inevitable, devastating, and ultimately healing - Nora and Kettle by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

Set in 1953, NORA AND KETTLE explores the collision of two teenagers facing extraordinary hardship. Their meeting is inevitable, devastating, and ultimately healing. Their stories, a collection of events, are each on their own harmless. But together, one after the other, they change the world.

Description:

Publication Date: February 29th, 2016

What if Peter Pan was a homeless kid just trying to survive, and Wendy flew away for a really good reason?

Seventeen-year-old Kettle has had his share of adversity. As an orphaned Japanese American struggling to make a life in the aftermath of an event in history not often referred to—the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the removal of children from orphanages for having “one drop of Japanese blood in them”—things are finally looking up. He has his hideout in an abandoned subway tunnel, a job, and his gang of Lost Boys.

Desperate to run away, the world outside her oppressive brownstone calls to naïve, eighteen-year-old Nora—the privileged daughter of a controlling and violent civil rights lawyer who is building a compensation case for the interned Japanese Americans. But she is trapped, enduring abuse to protect her younger sister Frankie and wishing on the stars every night for things to change.

For months, they’ve lived side by side, their paths crossing yet never meeting. But when Nora is nearly killed and her sister taken away, their worlds collide as Kettle, grief stricken at the loss of a friend, angrily pulls Nora from her window.

In her honeyed eyes, Kettle sees sadness and suffering. In his, Nora sees the chance to take to the window and fly away.

Set in 1953, NORA AND KETTLE explores the collision of two teenagers facing extraordinary hardship. Their meeting is inevitable, devastating, and ultimately healing. Their stories, a collection of events, are each on their own harmless. But together, one after the other, they change the world.

GUEST POST

The Dangers of a Retelling

A retelling of a well-known and well-loved fairytale can be a very intimidating thing. These stories have stood the test of time and everyone knows them. They have endured and therefore are owed respect. 

To reinterpret a fairy tale is a lot like not following a recipe to the letter. Sometimes it can produce a deliciously, different culinary delight. Other times, it doesn’t rise, it sticks to the pan and tastes like something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe.

To me, the main things you need to consider are:

1. Are you simply retelling the story or are you reinventing it? People know the original story front to back. You don’t want to be telling them the same idea with the same characters. It needs to be a very fresh and clever take on the original.

2. Are you doing this because you couldn’t come up with your own idea, or does it compliment and enrich your original idea? Your story should come first and then be peppered with details linking it to the original fairytale. Readers should have to search for the small clues and details that link it to the fairytale.

3. Does your story need the fairytale aspect? In Nora & Kettle, adding that fairytale feel was important to slightly soften the abuse Nora endures. It made sense to write her as a Wendy type character that uses flights of fancy to escape a horrible circumstance.

4. Are you prepared for the backlash? Readers will have expectations of a retelling. You need to decide whether you’re okay with some being disappointed that you weren’t truer to the story. At the same time, you will get the other side of the coin when readers complain that you stayed to close to the original. This really applies to any story, but in the case of retellings, you will get some very passionate readers.

5. What makes your story different to other retellings? Really make sure you aren’t rehashing something someone else has done in the past. It can be dangerous territory if you don’t do your research.

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About the author:

Lauren Nicolle Taylor lives in the lush Adelaide Hills. The daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist and an Australian scientist, she was expected to follow a science career path, attending Adelaide University and completing a Health Science degree with Honours in obstetrics and gynaecology.

She then worked in health research for a short time before having her first child. Due to their extensive health issues, Lauren spent her twenties as a full-time mother/carer to her three children. When her family life settled down, she turned to writing.

She is a 2014 Kindle Book Awards Semi-finalist and a USA Best Book Awards Finalist.

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