One of my favorite YA reads is released today!
As you can see I already posted a pre-release review of the ARC copy of The Ugly Stepsister yesterday and it earned 4.5 stars from me! You can check my review here and below I got an excerpt and a little bit trivia about author's inspiration to write this book. Enjoy!
Publication
date: June 12th, 2015
Genre: YA
fantasy/fairytale retelling
BLURB:
When Kat accidentally rips apart an old
picture book, she's magically transported into the world of Cinderella--as
Katriona, one of the ugly stepsisters! Life turns upside down now that she’s a
highborn lady and must learn how to survive the social season, including how to
get through the door in a huge metal hoop skirt. To get back, she'll have to
complete the story, right to the end of happily ever after. But the odds are
huge: the other stepsister is drop-dead gorgeous, the fairy godmother is
nowhere to be found, and the prince, despite being insanely hot, openly
dislikes balls. Can she ever return to the modern world?
HOW
THE BOOK CAME TO BE:
Some readers liked the idea of Kat entering the
fairy tale by ripping apart the book. Well, here’s the actual book that
inspired the concept. You can see that the cover has completely fallen off:
*note: this book is at least 20 years old! I’m
so glad I was too sentimental to toss it away, or I might not have come up with
the idea!
EXCERPT:
“Girlie, wake up.”
I open my eyes again. This time it’s
dark, but from the moonlight streaming through the window, I sense that I’m
still in this strange historic-setting room. The candelabra next to my bed has
been snuffed out. The fire in the hearth has gone out, but the embers are still
glowing.
Then I discover something more shocking than the weird room I’m in.
A semi-transparent being is hovering in thin air, right above the bed. It’s quite ugly—its eyes and nose look squashed together,
and it has a stumpy body with arms and legs that look alarmingly short in
proportion to the torso.
I am so shocked that I just stare with my mouth wide open. Is that ghost
going to eat me up?
“Awake now, are we?”
the ghost speaks. His voice is kind of high-pitched with a note of playfulness
in it.
Oh no, not again. I pinch my arm again,
really hard this time, and yelp in pain. My fingernails have drawn blood.
The ghost starts to laugh. “Two
hundred years later and humans are still as dumb as before.”
I am beginning to feel crazy. Here I am in a strange room, with an ugly
ghost, and no matter what I do I can’t
wake up.
Maybe I’m dead. Maybe when I
fell down the stairs I got hit with something really sharp and bled to death.
Ouch. I feel over my head, but it seems all I’ve
got is
a sore spot that feels more like a bruise than a gaping wound. Besides, this
room seems a far cry from hell.
“Hey you,” I call to
the ghost. “I’m dead, aren’t I? Is this a place I go to before I go to heaven?”
The ghost throws his head back and laughs—a high, raucous sound. I’m surprised that no one hears him—either they can’t hear
him or are too deeply asleep. “She thinks this is heaven! Wait till I tell His
Majesty…”
What the hell is going on? “Aren’t
you a ghost?”
That only makes him laugh harder. He clutches his sides, wheezing, like I’m the greatest comedian in the world.
“You…thick-headed,
pea-brained human,” he gasps, wiping his eyes. “Haven’t you seen this room
before?”
“In the downtown
museum?”
“No, silly, a book.”
Moonlight streams in through the window. Several framed paintings hang on
the walls—the biggest one depicts a beautiful garden. The scene does seem
familiar; all it lacks is a maid kneeling in front of the fireplace.
“Cinderella?” I
gasp. This is the room that’s illustrated on the first page. “Why am I seeing
it in a dream?”
“She still thinks it’s
a dream…” the ghost mutters, shaking his head. “Look, don’t you remember what
happened to the book?”
I rub my temples. “It…fell apart?”
He nods. “When you ripped up
the book our king created, a curse is triggered for tampering with his magic.
So as punishment, you’re transported into the story itself.”
“Your king?” This is
getting simply ridiculous. “Who is this king, and who are you?”
The ghost settles on the foot of my bed. “Might
as well tell you or you’ll never get it—I’m Krev. I’m in service of His Majesty
Barthelius, the Goblin King.”
