero’s Best Friend: An Anthology of Animal Companions, and the two volumes of A Chimerical World, Tales of the Seelie Court and Tales of the Unseelie Court.

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Stories inside: Tales of the Seelie Court:

“Extra-Ordinary” by BC Brown +
“Dead Fairy Doormat” by George S. Walker
“Taggers” by Christine Morgan
“Wormwood” by Alexandra Christian
“The Harpist’s Hand” by Steven S. Long
“Sanae’s Garden” by Chantal Boudreau +
“Mark of Ruins” by SD Grimm
“Birdie’s Life at the School for Distressed Young Ladies” by JH Fleming
“Cultivated Hope” by Jordan Phelps
“Seelie Goose” by E. Chris Garrison +  
“I Knocked Up My Fairy Girlfriend” by Brandon Black
“The Body Electric” by Sarah Madsen +  
“The Last Mission” by Cindy Koepp
“The Beggar-Knight & the Lady Perilous”
by Matthew A. Timmins
“The Filigreed Lamp” by Edward Ahern
“Keys” by Michael M. Jones
“Like a Sister in the Proper Court” by Lisa Hawkridge
“Gnome Games” by Saera Corvin
“The Goat Man’s Garden” by Marten Hoyle

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My Review of A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court

{ am electing to highlight the stories within the anthology

which piqued my interest the most out of the nineteen offered inside }

| “Extra-Ordinary” by B.C. Brown |

The mark of a well-written short story is the effect after it is concluded for the reader to double-check to make sure that the next short is not going to start right at the very moment she’s inclined to read more of the one she’s consumed! And, yet, that is unfortunately what happened as I turnt the page to see what becomes of the lovely hidden world revealed inside Extra-Ordinary! I must admit, I have appreciated the fey for such a long time that I never even questioned what I knew of them or what I could be lacking in reading faerie fiction! Clearly, there is quite a heap I have not had the pleasure of knowing, and inside this little gem of a story lies such a wondrous truth to who they are and how they appreciate interacting with humans! Or rather even, how some humans have the ability to interact with the fey, people you would not realise due to outward appearance or living circumstance could in effect hold a key to a world wonderfully unique and brilliantly more magical than the one we live in. I truly wanted to spend more time snuggled into this young boy’s life, seeing what he saw, and breathing in world of the fey in which alighted inside his ordinary hours. The writer had the clever sense to build upon our knowledge of the young boy as a regular school-aged curious wanderer of thoughts and imaginative possibilities — seeing beyond where he was and knowing there was more yet to come. And, within that innocent world-view and isolated piercing glimpse his everyday hours, we find ourselves meeting a young boy who will electrify our curiosity to know the fuller truth of who he is and how a shoebox can transport us there.

I felt as though this were a Prologue teaser to a larger story which would evolve into this wicked adventure between Marcus and the fey! How lovely it would be to see this knitted into a novella or a full-length novel!

|  “Dead Fairy Doormat” by George S. Walker |

At first I wasn’t sure the direction this particular story was going to take-on, as the possibilities for it to extend into certain dimensions of believability were extensive. The cat in the story (Mephyst) gives Andrei a bit more than he bargained for when he agreed to ‘cat sit’ a client’s rather feisty and demonic charge. Demonic here refers to the fact that this particular outdoor dwelling cat had a penchant for bringing his ‘kills home’ and leaving them rather ceremoniously on his owner’s doormat, but with a bit of a twist of what he ‘kills’ verse what his end-goal is once he returns home with them. I loved how Walker gave equal measure of attention on both Mephyst & Andrei as their paths intertwined for a short period of time. This short reminded me of fabled life lessons swirled into mystical and fantastical stories of a past age. Where you can root out the symbolism of right and wrong, as much as good verse evil by the way in which the story is fused together. Andrei is the unspoken hero of the story, who by rather clever devices sorts out the insidious nature of Mephyst, rights the malicious wrongs he has created against the fey, and takes-on a sense of freedom in knowing that his limited knowledge of the Other World affairs trumps the superficial elite attitude of Mephyst’s owner. For me, what kept me tuned into the story is the determination of Andrei to be a qualified cat-sitter in charge of a cat who is not quite like other cats at all! The lengths this bloke went to ensure not only the cat’s well-being but the well-being of innocents truly warmed my heart! In the end, I nearly could see him changing his stars and lifepath to something a bit more interesting than pedaling errands and message-driven deliveries. He is the character you always hope to find inside of a story – he completely surprises you and endears you to his cause.

