Author: suzannedeplanque

Check out the incredible writers podcast Listening to the Voices in Our Heads on YouTube. I was interviewed by the wonderful Jenna O’Malley, who is not only the genius behind the podcast but a fantasy author herself.

We had a wonderful wide-ranging conversation about writing, characters, researching our books, diverse writing voices, writing with disabilities, and so much more. And, of course, we talked about The Lost Princess of Story, which has had an incredible first month since being published July 16.

Lost Princess has been #1 Hot New Release and #1 New Release in two different Amazon categories, and on several top 100 lists, including Fairy Tale, YA Fairy Tale, LGBT Fantasy, Teen and YA girls and Women and Teen and YA Family.

Jenna and I discussed  creativity in lockdown, how writers have been changed by the pandemic, making the most of our writing life—it was really a great discussion. Also we talked about writing in close third, rotating point of view, and what it’s like when your characters have a mind of their own!

Here’s the link:

https://youtu.be:5SS73dU9RaM

Jenna is a great interviewer who made me feel right at home. If you love learning the story behind the story, watch and listen to Listening to the Voices in Our Heads. You’ll learn more about the World of Story, and we talk a lot about Sophie, Jamie, Tickey-Ding… and how I wound up writing the first book of The Chronicles of Story from bed while recovering from COVID in March 2020 as New York City closed down around me.

And while you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to check out the Lost Princess of Story book trailer:

Https://YouTube.com/watch?v=GHyGkPx-V-Y

If you click the banner underneath the video, it will take you to a page with three bonus videos. Meet Sophie, Lilla, and Jamie!

Hope you enjoy the podcast! And the trailers on YouTube.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

Fond of the perpetually hungry, swallowed-the-kitchen-timer baby dragon Tickey-Ding?

Readers have been reaching out to tell me how much they love Tickey-Ding, the banzai (“with a Z, for ‘zazz’”) dragon with a huge heart and a perpetually hungry stomach.

Hurry now to enter the epic Lost Princess giveaway! Over 5000 fans of the World of Story have already signed up for this incredible themed giveaway. Stuffed Tickey-Dings, character t shirts, book t shirts, book swag, plus Amazon gift cards! $100, $50, and $25 Amazon gift cards for winners!

Plus an incredible bonus—the Royal Designer of Story (the book’s illustrator and cover designer) will design a royal coats of arms, just like the Bookbinder and Charming crests in the book—for three lucky winners.  Suitable for framing, these beautiful full color crests show your love for the World of Story.

The giveaway is almost over. Only through August 19th. Enter today!

https://www.silverdaggertours.com/sdsxxtours/the-lost-Princess-of-story-book-tour-and-giveaway

Tickey-Ding asked me to tell you he’s reading the book, and he is much more handsome and heroic in real life.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

 

 

Lost Princess hits the road!  Sorry I haven’t posted in my blog since Lost Princess hit Amazon, but it’s been a crazy, thrilling month of new release marketing!

First, a HUGE thank you to all my readers who have read, reached out, posted lovely reviews and told me how much you love Story and Lilla, Sophie, Jamie, Charlie, Luke, Bob, Sass, Tigg and the rest of the gang. Especially Tickey-Ding.

Special news for all those Tickey-Ding lovers out there, there are still two days left to enter my epic GIVEAWAY at https:www/silverdaggertours.com/sdsxx-tours/the-lost-princess-of-story-book-tour-and-giveaway.  Three themed packages, with $100, $50 and $25 Amazon gift cards, book t shirts, character t shirts, stuffed TICKEY-DINGS, book swag and MORE!  Over 5000 Story lovers have already signed up, hurry before the giveaway closes on August 19.

And now, the HUGE news!

The Lost Princess of Story has been a #1 New Release, #1 Hot New Release, and on the Top 100 lists in YA Fairy Tale, Fairy Tales, YA Girls and Women, YA Family, And LGBT Fantasy on Amazon!

Thank you, all my readers, for helping our world discover the World of Story!

Keep reading, keep posting, keep sending me those wonderful letters about why you love Tickey so much. Or why you love Bob and Jamie as a couple. Or why you’re rooting for Sophie, or how you hope Lilla will find her magic—I love to hear from readers!

