romance

About the Book

Title: Of Princes False and True

Author: Eric Alan Westfall

Publisher: Eric Alan Westfall

Publication Date: August 13, 2018

Word Count: 81,400 words

Category: MM, fairy tale, magic, wizards, witches, crones, humor, gods, goddesses, gender fluid deities, courtroom proceedings

Genre: Romance, Fantasy

Cover Artist: Karrie Jax

Goodreads

Purchase Links

Angus & Robertson | Amazon | Kobo | Indigo | Universal Buy Link

Synopsis

A tennis match? Starting a war between the Duchy of Avann and the Kingdom of the Westlands?

Only in a fairy tale.

When Prince Henry hurts a young ball boy who told him Danilo’s ball was inside the line, Danilo’s response is automatic. Punch the prince’s face, pick him up left-handed, and break the royal jaw. Unfortunately, there’s another “automatic” at work: a death sentence for whoever strikes royalty.

King Hiram can’t—won’t—change the rule of law to rule of royal whim. But he grants the Heir of Avann fifteen days to find words that will allow Danilo to live.

In those fifteen days: Magick. The gods, goddesses and gender-fluid deities on Deity Lane. Kilvar, the assassin. A purse which opens in a bank vault. A mysterious old man. The Lady of All. The Magickal Hand writing, rewriting. A fairy tale within a fairy tale. A huge horse called Brute. And at the end…perhaps the right words and a most unexpected love. Plus a deity-supplied dinner with just the right amount of garlic.

All royalties will go to a local LGBT organization.

Review

This tale is bawdy, naughty, hilarious, and altogether magical. I took a risk on a new-to-me author because the book blurb was irresistible, and it paid off several times over. I couldn’t put the book down once I started reading.

Ages ago, I pilfered a book off my parents’ shelf full of what amounted to retold fables and fairy tales, but with a healthy dose of dirty humor. This book reminds me a lot of that, only far better written. Some of it is outright comedy, but the majority is far more subtle.

If someone were to set out to write the “perfect” fairy tale, combining just about every trope and element, they might end up with something like this. If they were any good, that is, and Eric Alan Westfall is one hundred percent brilliant. There are so many little gems and nods to all kinds of fables, fantasy, and fairy tales. I spotted a whole lot of things that reminded me of many of my favorite stories. I won’t spoil them; it’s much more fun for readers to discover for themselves.

There is also a lot of (mostly gentle) humor at the expense of gay romance tropes. Readers should hold onto their hats because nothing is safe. I suspect a lot of people who pick this up will miss the point. For me, it read as though it came from a place of great affection but with an understanding that tropes are…well, tropey. It’s done in such a way as to create a terrific story, and none of the humor is mean-spirited or cruel digs.

The characters are, on the whole, likable. Yes, even the wonderfully horrible Prince Henry. The plot is a little on the predictable side, and I suspect intentionally so. It makes no difference because the joy isn’t in the twists (though there are some of those too). What makes this such a treasure is all the fun along the way. You can only read it once for the surprises. But then you’ll want to read it a second time for anything you might’ve missed, and by the third time, you’ll be reading it just because the author’s writing is such a pleasure.

For delightful naughtiness, a magical land of hidden gems, and a good time had by all, this gets 10/10 fountain pens. “So it has been said. So let it be done.”

Interview

I’m thrilled to have Eric Alan Westfall back on my blog. Well, if we’re being picky, I had his alter-ego last time. Anyway, I’m happy to see he’s got plenty of new stuff to keep readers happy, and he’s here to tell us a bit about life and writing.

Let’s get right to it. Are you a straight-through (gaily forward) kind of a writing guy?

That’s possible? (Okay, just teasing.)

I know there are writers who work that way, but I’m not one of them.

Remember what Hedley Lamarr—not Hedy!—said in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles? “My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention. My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.”

I kind of like to think Mr. Brooks was describing the way my mind works when he wrote those lines. Can you picture a mind like that doing anything as straightforward as A, to B, to C, all the way through to Z?

Neither can I. I know where I’m starting, I know where I’m finishing, and the process of getting there is non-linear. Chapter 42 to 17 to 6 to 23. I go where the ideas take me on any given day. Although I do pick a particular chapter or scene to start with each day, sometimes something will occur to me and I shift over to “there”…and then either keep on going, or go back to my starting scene/chapter.

Selfishly, I love this because it validates my own process. I mean, if someone can write fabulous fairy tales this way, surely the rest of us can too, right? Anyway…

Who do you write for (your audience or who you hope to reach)?

Now that you ask, and make me think about it, the answer is: neither.

I’m a talented writer. I have good, sometimes great ideas, and I’m good…sometimes achieving moments of “great”…at expressing those ideas. (You will, of course, not be surprised to learn that in Net-speak, the acronym I use is: IMNHO.)