| “Sanae’s Garden” by Chantal Boudreau|

A mystical and Eastern story illuminated out of the stories of the Seelie Court, to where my heart-strings were taut in the pull of the narrative to emote such a soul-tinged story of love. I may have not readily said this, but I have not read any of the collective works by the authors in this collection, and are therefore a bit blind to what they regularly write or offer in their individual worlds of fiction. What I found inside Sanae’s Garden is what I would consider a classical mythological story where you can barely notice the veil of the human world and of the world of the wood sprites. Harou and Sanae are unconventional soul-mates in how their love grew out of their innermost desire to protect and care for those who need it most. Their child Masaki was blessed to have such a loving embrace of joy, love, and parental bliss attached to him as he grew but it is how he came into being that was the mark of a chosen path towards embracing true love. I loved drinking in this story, a paragraph at a time and allowing the images filter into my mind’s eye as I etched out their characteristic qualities and the semblance of where the story was taking place. I wanted to explore more of this world, digging a bit deeper into its heart and seeing how this one perception of time could be walked back through in the future. Boudreau gave us such an enriched tale as to endear us to the possibilities of not only following our hearts in all areas of our lives, but in owning to a greater truth of what a well-lived life can encompass by scope of depth.

My heart-felt full enough to choke my throat with the tears of a grateful reader who was blessed to know their story. The nature lover in me celebrated the close-knitted connection of the characters to the living garden and trees, as I am a firm believer that the longer you spend outside in nature’s loving arms of grace, the more you will find yourself in balance; rooted to the living well of the cycles and seasons of Earth. Trees have a kinetic way of sensing our presence and of returning our love for them in the gentle whispers only heard by heart. I felt everything that Sanae felt and I celebrated Harou’s ability to guide her towards a life she never dared dreamt was previously plausible.

|  “Cultivated Hope” by Jordan Phelps |

The innocence of Clarrisa is a warm spring of hope stitched into this short story where a moral choice is the defining moment of her young life. What I appreciated about this story is that it is not set-up in the regular way you are expecting it to be. You’re entering a story already in-progress where the fates of those who could be affected by the actions of the characters both seen and unseen hang in the balance. Clarrisa is a faerie of conscience who unlike her peers aligns her life choices with those of her heart, spirit, and mind. She elects to take the harder path if it means that she can live without remorse etched into every fibre of her being. She is a gardener of dreams and of the tangible joy life can unexpectedly bring as you live your life forward. She reminded me a bit of Sanae in this regard, as she put her entire focus of how she wanted to live into the cultivation of her garden. The garden knew her innermost truths and where she would find her heart leading her next. Bourne without wings, a blight for any faerie other than her, she found strength in both resilience and in owning her uniqueness. The best part of the story for me, is watching how she evolved inside the Ministry of her employ to carry forward a mission of self-sacrifice and freedom. Each of us has the ability to embrace the right path but it takes the strength in knowing by doing what is right, you have to face those who might not agree with your reasoning.

|  “Seelie Goose” by E. Chris Garrison |

About my Connection to Garrison: I had the absolute pleasure of guesting on The Star Chamber Show on the same episode Garrison was appearing as a Guest Author. I was the Guest Book Blogger that night, and I appreciated the opportunity for our airtime to cross-over on each other. From that day forward, I have enjoyed our continuing conversations about all things bookish, including how we respected each of our differences in writing as well as our individual stance on ‘Vulgarity in Literature’ but came out of it on solid ground. I respect Garrison as a new-found friend and as a writer.

I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with Garrison through our respective blogs, the twitterverse, the podcast world, and privately. I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author OR whether I am reading a book by them for the first time.

I am familiar with Garrison’s character Skye from my previous reading of Virtual Blue, however, at that particular point in time I had not realised the full scope of Skye’s character! You see, Skye was ‘lent on loan’ to Sullivan in order to create the Urban Fantasy story in which I reviewed on a previous blog tour! I remember reading about the ‘Seelie Goose’, as regular readers of Jorie Loves A Story will recognise that I also hosted a Cover Reveal for Garrison and around that point in time or thereabouts I became familiar with the short story I now have happily read! For one thing, the comic brilliance of the anarchy of the fairy-tale world spun into reckless flight of an attempt to stop a wedding was most keen indeed! The way in which people react to weddings and those of whom wish to marry is always fodder for comedy. No one seems to understand nor accept that when two people fall in love, it is their right to marry of whom their heart speaks true! Whether that is goose for gander or goose to goose; matrimony should always be a freedom of both choice and of celebration of love. I was caught in the trance of the moment, seeing the absurdity of how one ruffled feathered Mum could not let her daughter be free to live her own life whilst noting how Otherworldy Skye is still attached to walking a life-like no one else could! Skye is not involved in this story but a part of Skye is central to how everything is resolved! I was most taken by how giddy I was to see the resolution and how happy I was to find a story by Garrison which I can do nothing but celebrate the joy of reading!

