Laurie Lucking

Laurie Lucking loves books, music, and spending time with her family in beautiful Minnesota. A recovering attorney, she now spends her days chasing her active 3-year-old, answering hundreds of questions for her kindergartener, and shuttling her sons to after-school clubs, Boy Scouts, and basketball practice (plus a little cooking and cleaning when absolutely necessary). When she finds a spare moment, she writes young adult romantic fantasy inspired by fairy tales.

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W.R.I.T.E. (a fairytale-inspired version of M.A.S.H.) 

Thanks so much for joining us today, I can’t wait to party with you! Let’s start by predicting our fairytale futures! I might be showing my age here, but who else remembers the game M.A.S.H.? If you’re not familiar with it, no worries! It’s easy to learn, we used to play it at lunch or on the bus. M.A.S.H. stands for Mansion, Apartment, Shack, and House, and the game is like a shorter, simplified version of Life where you have fun plotting out a potential future. Only this time, I made a fairy tale version (called W.R.I.T.E. since I came up with some different housing options 🙂)! 

Here’s how to play. Take a scrap of paper and draw a swirl until someone tells you to stop (or set a timer for 3-5 seconds). Then count the rings on the spiral to get your “Magic Number.” Starting with the Places to Live category, count down the options until you reach your Magic Number. Then cross that one out (feel free to print the sheet, jot them down on your own, use a stylus on your phone, whatever’s easiest!). Keep going through all the categories, crossing out options every time you get to your Magic Number. When you get to the end just start back at the beginning, skipping the ones you’ve already crossed out. Once you’re at the point where there’s only one choice left in a category, circle it! Eventually you’ll have one option circled in each category, which gives you all the elements of your life as a fairytale character 🙂 Have fun!

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The Dancer and the Dragon Speaker

I love retellings of well-known fairytales, but I also enjoy finding new fairytales I’m not familiar with. Which is why, when I heard about the Intertwined Tales multi-author series, I knew I needed to be a part of it! Each author took a familiar fairytale and combined it with a lesser-known fairytale to create a brand-new happily-ever-after!

My book, The Dancer and the Dragon Speaker, is a mashup between The Twelve Dancing Princesses and an obscure Russian fairytale, The Language of the Birds. Both fairytales have a king offering his daughter’s hand in marriage as a reward for accomplishing a certain task (finding out where the princesses go at night in The Twelve Dancing Princesses and getting rid of a pair of persistent birds in The Language of the Birds). When I combined the two (and turned the birds into dragons!), the stories complemented each other so well in an exciting, romantic fantasy adventure. Check out the other Intertwined Tales to discover some other fun fairytales not often retold!

Sisters trapped under threat of fire and destruction. Dragons enslaved by a power-hungry prince. A stable hand who must devise a plan to save them all.

Dragons circle the Oneskan palace at night, shrouding the kingdom in fear and mystery. Only Princess Emelia and her sisters know the fiends fly them to the enemy country of Tsantar under cover of darkness, where Prince Leonnar hopes to steal their secrets and gain control of Oneska. Their father’s proclamation that the man who drives away the hovering dragons will marry one of his daughters incites the princesses to redouble their efforts to escape Prince Leonnar’s tyranny.

When the enigmatic new stable hand, Merric, offers to help, Emelia finds him as frustrating as he is attractive. His superior knowledge of dragons gives her new hope, until he shatters her trust by showing more interest in protecting the vile creatures than getting rid of them. But only by finding a way to work with Merric—and with the dragons she detests—will Emelia have any chance of freeing herself, her sisters, and her kingdom from Tsantar’s clutches forever.

Retelling The Twelve Dancing Princesses and The Language of the Birds

The Intertwined Tales is a multi-author series of clean fairytale retellings. Each novella entwines a famous fairytale with a lesser-known story to create one happily ever after. These standalone stories can be enjoyed in any order.

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Which Oneskan Princess Are You? Quiz

Time for a quiz! The fun kind, don’t worry 🙂 Since The Dancer and the Dragon Speaker is a Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling, it involves a set of sisters (five instead of twelve). As I developed the story, these princesses just jumped off the page for me. Their personalities are each so distinct, and writing their scenes felt like I was sitting in their tower bedroom taking notes as they carried on a conversation around me. (What can I say, being a fantasy author comes with an active imagination! 😂) So of course I had to create a fun test to see which of the Oneskan princesses’ personalities best fit my readers! Take the quiz and let us know who was your best match.

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A Noble Purpose

Speaking of obscure fairytales, are you familiar with Hans, Who Made the Princess Laugh? It’s a quirky little tale in which a princess doesn’t smile or laugh for years, so her desperate father declares that she will marry the first man who can make her laugh. Many men try and fail, but Hans succeeds with a very odd set of events involving a fish, a magical goose, and a train of people stuck together.

For the Cornerstone Series (another multi-author series of clean fairytale retellings!), I faced the difficult task of expanding this story to novella length in a non-magical world. Fortunately, the fun twist of the Cornerstone Series is that each book is written from the perspective of a side character in the original fairy tale. When I imagined the princess who never laughs having a younger sister who sets off on a quest to find the clumsy former guard her sister fell in love with (accompanied by her own grumpy guard), the whole story fell into place. If you enjoy cozy Christian fantasy with banter, adventure, and clean, swoony romance, make sure to check out A Noble Purpose (and the rest of the Cornerstone Series)!

To help her miserable sister, Princess Liesel must survive the elements, danger…and her grumpy guard.

Princess Liesel’s older sister, Verena, hasn’t smiled in years. Desperate to improve her low spirits, the king declares that the man who can make Verena laugh will earn her hand in marriage.

But his plan seems doomed to failure from the start. Each unsuccessful attempt only makes Verena more despondent, and a set of mysterious masked suitors raises suspicions about a plot by an enemy prince. When Liesel discovers her sister still harbors feelings for a guard who was sent away years before, she embarks on a desperate quest to find him, both for the sake of Verena’s future happiness and their kingdom’s safety.

As increasingly dangerous challenges hinder Liesel’s journey, she begins to wonder if they’re more than coincidence. Will she and her travel companions even make it to Verena’s former guard, let alone convince him to return with them?

With each impediment drawing her closer to her own surly knight, more than just her sister’s happily-ever-after may be hanging in the balance.

A Noble Purpose is a New Adult Christian fantasy Hans, Who Made the Princess Laugh retelling and is Book #1 in the Cornerstone Series. Each book can be read as a standalone.

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Fairy Tale Elements BINGO

Let’s face it, as readers of fairytale retellings, we’re all about the tropes! All those common features you find in fairytale retellings that get incorporated in fun, creative, unexpected ways. So let’s play Fairy Tale Elements BINGO! Think through the tropes in the fairytale retellings you’ve read, and see if you can get a BINGO! Can any super-readers out there get a blackout? Let us know your no-spice fairytale retelling recommendations in the comments! I put an asterisk by all the elements you can find in The Dancer and the Dragon Speaker and A Noble Purpose 🙂

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Thanks again for hanging out with us today! There’s no better way to celebrate fairytales than to hang out with fellow authors and readers. Make sure to stop by my website and sign up for my newsletter (on the right-hand side) to get a free short story and monthly updates on my upcoming releases! Have so much fun at the rest of the party, and happy reading!!

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