Title: Snow White & the Seven Angels
Series: Queerky Tales
Author: Rhys Ethan
Genre: Fantasy, Fairy Tale, LGBT, Retelling, Kids’ Books
Length: Novella
The classic tales you know, the characters with secrets you don’t
Synopsis
White has a secret. One he has shared with his family to no avail. When he meets the Prince of his dreams, he decides he can no longer live a lie, but in order to do so, he will have to face his worst nightmares.
Queerky Tales is a series of classic fairy tales retold with LGBT characters. Snow White & the Seven Angels is about fighting for your happy-ever-after, whatever shape it comes in.
For children and adults alike.
Excerpt:
Snow White & the Seven Angels (Queerky Tales #1)
Two gentle taps on the door let Queen Skylar of her son’s arrival.
‘Come inside, son,’ she responded assuming a stern voice. She wanted to get her message across loud and clear. ‘Take a seat.’
White sat down on the other end of the queen’s desk and stared at his mother.
‘I wanted to talk to you, White. I’ve been very concerned about you lately and it’s about time we have a conversation about your responsibilities to our kingdom,’ the queen never sat down. Instead she towered over her son.
‘What about my responsibilities, Mother?’ White enquired with a tender voice.
‘You see, White, a prince has certain duties towards his people. Meeting with them, listening to their problems, attempting to fix those problems, make the lives of everyone under their ruling the best it can be—’ she begun explaining.
‘But I do all of those things, Mother,’ White interrupted her.
‘There are of course other responsibilities a prince has,’ she continued as if he hadn’t spoken at all, ‘like learning sword fighting, archery, strategy, all to enhance the future king’s abilities to protect his people.’
‘I do not think those are necessary skills when I’m planning to rule solely based on love and compassion,’ White reiterated, but the queen laughed.
‘Do you think you can love your kingdom out of enemy battles? That is a very naive way for a prince to think. It’s not how the world works, White, but it’s not just that. A prince is not supposed to be in the company of girls unless he’s planning to marry one of them. Yet, you spend all your time with village girls, and what’s worse, they call you princess and you wear their dresses,’ Queen Skylar finally sat down across her child, pleading for an explanation.
‘I like wearing dresses, Mother. They make me feel…at home,’ White explained.
The queen was startled by his response. ‘What do you mean by that, White?’
White withdrew his eyes from his mother’s and instead focused on the inanimate desk in front of him. An object that wouldn’t pass judgement on him for what he was about to say.
‘I’ve been wanting to talk you, Mother, but I’ve always cowered from doing so. It’s been a while now that I’ve been having those feelings, and at first I thought nothing of them, that they were fleeting. But they weren’t. If anything, they’ve become stronger. Those feelings tell me I am not a prince, nor am I a boy. It feels as if I’m inhabiting the wrong body. As if I was meant to be born…a girl, but something went wrong and instead was born in the body of a boy. When I first played princesses with my friends and I was treated as one, if only for pretend and for a short amount of time, I felt…I felt like it was right. I felt it was,’ White was crying now. He was overcome by emotions and his worry that his mother would reject him.
The queen saw the heartbreak in her son’s eyes and approached him. She gave him a compassionate hug and whispered in his ear. ‘It’s okay, White. Everything is going to be okay now. I will help you.’
White embraced his mother and she soothed him for as long as necessary to calm him down and dry his eyes.
‘Maybe you feel like this because you never had a father to show you the prince ways. Maybe if you train, those feelings will go away,’ Skylar stated.
‘I don’t know if they will,’ White insisted.
‘Well, still, we must try,’ the queen repeated and walked towards the door to shout an order to the guard outside.
‘I don’t know if I want them to.’
Review:
This was such a sweet fairy tale retelling, with a lot of little twists and turns to truly make it unique. Snow White & the Seven Angels is a story about hope, and the desire to be the person that one truly sees themselves to be, despite how hard others might work to prevent it. As with any fairy tale, there is an evil villain, a hero, sometimes more than one, and a person yearning for something that seems just out of reach. This isn’t Disney’s Snow White, and you won’t find any birds here, what you will find is a kind and carrying ghost, seven angels who go all out to make a dream come true, and a prince who understands the true meaning of love. This is a story packed with feel good moments that just begs to read time and time again.
Buy Links
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VO8YBA2
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VO8YBA2
Amazon AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00VO8YBA2
Amazon DE: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B00VO8YBA2
Paperback
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/White-Seven-Angels-Queerky-Tales/dp/1511480602/
CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/5400782
Giveaway
Prize: $5 Amazon Gift Card
a Rafflecopter giveawayAbout the Author
Rhys Christopher Ethan is by no means a scientist, but he is an architect of his own fantasy worlds; an illustrator of emotional and multi-dimensional characters; a doctor of creativity and inspiration and a chemist of genres; mixing two or more, to find the perfect fit for his creations. He lives in a small, dusty lab he calls Home in London and works hard to bring his experiments out into the world. His companions (for now) are his pet-Laptop and his coffee-Booster and a bunch of notes, digitized and paper-wise. He voices his obsessions on his website http://www.rcethan.com, rants on twitter @Rhys_Ethan, shares messages on facebook.com/rcethan1 and pins his muses on pinterest.com/rcethan. You can contact him at rhysethan@hotmail.co.uk, or if you’re telepathic, he will probably meet you in your dreams.
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