It’s a wild ride—some days, Lost Princess is at the top of the category chart, some days it drops off. But it’s great watching you all discover the World of Story.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

    I love the Chronicles of Narnia,

 

They are the first portal fiction I remember reading.  I was captivated by the idea that I could find a door to another world.  I am still looking. I have never passed a wardrobe without checking, just in case.

The Magician’s Nephew takes us to the very beginning of Narnia, even to before the beginning.  We, along with Digory and Polly, are present at the moment of creation.

I know the publisher re-ordered the series some years back, and that Magician’s Nephew is now Book One in the Narnia series.  This, to my mind, is a mistake.  I liked the original order, where we got to really know and love Narnia before we found out its history.

      This book has so much that I love inside,

The Wood Between the Worlds. The creepy, frozen world of Charn.  The Guinean pig with the ring taped to it trotting around the Wood. Uncle Andrew, who keeps forgetting how terrifying Jadis is when she is out of sight, and then remembering again on her return.  Uncle Andrew being planted and watered by the Talking Beasts.  Frank the cabbie and Helen his wife, who become the first King and Queen of Narnia, and of course his horse Strawberry, who becomes the Pegasus Fledge.

And a story that is very close to my own heart, the story of Digory’s mother. As a child reading, I was just caught up in the adventure of it all. As a mother who struggles with chronic illness and pain, the story of Digory’s mother haunts me sometimes.

 

    Don’t get me wrong, I love the

 

story of how Digory made the right choices, the hard choices, and was rewarded with the magic apple, the apple that brings health and life back to his dying mother.  But as a mother, I see it all differently.

I would never want my child to feel the weight Digory does, the weight of responsibility for my failing health.  And there are frustrations to the story told.  Some of this is mentioned in my book, The Lost Princess of Story.

 

   I have always fallen short of the picture painted by Digory’s mother, beautiful in her bed of pain.  Patient. Lovely.

My struggles have not been so picturesque and idealized.

  Don’t get me wrong, I would love the gift of a healing apple.  But I know life is not so simple.

One thing that meant a great deal to me while writing The Lost Princess of Story was being able to tell the story of a mom trying to be the best mom she could while dealing with chronic illness and pain.  It is a story I find sadly lacking in books.

I hope that other moms living that life will find recognition in the pages of my book, will relate to the joys and struggles of that life.

The Lost Princess of Story is available on Amazon TOMORROW.

Thanks and love to everyone who supported me along the way.

 

 

 

   Only one more day!

 

The Lost Princess of Story is available TOMORROW on Amazon.

I hope you all love it as much as I do.

Writing this book gave me a much-needed escape in 2020, an epic dumpster fire of a year.

I had a serious case of COVID, complicated by preexisting underlying conditions.  I spent a lot of 2020 in bed, and I am still struggling with symptoms.

Revisiting my favorite old children’s books, the ones filled with magic and wonder, inspired me to write The Lost Princess of Story.  I love portal stories, where we are whisked out of our own world into another world filled with magic.  I could have used an escape last year.

The characters in The Lost Princess of Story are refugees from another world who find themselves living in Brooklyn. While writing, they became very near and dear to me.  I hope you will enjoy getting to know them,

    Tomorrow morning

 

when I wake up, my book will be on Amazon.

I can hardly wait!

Just five more days!

The Lost Princess of Story. Amazon July 15.

 

   Five days. Just five more.

Check it out.

I can’t wait to share it with the world.

   Book-a-day until I publish July 15.

Homage to the books that shaped me.

Circus Mirandus is a book that lives in my heart. It is stuffed with so many things that are deep and true.

Miracles. Joy. Grief. Illusion. Loss. Love. Wonder. Serendipitous surprises. And, of course, magic.

I have never stopped listening for the pipes and drums of the Circus Mirandus.

This past year has brought me joy from a deep dive into children’s books, portal fiction, and books of magic.

The pandemic and lockdown made me yearn for escape. And reading those books, the same ones I’ve been posting, gave me that escape in some small way.

I hope these books remind you that Doors are still, always there.  Just a read away, waiting to take us out of our lives and into Worlds of Magic.