“Goblins?” I fall back
on the pillow, narrowing missing the headboard. “Please tell me I’m
hallucinating, or I got a concussion.”
“We’re from another
dimension, but our king has always been interested in human stories. That’s why
he created his own books hundreds of years ago. He left a few copies in your
world, but never expected that they’d disintegrate.”
“Oh god,” I sink down
further into the blankets. There has to be some mistake.
“You’ll find out soon
enough. Or you can just go back to pinching your arm.” He rises in the air—now
I notice he has a pair of tiny wings. “Bye.”
“Hang on,” I blurt,
and sit up. “Okay, suppose I believe you. How am I going to get back?”
Krev grins, showing a row of pointy teeth. “Now you’re listening. All you
have to do is put the story back together again.”
“Huh?”
“Finish the story to
the very end, where they live happily-ever-after.”
Damn. I’m in a role-playing
game. Not that I’ve played any, but it just seems that way to me.
Speaking of role-playing…
“That woman Martha called me Katriona.
She said I lost my memory, so I’m not a newcomer in
this world. So who am I?”
His bulging, toad-like eyes gleam. “Guess.”
I scowl at him. Well, obviously I’m
not Cinderella, given the silken nightdress I’m wearing. And obviously I’m not
the evil stepmother either. In the mirror I look just as I am, not some middle-aged
woman.
“Am I one of the ugly
stepsisters?”
His grin grows wider.
Damn. “If I have to be in
the story, why aren’t I Cinderella?”
The goblin suddenly goes off in a peal of laughter. “Cinderella! She thinks she’s pretty enough to be Cinderella!” And he rolls over and
over in the air until I feel dizzy and embarrassed. “Don’t you know how the
spell works? You assume the role of the person you resemble most.”
Yeah, thanks for pointing out the impossibility of me being the
protagonist. I suppose if Paige is the one who dropped the book, she’d become Cinderella.
And even though I still find the whole thing ridiculous, I’m kind of intrigued as well.
“So all I have to do
is get Cinderella to the ball, the prince falls in love with her, and then the
curse is broken and I can return?”
He waggles a crooked finger at me.
“Not yet. You can’t
stop at the ball, when she runs out and leaves her slipper behind. You must
follow it all the way to the end. The story is only finished when they’re
married with wedding bells pealing and white doves soaring.”
Whoa.
“So when is the ball?”
“No idea.”
“Where’s the fairy
godmother?”
“No idea.”
I drop my jaw. “Hello? Are you
telling me that I have to find everything on my own while you just hover there
and do nothing?”
He shrugs. “That’s because you
ripped everything off except the first page. The curse starts where you leave
off.”
“And if I do nothing?
What if the prince won’t hold the ball? What if I can’t find the godmother?”
Krev lets out an evil chuckle. I have an ominous feeling of impending
doom.
“Then you will remain
in this book. Forever.”
*read more excerpts on Aya’s website: http://www.ayaling.com/the-ugly-stepsister.html
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Aya is from Taiwan, where she struggles
daily to contain her obsession with mouthwatering and unhealthy foods. Often
she will devour a good book instead. Her favorite books include martial arts
romances, fairy tale retellings, high fantasy, cozy mysteries, and manga.
GIVEAWAY:
To celebrate the release, Aya is also offering
a giveaway in which THREE winners can:
1.
Get a paperback copy of The Ugly
Stepsister OR any book Aya has on paperback (open internationally!)
2.
Get to name a minor character in the “sequel” novella (will probably be
Edward’s niece and nephews)
Here's what you can do to enter the giveaway:
1.
Click HERE
to share the book release on Facebook
2.
Click HERE
to share the book release on Twitter
3.
Share the book release on your blog. Click HERE for an easy
copy-paste media kit that you can adapt however you like. For example, if you
have already posted a review on your blog, you can add my author bio, excerpt,
giveaway info, etc. Please fill in the link of your post as well, so I won't
miss a single entry.
The giveaway ends on June 20. Winners will be announced
on June 21.
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