Princess of Fairy Grove Tour – Excerpt

Blog Tour Guest Post: Ava: Princess of Fairy Grove excerpt and Brittany Weddle shares her inspriation behind Ava.

 

I’m so happy to be here today on the official release date of my debut novella, Ava: Princess of Fairy Grove. I want to send out a special shout out to Stacy for taking part in blog tour.  In a minute, I’ll give all of you a little taste of Ava with an excerpt, but first, here’s the summery:

Ava might be a princess, but she rather being doing just about anything else when it comes to her studies and even goes against her parent’s rules from time to time. When her parents learn that she’s hasn’t been showing up for her lessons, they’re shocked to find out what she’s really been up to. Follow Ava along her journey to what it truly means to be a princess in book one in the Ava Chronicles.

Now that everyone knows about Ava, it’s time for the excerpt, which comes from Chapter Three:

The doors to the hall banged open once more to reveal Ava standing in the doorway. Without waiting for her parents to gesture her in, Ava strode into the hall and stopped when she got to Fiona’s side.

Cosmo got right to the point. “Where were you?”

Just like her father, Ava didn’t bother with formalities. “I went out exploring.”

Tanya spoke next. “Are you aware that you were supposed to be with Fiona?”

Ava could’ve lied, but she didn’t believe in lying and she also didn’t want to get Fiona into trouble. She knew what she had done was wrong and she was more than willing to take full responsibility for her actions.

She looked her mother right in the eyes. “Yes, but I didn’t plan on being gone this long. I guess I lost track of time.”

“Lost…” Shocked, Cosmo turned to Fiona. “We would like to have a private conversation with our daughter. You’re excused.”

Fiona instantly stepped forward. “I request to stay with Ava.”

“Request denied. You are excused, Fiona, now go.” Cosmo’s last word echoed back to them.

Fiona bowed and as she turned to leave, she squeezed Ava’s hand. She only hoped that they wouldn’t be too harsh with her.

“This kind of behavior is simply not acceptable.” Cosmo shouted. His temper had been on edge ever since Fiona had confirmed that Ava had been skipping out on her lessons and now that they were alone with their daughter, his temper flared and broke free.

“A princess does not go wondering all over creation.” He told her.

Ava’s temper matched his. “It wasn’t all over creation and I was only gone for a couple of hours.”

Tanya raised her hand to stop her husband from shouting. “Where exactly did you go?”

Ava didn’t answer right away.

“Your mother asked you a question.” Cosmo reminded her.

Ava sighed. “Over the hill. To the human village.”

As Ava watched, her father’s face turned beet red. “Interacting with the humans is strictly forbidden.”

“But I don’t interact with them. I just like to watch them.” Ava explained.

Cosmo waved it away. “Doesn’t matter. It’s against our rules to go near any human town. You know that, Ava, everybody knows that.” He paused. “If we find out you’ve been skipping out on your lessons again or you’ve been near that blasted village, we will be forced to take punishable actions towards you. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” She paused. “May I be excused?” Without waiting for a reply, she turned and flew out of the hall with tears in her eyes.

˜

I’ve always loved everything that has to do with fantasy. I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve read the Harry Potter series and Charmed was and still is one of my favorite television series, but when it comes to fairies, I never really had anything to go on so to speak. To my knowledge, there’s really not that many books that have been written about them and the only movies that are out there involve everybody’s favorite fairy, Tinkerbelle (huge fan of hers by the way).

I never thought I would ever write anything remotely related to children or YA. I always considered myself to be a mystery writer, which is exactly what my first novel is. What happened was, I had gotten an idea for something along the lines of a historical mystery kind of thing and when I mean historical, I’m talking about dungeons and dragons and all that sort of thing. I thought it was a great idea and rushed to write it down in my small memo pad, which is what I write all of my ideas in, but when I looked at again almost a week later, I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t make it work. I didn’t want to throw it out, because I thought I could still make something out of it so I just put it aside.

Another couple of weeks went by and I was babysitting my young niece and nephew (seven and five years old) and what do you know?! We were watching one of the Tinkerbelle movies! I can’t explain it, but something in just clicked and when I got home later that night, I dug out that old summery that I had discarded and started playing around with it some. I played around with some other ideas and finally came up with the idea of making everyone a fairy and having this magical place where they resided (being Fairy Grove).

I quickly jumped on the internet and started doing all of this research on fairy folklore. When it comes to writing, I’m a stickler for research and I do a ton of it before I even pick up a pen. Half of what I dug up will probably never see the light of day except when I take it out of the box, but will probably never make it into the books, but it’s nice to have it on hand, just in case.

If there’s one thing I want fellow authors to know, it’s this: never give up on a story angle. Even if you don’t think it’s no good, keep it. A few tweaks here and there, and you never know, it might just be a hit.

Look for Ava at any of these fine retailers: ITunes, Lulu.com, and Barns & Nobel for Nook, Amazon Kindle.