My book, The Lost Princess of Story, has over 100 references to these books of wonder and whimsy.

”…this YA adventure is a love song to books and reading, and the countless worlds one can dream themselves into once the Doors of imagination open…” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 Self-Publishing Review

The Lost Princess of Story will help you find your Door.

Preorder NOW on Amazon. Coming July 15.

  Only eight days to go!

 

THE MAGIC BEGINS.

FIND THE DOOR.

Twelve year old Lilla loves her books so much she is convinced there must be a way to get inside them. She does not know that she is right.

  Or how soon she will leave Brooklyn…

 

…and enter the World of Story.

Follow Lilla and her friend Charlie as they become Traveling Children and discover high adventure in the World where fairy tales are real.

And what is happening in Brooklyn, where their parents, one-time Traveling Children, have been waiting and watching for their own Doors to reappear?

”…an epic, imaginative portal fantasy touched with welcoming whimsy…”

⚡️ Editor’s Pick, Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Reviews.

 

”The magical land of Story meets Brooklyn in this unconventional fairytale reminiscent of Narnia…a masterpiece that is representative of real world issues we face today…”

San Francisco Book Review

 

“…a tremendous creative achievement, The Lost Princess of Story will thrill anyone who has ever fallen in love with a story…”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 Self-Publishing Review

 

Available NOW for preorder on Amazon.

Coming July 15.

 

#bookstagram, #lostprincessofstory, #bookloversofinstagram, #booklover, #chroniclesofstory, #bookstagramcommunity, #bibliophile, #indieauthor, #booktok, #reading, #comingsoon

Only nine more days!

 

In nine days, our World gets to discover the World of Story.

 

That’s the crest of the Bookbinders, the defeated once-royal family of Story.

 

That was the crest of the Charmings, the new royal family.

 

Story has been through murderous seizure of the throne, the deaths of several kings, civil war, and now the Wall is up and the Doors are closed.

 

But Story needs Traveling Children. It needs new dreams and wants and wishes and belief. Without them, the magic, the very World is in danger.

 

The Doors are about to reopen.

 

I can’t wait.

 

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

  Book-a-day until I publish July 15.

 

I love the Oz books.  Love, love, love them. I was devoted to them as a child. Collected several different sets, some time before that became fashionable. My favorites were the white ones with the gorgeous art nouveau drawings and the great index in the back with a catalogue of all the different original L. Frank Baum volumes.

The Oz books are wonderful and weird and wacky and so very different from the movie.  Or should I say movies?  No, let’s start with movie. The 1939 classic.

Greatest year of moviemaking, many say.  The Wizard of Oz. Gone with the Wind,  Dark Victory. Wuthering Heights. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Of Mice and Men.  So very many other great movies.

And the Wizard of Oz movie is also wonderful and weird and wacky. Just in a different way from the books.

Oz has been adapted so many ways.  The sequel books after Baum died, from many different authors. The movies. There have been quite a few.

Gregory Maguire’s wonderful Wicked, which tells the original Oz story from a very different point of view—that of the Wicked Witch of the West.  Or was she wicked? Maguire wrote a whole series of his alternate history of Oz.

And then Oz was visited again, the same story being told in yet another way. Wicked became a Broadway musical.  Not even the first Oz musical. That would be The Wiz. And Wicked the musical is also wonderful and weird and wacky in its very own way, which is different from the Maguire book, which is different from the Baum books.

The Baum books are now public domain, and all sorts of new books are being written that put their own spin on the Oz story. I’ve read a few.  Liked some a lot, some less than others.

 

Oz is one of those magic lands that just seems so real. It seems so real that we should be able to reach through the page and find ourselves there.

In my book, The Lost Princess of Story, Lilla loves books more than just about anything in her life. She is convinced she can hear her books calling, that the worlds of magic in the books are real and she can get there somehow.

Lilla does not know it, but she is right.

Oz still holds great magic, all these years later.

When was the last time you read one of the original books? You might be surprised what you find in the pages.

Give some of the newer retelling a try as well.  I am very fond of the Maguire, both the books and the musical.

 

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne