Hiya #PitchWars!

THE GLASS QUEEN’S CURSE is an Adult, Contemporary (Portal) Fantasy.

It’s like ONCE UPON A TIME, meets the darkness and who can I trust vibes of the FEVER series by Karen Marie Moning.

As you can see in the above aesthetic, we’ve got blood magic, Mel looking dashing in the water, some anarchy, a badass melusine queen, daggers, and yes, glass slippers.

Mel, short for Melaina, spreads joy through lattes at her coffee shop in Colorado and dreams of a day when her abusive ex-boyfriend will no longer haunt her memories.

Then this guy, Charles Glasstone, buys up the shopping strip where her coffee shop is. She investigates, but he claims they’re married and wants Mel to come back home.

But “home” is a fairytale land called Vilara. Mel tells Charles and his insane ideas to get lost, but the controlling king won’t be deterred. As Mel comes to learn:

In Vilara happily ever afters only come from brokered love spells with the Fair Folk. 

And Mel used to be a victim of the spell—she was King Charles’ love-cursed queen and he wants her back.

When he kidnaps Mel’s best friend, she learns blood magic to fight her way back to Vilara to rescue her best friend and other love-cursed women. But being so close to magic means it’ll be easier for Mel to fall back under the abusive spell and lose her free will.

What happens next includes…

Missing children,

Blood Magic,

A sexy melusine named Morgan,

Sprite villages,

Death Magic,

Glass slippers,

The Cullinan II Diamond,

And an unhealthy dose of anarchy.

To sum it up, THE GLASS QUEEN’S CURSE is really a story of magic and a woman’s quest to rise above a history of control and abuse.

Themes:

My novel includes friendship, betrayal, domestic violence, abusive relationships, empowerment, self-reliance, magic, magic creatures, and a hint of (healthy) romance.

I do not romanticize abuse. And if anything, the experience of writing this novel has made me HYPER aware of real life warning signs of controlling tendencies in relationships.

Random novel fun fact: I finished the first draft of this novel on a train from London to Glasgow. 

About me: 

This will be my second time entering #PitchWars. I’ve also completed NaNoWriMo 4 times now, counting Camp Nano.

When I’m not writing, I’m a high school French teacher and yoga instructor! I also enjoy weightlifting, tarot cards, and all the weird esoteric stuff you can find #bookresearch amiright?

(Tell me all about your past life regression, chakras, energy healing, lucid dreaming, I LOVE IT ALL)

Thus far, I’ve lived in Texas, Paris (France) and in a teeny town in the Loire Valley of France. So if you need technical help in your own novels with any of the above please reach out, I’d love to help. Or also if you need French wine recommendations.

My favorite books include… (I always want to cry when I get to this list there are so many good books)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Jade City by Fonda Lee

The Night Huntress Series by Jeaniene Frost

The Cassandra Palmer Series by Karen Chance

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

And the one non-fiction book that’s most changed my life:

Happy Yoga by Steve Ross

 

Good luck to everyone! I love talking with people from writing twitter and I love love to talk about my writing so never hesitate to reach out ❤

Follow me on twitter here!

Oh and please ignore the rest of this WordPress site, I JUST started it so there’s nothing.

<3,

Emily