The descriptions of the geese were especially intriguing as I loved how their wings and feathers were worked into their quirky personalities and how their essence of being geese set the tone for how they interacted with everyone else! By far it was a clever story to be told! Especially considering how ‘rhyme’ took on a new level of meaning as it was used as a method of communication rather than of prose!

| “The Body Electric” by Sarah Madsen |

Cautionary tales of how far man is willing to push the envelope on technologic advances and the window which separates reason, logic, and the pursuit of progress are ones that I have always enjoyed reading. They speak to a greater level of knowledge towards where humanity has travelled and how far humanity continues to push the barriers between right and wrong. Ethical repercussions emerging out of the fever of wanting to go further than we dare, when even we can acknowledge that a thin line is being crossed in the sand. I could feel the harbinger tone of this short story even before I settled into its rhythm. There was a back-note of ominous danger igniting into the forefront of where the central characters were acting out of duty rather than out of honour. I enjoyed watching the internal conflict grab hold of them and appreciated where Madsen choose to take them whilst they were conflicted. The choices we make can have ripple effects on people we may or may not know, yet it is within the golden moments of those choices we can ultimately choose which path we will set our feet to tread upon. And, in the end what matters most is whether or not we were willing to sell our soul in order to survive; or take the harder path and do what was right.

The technology that is expressed in this short is always the kind of tech that I hope we do not cross the line to bring into reality. Where the fusion of technology against the condition of humanity would slowly erase and decode the very essence of who we are as there would no longer be a bridge between who we are and the advances science could provide us. To study and to grow in knowledge is one thing, to help others who have lost the ability to use their limbs is another, but to take away our humanity for the sake of replacement without cause or reason? That is quite another. We would be playing God to the worst degree of illogical pursuit.

“The Filigreed Lamp” by Edward Ahern |

A new appreciator of stories of the Jinn, courtesy of a book I discovered from my local library (The Golem and the Jinni, of which I reviewed last year) I was most delighted to see a short of the Jinn included in this collection! Ever since I met the Jinn in the forementioned story, I have set myself up to uncover more Magical Realism stories (hence my ever-expanding and growing tCC List!)!! The gentleness of this tale was refreshing as by time I had reached a moment to read it, I was ruminating in my mind about how reflectively open and honest the rest of the shorts are presenting the current state of time. From economic hardship to the uncertainty of how the future always hangs in the balance just out of view from where we are in the present. The shorts in of their own are knitted together with commonalities as you read through them. A pulse of forbearance as much as keen insight in where we aspire to be and how circumstances can never paint our future’s black. The Jinn in this story took a different angle of acceptance towards her new charge, and it was through her no-nonsense approach that her charge learnt the most from her. I like being unexpectedly surprised when I read, as much as I like entering new worlds to walk around.

“Like a Sister in the Proper Court” by Lisa Hawkridge |

I was happily surprised and thankful to see a more traditional faerie story included, as for a while I felt that perhaps the collection was only going to yield more modern spins on the fey. In this particular short, what struck me the most was the breadth of the world created to explain the differences between the Courts, and as Hawkridge did such a great job of doing this, I could start to envision the differences between the Seelie & UnSeelie Courts! The very basis of the dual-anthology collection which I am reading! I think the hardest part for the world of faeries is understanding who to trust and to understand which motives are being presented once you undergo accepting an accord with someone who appears to be above-board with you. Iona is on the edge of reasoning out how to contribute more to the collective good of her kind whilst being drawn into plans that might have an outcome she would not appreciate. The entire hierarchy of the fey reminded me a bit of the honey bee. Everyone has their own duties and responsibilities, but at the very same time, there is freedom to choose how best to create the contributions which help the collective survive. In this way, I appreciated seeing the point of view given in this short as it aligns with how I felt the fey might interact and live together.

| “The Goat Man’s Garden” by Marten Hoyle |

This short was as stirring and gutting of emotions as “Sanae’s Garden”, as the fate of one family to save the entire towne is pushed into the forefront of reality when an over zealous ruler twists their chance to survive. I have not had the chance to read a lot about Centaurs or even of faeries who are not quite dark but are not living within the light either. I have read a few stories of the fey which were more depressingly melancholic than enlightening, but this story is more of a classical one. It takes on the drunken intoxication of power set against the welfare of the innocent. Where what is perceived as truth is not what it appears and what is feared cannot always be recognised. Although my heart was lurching with each new step the characters took towards facing their fate, I appreciated the level of sincerity Hoyle gave to the story. It is not one anyone will quickly forget once they read it. Nor should they.

