The Jilted Bride: My Dream Cast

I think it's pretty safe to say that most authors at some point during the writing and publishing process fantasize about who their dream cast would be if their latest literary baby was made into a movie. Well, after some musing, I came up with my dream cast for The Jilted Bride: A Footnote to Cinderella's Happiness and a new book I have in the works, Eirwen's Dream. This is all just wishful thinking, but it's fun to imagine these great actors bringing my characters to life. If you've never heard of these actors, I'd encourage you to check out some of their work. You'll see why I picked them. All photos are courtesy of IMDb.com.

Demetria

Alicia Vikander

Demetria is a woman whose whole life has revolved around becoming the perfect wife for a titled husband. Unfortunately, the man she thought would be the perfect husband (Prince Caspar) leaves her at the altar to marry Cinderella. After seeing Alicia's performances in Anna Karenina and Testament of Youth, I have no doubt that she could pull off this role.

Marianne

Saoirse Ronan

I first noticed Saoirse in Atonement, and she's continued to impress me as an actress in the years since. She would be perfect as the meek maid who becomes Demetria's unexpected confidant. 

Ric

Charlie Cox

This boyish actor stole a lot of hearts in Stardust (mine included) and impressed the masses even more in the TV show Daredevil. I'd love to see this rising star play the foreign servant who forms the other half of Demetria's new social circle.

Cinderella

Sophie Turner

With ethereal beauty and amazing acting chops, Sophie would make a lasting impression as the servant-turned princess whose happy ending turns Demetria's life upside down.  

Prince Caspar

Liam Hemsworth

This Hunger Games star has turned a lot of heads over the years. Even though he doesn't have the right hair color to play Caspar, he'd do an amazing job as the charming but thoughtless prince who leaves Demetria at the altar. All he'd need for his cameo is a little hair dye.

Eirwen's Dream

Now, I can't give away too much of the plot of Eirwen's Dream, but I can say that it's a new twist on Snow White. With that in mind here is my dream team for this reimagined fairytale.

Eirwen (Snow White)

Sarah Bolger

This Once Upon A Time actress has the look and the manner to play my take on Snow White, a princess in mourning who has to contend with her jealous stepmother in the midst of preparing for her wedding to Prince Roderick and her coronation. 

Nerys (The Evil Queen)

Jessica Chastain

Interstellar and Lawless actress Jessica Chasten would chill audiences to the bone as the wicked widow whose jealousy and anxiety awakens her inner darkness.

Roderick 

Domhnall Gleeson

Who didn't fall in love with this affable Irish actor after Anna Karenina and then want to slap the Dark Side out of him in Star Wars: The Force Awakens? Nobody. He has the skill and the fiery locks to play Eirwen's doting fiance.

Glyn/Lawen

Peter Dinklage

While my story doesn't have dwarves in the traditional sense, Nerys employed Glyn (in poor taste) as a jester during her time as queen. Eirwen also encounters his doppelgänger, Lawen, during her fantastical dream. This Game of Thrones and Penelope actor would definitely up the ante in the cast with his wit and finesse.

After the Glass Slipper: The Inspiration for The Jilted Bride

I've always loved fairy tales, and I think our culture is equally fascinated by stories of true love's kiss, glass slippers, and strange creatures. One common thread throughout many of these famous stories is magic. All you have to do is look at the box office over the past several years. With movies like Disney's Maleficent and the live action Cinderella and shows such as Once Upon A Time, we get to watch as fairy godmothers, evil queens, and more wield amazing power that can either create or solve issues for the protagonists, but what would happen if there wasn't any magic? What if the characters in the stories we all grew up with were bound by the same rules and restrictions that we deal with? What if their happy endings created more problems than they solved?

This is why inspiration struck after seeing the classic movie The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella on television several times earlier this year. At the end of the movie, Cinderella (Gemma Craven) interrupts Prince Edward's (Richard Chamberlain's) wedding to another woman and they wind up married instead. Thankfully, the fairy godmother ensures that Edward's fiancee and his cousin fall in love, so everyone lives happily ever after. However, I started to wonder what would have happened without the fairy godmother's supernatural intervention.