I have no idea who my audience is, i.e., the folks who have bought and read my books. I haven’t made any attempt to figure out the basics, much less the detailed demographics. I know of no one, individually or as a group, that I particularly want to reach. I simply don’t think in terms of “I need to get this before X group, because it will be meaningful to them, or the story will affect them in some positive way.”

The reality? I write for myself. There’s a story inside my head…there are many stories inside my head or partially on electronic “paper” stored in a hard drive (and backed up to several!)…that wants out. Mike the Manly Muse is there to help get the story fully told, revise it, tweak it, polish it.

Then share it.

I know I don’t write the stories the whole world reads (Thank you, Mr. Manilow!), but I do write some that some people read. And for the most part, enjoy. I consider myself fortunate when that happens. So it’s unlikely I’m going to be changing my ways and writing “for” anyone other than me.

Wow, I think this should be very encouraging to a lot of people. Many of us struggle with “target audience” and fret over it. But this makes me think there’s hope beyond the fear.

So tell us, how do you write your books?

Usually on a computer.

When I was thirteen (shortly after the Dark Ages ended) my parents got me a manual typewriter, and by the time I got to freshman year, I was typing 30-35 words per minute with the old hunt and peck method. I took typing class my first year. My aunt (the family black sheep because she lived with a lover…gasp!) was a science fiction addict like me and worked as a secretary in a major law firm. She could type 120 words per minute, without a mistake, on a Selectric. (Youngsters, go Google that. *s*)

She was my idol, in more ways than one, and I wanted to emulate her. So I worked hard on practicing typing, and for most of my life I’ve been about a 100 words per minute. With age, that’s slowed to 70 or so.

Of course, to type at that speed while creating you have to have the words all ready in one of Hedley’s “sizzling torrents.” I’ve never really tried to figure out what the real rate would be in “create mode.”

Sometimes, though, I’ll write by hand. I have very legible handwriting (a lost art these days, I fear). I’ll go to dinner at a favorite restaurant, before heading to  the theatre, ballet, a concert or something at the arts center down the block. I’ll get there a half hour or so before my reservation, small notebook in the pocket of my sport coat, and sometimes get 500-600-700 words in before dinner.

Or if I’m at the kitchen table, watching TV, I may have a regular pad and write while I watch. (I also read while watching TV, so much so it feels odd if I’m neither reading nor writing as the show goes on.) I admit there are times I get hooked on the show and writing stops, but there are times when I’ve done at that whole 500-600-700 bit at dinner, too.

Bottom line:  The easiest and fastest creation is at a computer keyboard.

Hey, I had a typewriter too before getting a computer. I took it with me to college. It was an electric one, though, ’cause I was so hip and modern. I totally relate to feeling that creative itch while enjoying other art forms.

What is your next project?

Getting no way outfinalized and ready for its own September publication and blog tour. I have a series of alternate-history historicals set in “Another England.” The difference is what happened to the sodomy laws (which had a death penalty) in the Restoration, when Charles II took the English throne again. The first two novels, which are out, are The Rake, The Rogue, and The Roué (Regency), and Mr. Felcher’s Grand Emporium, or, The Adventures of a Pair of Spares in the Fine Art of Gentlemanly Photography (Victorian – 1882).

Over the next two years I hope to finish the last two in the series: The Serpent Mark (Regency) and Strathairn’s Warrior (contemporary).

But the closer projects are two fairy tales for 2019:  3 Boars & A Wolf Walk Into A Bar(I’m sure you can figure this one out) and The Truth About Them Damn Goats (as told by the troll). Both books are well along, and their covers are in progress.

That’s an impressive list! You’re welcome here any time to chat about those projects. Personally, I’m pretty excited to see what the troll has to say about those goats. Thanks for stopping by!

Excerpt

The Small Throne Room

The King of Westland’s Castle

Late Morning, the Day The Story Starts

“Sit,” King Hiram commanded. The young man, still head-bowed, didn’t move. The guards squeezed the prisoner’s biceps, half-marching, half-dragging to the chair at the opposite end of the table from the king. With four guard hands occupied by flesh or chains, the difficulty in moving the chair was obvious. The wizard’s spell removed the chains; they reappeared with a clunk!on the floor beside the table.

The guard on the young man’s left pressed a dagger-point against his throat. The other guard released him, stepped behind the chair and pulled it enough away for the young man to be maneuvered in front of it. Rough hands on shoulders forced him down. It was, of course, only happenstance the knifepoint nicked the neck, a drop of blood appearing when the blade was removed.

The recent command not to hurt the prisoner apparently didn’t apply to chairs in which the prisoner was sitting. The force used to propel it toward the table would have crushed the young man’s fingers if he’d rested them on the arms when he sat. Fortunately, his hands were in his lap. The young man’s head remained down as he was in effect caged by the chair and table.

He raised his head, looking straight ahead, but Hiram and his advisors could see he wasn’t seeing anything then present in the room.

