Today my blog is being taken over by Nazarea Andrews as part of her Edge of the Falls Blog Tour.
When I was fourteen, I started a
phase—looking back, I’m not sure what started it, but I devoured every book of
fairy tales I could get my hands on. Which, oddly enough for our tiny town
library, was a lot.
What struck me then, and even more so now
is that fairy tales aren’t happy stories. These are the stories we were raised
on—if your anything like me, Cinderella, Pinocchio, Beauty and the Beast, ect,
were the cartoons you watched and part of life.
But in reality—dude. Sleeping Beauty is
twisted. The queen cursed a baby. And
then, some random prince was obsessed enough with her to fight a dragon?
Something wasn’t quite right there.
The thing is, every fairy tale has a dark
side. Cinderella had the stepmother who was emotionally abusive and locked her
in her room. Hansel and Gretel have a cannibalistic witch that the kids
eventually burned to death. Red Riding Hood hacked open a wolf to get her
mother. Beauty is forced to live with a monstrous Beast. Rapunzel is kidnapped
and locked in a tower and when the prince tries to rescue her, he has his eyes
picked out by crows.
So, seriously. Why are these the stories
we’re drawn to? Why are we still reading Grimms, centuries later?
I’m a firm believer that fiction should
reflect—in a distorted, imperfect way—the realities of our world. And the dark
side of fairy tales does that—it shows the dangers in imperfect parents, the
predators who prey on children, and that while not always pretty and clean—you
can rescue yourself.
Life isn’t pretty. It’s messy and dark and
dangerous. But it has it’s magical moments—the moments of falling in love with
the last person you’d expect, the kind stranger who helps you to the most
important event in your life—the bond between siblings. All of them are real. Life is dark. But it’s also gorgeous and
if you don’t embrace the sometimes dark days, you won’t get to the beautiful
moments, or learn how strong you can be.
Of course, when I was fourteen, I didn’t
realize all this. I just liked the swan brothers being saved by their silent sister, the princes saving their sleeping ladies. And
the delightfully darkness of the stories. I loved that, too.
Nazarea Andrews is an avid reader and tends to write the
stories she wants to read. She loves chocolate and coffee almost as much
as she loves books, but not quite as much as she loves her kids. She lives in
south Georgia with her husband, daughters, and overgrown dog. Her first book, Edge of the Falls, is available March
12.
Sabah
always knew where she belonged—with Berg—and what was expected of her—to care
for the other children the Mistress took in.
But when a ban-wolf saves her life, things begin to change.
Arjun isn’t like the other ban-wolves, the savage creatures that are barely
human. He’s gentle and furious and as Sabah spends time with him, she can’t
seem to get him out of her mind. But in a world of darkness, control, and
danger, is there a place for two outcasts?
A romantic retelling of Beauty and the Beast in a dark dystopia.
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