That's where The Jilted Bride came from.

Demetria (left) and Cinderella.

In my new book, the charming Prince Caspar leaves Demetria at the altar to marry Cinderella. With no magic to make sure everything is wrapped up in a pretty little bow, the duke's daughter has to deal with the aftermath of two legendary lovers' happy ending the old fashioned way. Demetria is understandably mistrustful of men and her parents as well for failing to choose a good husband for her, and she befriends a maid in the castle as she seeks to understand why the heir to the Aspasian throne would choose a servant over her. The jilted bride also has to contend with an unwanted suitor from a foreign land while struggling with her own disenchantment about men.

Cinderella's happily ever becomes Demetria's once upon a time, and the heartbroken heroine grows through her pain one page at a time as she finds new meaning and a new identity in a life that she had solely lived to find and please a husband of noble birth. While a fairy godmother's intervention would have saved the duke's daughter a world of pain, she also would have missed out on a great friendship and life lessons that magic can never teach.

For more information and updates about the upcoming release of The Jilted Bride, like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thejiltedbride/.

Preview and Preorder The Valley of Eternity

The third book in The Alazne Series, The Valley of Eternity, is now available for preorder! Click the link below to reserve your copy and check out the preview below for a first look at the new book.

Preorder Now ►

The Valley of Eternity and The Tower of London

I'm taking a break from my usual life in Dallas to visit London, England, and I spent part of today at the Tower of London. This was really exciting for me because the kingdom of Hesta in The Alazne Series is based on England during King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I's reigns. In fact, Alazne's coronation in The Kings' Council is based on the coronations done in England.

The best part of going to the Tower of London was seeing King Henry VIII's armor. If you look at the composite below of Alazne on the cover of The Valley of Eternity (out this Fall) and Henry VIII's armor, you'll see several similarities. Pretty cool, huh?

Hamlet + Dallas = ?

Before I published my first book, I wrote a screenplay called The Dahl Dynasty. This feature length screenplay was based on Hamlet, which is one of my favorite plays by William Shakespeare. In my modernized, Dallas-based rendition of The Bard's classic piece, Hamilton Dahl IV is mourning the loss of his father, who he believes was killed by a black widow's fatal bite until he's visited by his late father's ghost. Hamilton learns that his uncle, Claude, poisoned his father to take control of the family company through his grieving mother, Trudy, and vows to avenge him.

Now, The Dahl Dynasty is out on DVD! The movie even features music by Sparks the Rescue, Holly Heist, and Lisa D'Amato (winner of America's Next Top Model All Stars).

Buy The Dahl Dynasty on CreateSpace.
Buy The Dahl Dynasty on Amazon.
Visit The Dahl Dynasty official website.
Like The Dahl Dynasty on Facebook.
Visit The Dahl Dynasty IMDb page.

Cast
Hamilton Dahl IV - Jon Christie
Claude Dahl - Tim Newkirk
Olivia Alderliesten - Olivia Stem
Trudy Dahl - Kara Rainer
Hugh Van Horn - Tylor West

Crew
Executive Producer & Screenwriter - Kristen Reed
Producer & Director - Bryan Quinn
Director of Photography - Eric Chisholm

When Worlds Collide: A Makeup Look Inspired by The Alazne Series

Even though writing is my first love, another art I enjoy is dabbling in is makeup. I even did a skeleton look for a friend's Halloween costume this year. When I was asked to write a guest blog for Fang-Tastic Books in honor of The Prophets' Guild, I decided to use my loves of writing and fantasy to create fun makeup looks inspired by my characters. Below is a fiery look inspired by Alazne herself.

The Prophets' Guild Extended Preview

The Prophets' Guild (The Alazne Series #2) will be released on November 20, 2014 and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle, but here is an extended preview!

