Sometimes breaking the curse is just the beginning - Spindle by W.R. Gingell

Woken by a kiss, Poly finds herself in an alien world where three hundred years have passed and everyone she has ever known is dead. Luck, the enchanter who woke her, seems to think she is the princess. Understandable, since he found her asleep on the princess’ bed, in the royal suite, and dressed in the princess’ clothes.

Description:

She’s not a princess . . . but then, he’s no prince.

Polyhymnia is deep in enchanted sleep. High in a tower, behind an impenetrable barrier of magical thorns, she sleeps, dreams, and falls ever deeper into her curse.

Woken by a kiss, Poly finds herself in an alien world where three hundred years have passed and everyone she has ever known is dead. Luck, the enchanter who woke her, seems to think she is the princess. Understandable, since he found her asleep on the princess’ bed, in the royal suite, and dressed in the princess’ clothes.

Who cursed Poly? Why is someone trying to kill her and Luck? Why can’t she stop falling asleep?

And why does her hair keep growing?

Sometimes breaking the curse is just the beginning of the journey.

GUEST POST

What If…?

One of the questions I get asked the most is How do you come up with your ideas? With Spindle, as with most of my books, I started with a fairytale and a what if? in mind. A what if? can be anything from what if they bumped off Cinderella and shanghaied the fairy godmother into prettying up one of the ugly stepsisters? to what if Cinderella got murdered after she and the prince had their happily ever after? (Why, yes! Most of my Cinderella ideas do end up with her dead. Why do you ask...?)

With Spindle my what if? was what if Sleeping Beauty wasn’t actually the princess? From that first little seedling of what if? I also ended up with what if she slept for more than three hundred years instead of one hundred? I was fascinated with the thought of how much life would have changed for her. Language would have evolved and passed her by, her loved ones and family would almost certainly be dead, and both the political and social aspects of life would have changed completely.

To these what if?s I added a third one: what if Sleeping Beauty couldn’t trust her own memories? What if she couldn’t remember who put her to sleep, and why? This was the what if? I found most challenging. A character who can’t trust her own memory isn’t the most reliable narrator in the world, and at first I wasn’t sure how I could do it without confusing the character, my readers, and myself. Once I had that germ of an idea, though, it was just a matter of following through. 

After that, my what if?s simply grew. What if Sleeping Beauty’s name was Poly? What if it was an enchanter who rescued her? What if he was paid to rescue her? What if Poly, having been woken from a curse, found herself plunged into a scenario just as dangerous and far more bewildering than cursed sleep? What if there were exploding spells and growing hair and poisoned chocolates?

And so Spindle grew, and expanded, and took on a life of its own. I’m here today to present to you a book that is no longer quite Sleeping Beauty, but something a little different– in the hopes that it plants a few of those twisty little what if?s in you, too.

TOUR SCHEDULE

Goodreads ** Amazon ** BookDepository

About the author:

W.R. Gingell is a Tasmanian author who lives in a house with a green door.
She spends her time reading, drinking an inordinate amount of tea, and slouching in front of the fire to write. Like Peter Pan, she never really grew up, and is still occasionally to be found climbing trees.

Website ** Goodreads ** Facebook ** Twitter