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Each of the stories I have highlighted desire second and third readings in order for the mirth of their tales to be fully enjoyed, processed, and appreciated. I am grateful that I have had this opportunity to become introduced to new voices in fiction, and of being able to settle my mind a bit around where the fey live and how they choose to interact with humans. Each of them approach us in different ways, some with a smarting of bewitchment in their eyes and others with a slight tendency towards maliciousness. Yet, each of them own true to who they are and what their innermost gift is to give and/or to takeaway. The stories themselves are a delight to read and I found myself unaware of the hours ticking off the clock as I was fully absorbed into the collection itself and only gave a nodding of what I was finding through my tweets prior to publishing my finalised reflections!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comFly in the Ointment:

Being this is an anthology collection of stories, the blessing for me was skipping over the stories which either did not give me enough to sink into their narratives or wrinkled my nose due to the cursing of choice words during the telling of the story itself. Therefore, as I have read and highlighted the stories which appealed to me directly, you may or may not find the same to be true for you. Everyone has a different reading temperament and mine is not one to accept a parlay affect of strong language within the context of joyful reading explorations. I truly only skipped over a few stories that held strong language, the others I did not mention did not touch me in the same way as I read them as the ones I did mention.

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This Book Review is courtesy of:

A Chimerical World Virtual Tour via Tomorrow Comes MediaFun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Virtual Road Map for “A Chimerical World Anthology Tour”:

18 May: Editor Interview @ Jorie Loves a Story

19 May: Review @ Jorie Loves A Story

20 May: Guest Post: Four Simple Writer Mistakes by B.C. Brown @ Deal Sharing Aunt

21 May: Guest Post: Heavy Metal Faeries by Scott M. Sandridge @ Armand Rosamilia, Horror Author

21 May: Guest Post: Making of Seelie Goose by E. Chris Garrison @ Vampires, Witches, and Me, Oh My!

21 May: Guest Post: My Favourite Because It’s All About the Numbers by Scott M. Sandridge @ Beauty in Ruins

21 May: Interview Part 1 @ The Bird’s Word

22 May: Guest Post: Creating the Unseelie Court by DeeDee Davies @ Bee’s Knees Reviews

22 May: Promo / Spotlight @ Spellbindings

22 May: Guest Post: Pros / Cons of being an Anthology Editor by Scott M. Sandridge @ I Smell Sheep

23 May: Guest Post by Carmen Tudor @ The Official Writing Blog of Deedee Davies

June: Review: Tales of the Seelie Court @ Heroic Fantasy Writers

24 May: Guest Post: Rituals of a Seelie Writer by Alexandra Christian @ Sheila Deeth Blog

25 May: Interview: Scott M. Sandridge @ Come Selahway With Me

I am happily honoured to be:

Tomorrow Comes Media Tour Host

Previously on this blog tour stop,

I featured an Editor Interview with Mr. Sandridge!

Do not forget to *VOTE* in my Reader’s Poll after reading the Interview! And, leave your response to my enquiry in the comment threads whilst your there too! I appreciate it!

Anthology Discussions on Jorie Loves A Story:

Comments are open on all blog posts!

Comment & Converse freely!

Please visit my Bookish Events page to stay in the know for upcoming events!

It should be noted that I am curating the habit of tweeting my blog life on such handles as #amwriting | #amediting | #amblogging | #amreviewing | #amreading as much as there are antidote tweets being sent out prior to a blog post alighting on JLAS! Little snippets of insight into what I am going to reveal next and/or what I am anticipating will be a newly published post! Be sure to follow and/or keep an eye on my Twitter feeds! All pertinent links are also housed on my About.Me page as well for easy reference, access, and clickablity!

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What do you seek out when sorting out which anthology to read next!? Do you appreciate the journey you are taking to seek out newly emerging writers & their stories? What are your happiest discoveries in both short story, novella, and novel offerings of the fey in fiction!? Which authors are your favourites to soak inside and visit for a short spell!? Are the stories I mentioned today encouraging you to pick up “A Chimerical World”!?

{SOURCES: Book covers for “A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court”, Editor Biography and Book Synopsis of the anthologies were provided by Tomorrow Comes Media and used with permission. Collage of all three anthology book covers created by Jorie in PicMonkey. Author Interview badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers & My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

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Posted Monday, 19 May, 2014 by jorielov in Animals in Fiction & Non-Fiction, Anthology Collection of Stories, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Discussions, Cats and Kittens, Earthen Magic, Earthen Spirituality, Equality In Literature, Faeries & the Fey, Fairy Tale Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Folklore and Mythology, Futuristic Fantasy, Good vs. Evil, Indie Author, LGBTTQPlus Fiction | Non-Fiction, Magical Realism, Seventh Star Press, Seventh Star Press Week, Short Stories or Essays, Speculative Fiction, Supernatural Creatures & Beings, The Natural World, Tomorrow Comes Media, Urban Fantasy, Vulgarity in Literature