Beneath the dirt, bruises, scrapes and crusted blood he was handsome. Sharp cheekbones, aquiline nose, thin lips, a faint cleft in his chin. Brilliant green eyes, flecked with gold. Unusual long hair tumbling near his shoulders, red-brown strands mixed with varying shades of gold. There was something almost familiar… The king chased a wisp of memory, but lost it.

The young man tilted his chin up enough to look at the king, apparently believing if cats could, so could he. There was no cringing in those eyes, no shame, no embarrassment. No anger or resentment. Perhaps, though, a tiny glimmer of…interest. As if this was some grand adventure and he needed to absorb everything happening to and around him for later remembrances.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be remembering anything again, in the not too distant future. A man doesn’t when his head has been severed from his neck, or he’s been hanged until a neck-snap or slow strangulation ends him. Hiram realized he didn’t remember what death the law required. He would, he knew, have to check.

In silence, the young man lifted his hands, and pushed the long, thick hair behind his ears, each movement telling a story of strain and pain. As did his face. One eye was swollen almost shut; a cut on his forehead still oozed blood; there was dirt on the bruising on cheeks and jaw; one lip was split.

“Captain Nichols!”

“Sire.”

“Did he resist arrest?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“Did the prince do this?” The king refused to let himself display the tiniest glimmer of hope the answer was “yes.” The hope Henry fought back.

“Ah…no, Sire.”

“Did he attempt to flee and have to be captured?”

“He is as the Guards found him on their arrival. I am—”

The young man interrupted with a laugh—a bright, beautiful baritone, filling the room with a joy entirely out of place in the circumstances.

The king’s low and angry voice in turn smashed the laughter. “You think all this is a joke?”

The young man blinked. “No, Your Majesty. I just thought it was funny someone thought I might run away. Only a coward runs, when he knows he’s done no wrong. I did what was right.”

“You struck my son.”

The young man shrugged. “I’ll strike any bully beating a child.”

Someone in the room gasped. The king merely thanked the Thirty-Nine it wasn’t him and pretended he hadn’t heard.

But as Hiram spoke he realized he was defending his son because of a father’s obligation, not from a belief in his innocence. “Prince Henry is my heir. He would never—”

“He did.” Kings do not flabbergast easily. Hiram was rendered so. Rogermight interrupt him in the privacy of the royal chambers, but elsewhere? No one dared. Until the young man.

Who had no idea what he was facing; had no idea of the inevitable outcome of his admission of guilt. Hiram did not need to hear more. The law was clear. The punishment was clear.

Yet if he was compelled to do as the law demanded, he would at least learn the truth first.

“Do you have any witnesses?”

The young man’s response was a scoffing, “Of course. Anyone there will tell you…” His voice faded away. “But they won’t, will they? He’s a prince, I’m a foreigner, and they’ll only tell you what a kingly father wants to hear: his son is as pure and innocent as the drifting…slush would be, in a kingdom where snow is possible.”

The chin-tilt this time was defiant. “So. What’s the penalty in this kingdom for saving a child from a beating which might have left him crippled?”

“Death.”

The young man paled, but didn’t flinch, and when he moved his hands to the table, there was no trembling.

Nor was there any in his voice. It was calm, almost matter-of-fact, and he didn’t avert his eyes from the king’s. “Interesting. I thought to rescue a child and instead I start a war.”

Old Moldy heard a threat and started to bluster. Hiram heard a statement of fact, or what the young man believed was truth. He told Old Moldy “No!” and the Chancellor slumped back in his chair.

“A man admits to a crime in my kingdom, for which the law demands the severest penalty. Why should anyone go to war over just punishment?” Everyone heard the silent question, “Who are you your death would cause a war?”

The young man’s bow—so far as he could in his seating situation—was formal. An objective observer might have called it regal.

“Your Majesty, permit me to introduce myself. I am Danilo ys Daeaen ys Cirill. I am the only grandson of the Duke of Avann.” The young man shrugged. “They call me the Heir of Avann.”

Giveaway

Eric is giving away two backlist eBook titles to one lucky winner with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter.

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About the Author

Eric is a Midwesterner, and as Lady Glenhaven might say, “His first sea voyage was with Noah.” He started reading at five with one of the Andrew Lang books (he thinks it was The Blue Fairy Book) and has been a science fiction/fantasy addict ever since. Most of his writing is in those (MM) genres.

The exceptions are his Another England (alternate history) series: The Rake, The Rogue and the Roué(Regency novel), Mr. Felcher’s Grand Emporium, or, The Adventures of a Pair of Spares in the Fine Art of Gentlemanly Portraiture(Victorian), with no way out(Regency) coming out a month after Of Princes.

Two more fairy tales are in progress:  3 Boars & A Wolf Walk Into A Bar (Eric is sure you can figure this one out), and The Truth About Them Damn Goats(of the gruff variety).

Now all he has to do is find the time to write the incomplete stuff! (The real world can be a real pain!)

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August 20 – The Novel Approach
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