Garaile was due to arrive with a group of armed knights and guards as his escorts, so when a solitary knight approached the castle on horseback, I knew something was terribly amiss. The carmine-haired knight, Sir Ion, had accompanied Garaile to Euria, and seeing the blood dripping from his usually immaculate armor made my anxiety rise.

“Give me your sword and make sure the doctor examines Ion,” I ordered the guard beside me.

As soon as I held the obedient protector’s weapon in my hands, I ran to meet Sir Ion, whose handsome bronze face was twisted in pain.

“What happened,” I asked once he entered hearing range.

“We were ambushed just up the road,” the young knight revealed as he clumsily dismounted. “A group of—”

Instead of waiting for the rest of Ion’s explanation, I quickly mounted his horse and directed the uninjured steed down the road to the ambush site, begging the gods to watch over the man I adored with each passing second.

♦             ♦             ♦

As I approached the impromptu battlefield minutes later, the sounds of the mêlée began to reach my ears. The cacophony of steel hitting steel, flesh meeting flesh, and men screaming in primal rage or wailing in desperation echoed throughout in the forest and I prayed that my men had the upper hand. The instant I laid eyes on Garaile, who stood knee deep in a nearby pond fighting two bald fey, I dismounted and ran to his aid.

The closer I drew to the unsettlingly familiar pond, the more the air surrounding me changed. The atmosphere felt oppressively heavy and the water I waded through became increasingly thick until its texture rivaled the consistency of mud. By the time the water reached my knees, I could no longer lift my feet. I quickly realized the severity of my predicament and silently cursed my rash decision to join the fray without enlisting help and analyzing the situation at hand. When I raised my hand to use my powers on one of Garaile’s attackers, no flames leapt forth and dread washed over me as I watched smoke pour from my palms.

What in Hesta’s name is happening?

“Alazne!”

I redirected my attention to Garaile and followed his azure glare to my left, where I caught sight of an odious bald assailant rapidly approaching me. I lifted my sword to strike my opponent, but I couldn’t lower my blade from its raised position. The weapon had been rendered completely immobile by the unnaturally dense air, so my frantic efforts to move it were futile. When I attempted to release the sword so I could engage in hand-to-hand combat, I realized my hands had become irreversibly fastened to my maddeningly stationary blade’s hilt.

“Someone help me,” I yelled, struggling not to surrender to the panic that seized me.

Alas, the few Hestian combatants who were able to peel away from their fights and come to my aid were also rendered motionless the moment their feet met the water. Even Garaile, who had been surrounded by four hairless foes, was similarly immobilized mid-lunge. Is this how our lives are going to end, I wondered while the cleanly shaven assailant closed the distance between us. Are Garaile and I to be cut down in the prime of our lives without even having the chance to say goodbye?

When the attacker reached me, he pulled a knife from his pocket and I briefly changed my focus to Garaile, who was desperately attempting to shake his own invisible restraints. Then, as my enemy’s lustrous blade moved in my direction, I closed my eyes and braced myself for the seemingly inevitable pain would surely ensue. However, instead of feeling his knife plunge into my chest or slice across my throat, I winced in pain as the bald fey used the blade to open a shallow cut on my upper thigh.

I opened my eyes and glared at the man in puzzlement, but my attention shifted away from him as my pulse quickened and a burning sensation radiated from the wound. Turning my gaze downward, I watched my blood soak through my dress, causing the fabric to smoke and catch on fire as it ran down my leg and soiled my dress. When my blood and the fire it fueled touched the pond’s still waters, a searing, icy sting shot up my injured leg to the freshly-dealt wound and then permeated every inch of my body. The excruciating sensation completely devastated me and cast out all of the confusion, fear, and anger I felt by replacing it with pure agony. As my pain overrode all of my senses, an anguished cry poured from my lips and I abandoned the sunlit Hestian woodland in favor of oblivion.