Fairest Tale of All

With my best palace herald voice...I am pleased to announce the arrival of my completely silly, crazy, fun, and humorous novel Once Upon a Heist.

This is a lighthearted mash-up of beloved fairy tale characters, twisting all their classic moments into diversions. While one princess is being rescued by her prince, her friends are stealing his jewels! As a friend told me, it's like Ocean's Eleven meets the Disney princesses. With a little Princess Bride thrown in the mix.

Instead of using the traditional names, I changed things up a bit. I've assigned names to all the princes, too. As I've written in the past, I enjoy using names that mean something, rather than ones that just sound good.

Emberly (Cinderella) is the word "ember" with "ly" attached.
Gwyn (Snow White) is Welsh for "white."
Crimson (Little Red Riding Hood) is a shade of red.
Aisling (Sleeping Beauty) is French for "dream."
Tressa (Rapunzel) is a derivative of the word "tresses."
Leila (Beauty and the Beast) is a name meaning "night beauty."

The princes are:
Chalmus is a name meaning "prince."
Magnus is Latin for "noble."
Vilkas is Lithuanian for "wolf."
Zavus is Lithuanian for "enchanting."
Emir is a name meaning "prince."
Zariel is a name meaning "prince."
Regalis is Latin for "royal."

Even my villains' names have meaning.
Venefica is Latin for "witch."
Noverca is Latin for "stepmother."

I broke a lot of writing rules with this novel, mostly because I wanted to. I wanted you, the reader, to get that narrator feel, while still indulging in a bit of the closeness of deep point of view. I also aimed for more humorous moments. (Honestly, I laughed quite often while writing this one. It was fun!)

As you're reading, look for some of those well-known lines from the fairy tales. And throughout the story, I wove in all seven names of Disney's Dwarfs. Try to find them!

I'd love to hear what you think of this book. It's very much outside my box, but I really enjoyed writing it. If you're up for writing a review, please do so. If not, shoot me an email. I treasure the feedback!

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