How Many Days Till Christmas?

According to the sudden overcrowding of my email inbox, today is the last day to buy online with assured delivery before Christmas. Or so at least twelve different emails told me this morning. Then there were a few more that sported digital gifts and the "It's never too late for a digital gift" slogan. 'Tis the season.

But what I want to mention today is another beautiful Christmas surprise. This week, World Weaver Press released their first novella, Opal, a gorgeous, lyrical retwisting of the Snow White tale by Kristina Wojtaszek, which both fairy tale lovers and YA fantasy readers will find reason to enjoy.

Writer's Digest editor Zachary Petit called it:

“A fairy tale within a fairy tale within a fairy tale — the narratives fit together like interlocking pieces of a puzzle, beautifully told.”

This is a tale that reaches from the frozen tundra, to the snow filled woods, thick and deep with the secrets of the shape-shifting Fae, back to the world of men. It's the journey of the daughter of an owl, a girl who is the key to unlocking the prison that holds a king. It's the perfect, quick, winter read.

The moment I started reading the first few pages, I was put in mind of the fairy tale novels of Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley.

White as snow, stained with blood, her talons black as ebony… In this retwisting of the classic Snow White tale, the daughter of an owl is forced into human shape by a wizard who’s come to guide her from her wintry tundra home down to the colorful world of men and Fae, and the father she’s never known. She struggles with her human shape and grieves for her dead mother — a mother whose past she must unravel if men and Fae are to live peacefully together.

It's out now as an ebook for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. And a paperback from Amazon ... which they're quick to assure everyone you can still have delivered by Christmas.