Today I'm featuring a promo spotlight on David Meredith's The Reflections of Queen Snow White, an adult fairytale retelling. Find the complete promo info in this post alongside an excerpt.
The Reflections of Queen Snow White
David Meredith
What happens when "happily ever after" has come and gone?
On the eve of her only daughter, Princess Raven's wedding, an aging Snow White finds it impossible to share in the joyous spirit of the occasion. The ceremony itself promises to be the most glamorous social event of the decade. Snow White’s castle has been meticulously scrubbed, polished and opulently decorated for the celebration. It is already nearly bursting with jubilant guests and merry well-wishers. Prince Edel, Raven's fiancé, is a fine man from a neighboring kingdom and Snow White's own domain is prosperous and at peace. Things could not be better, in fact, except for one thing:
The king is dead.
The queen has been in a moribund state of hopeless depression for over a year with no end in sight. It is only when, in a fit of bitter despair, she seeks solitude in the vastness of her own sprawling castle and climbs a long disused and forgotten tower stair that she comes face to face with herself in the very same magic mirror used by her stepmother of old.
It promises her respite in its shimmering depths, but can Snow White trust a device that was so precious to a woman who sought to cause her such irreparable harm? Can she confront the demons of her own difficult past to discover a better future for herself and her family? And finally, can she release her soul-crushing grief and suffocating loneliness to once again discover what "happily ever after" really means?
Only time will tell as she wrestles with her past and is forced to confront The Reflections of Queen Snow White.
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An Excerpt from The Reflections of Queen Snow White:
With a shrill keen the two young hawks soared over snow-capped peaks, reveling in the newly come spring. The day was crisp and clear and even the dullest of their race would have been able to see for dozens and dozens of miles in every direction. The world spread out beneath them in helpless submission and their proud shadows ghosted across the vastness of their dominion; first over the rocky crags, then the greening slopes of the cool, grassy foothills and finally the muddy fields of the fertile bottom lands, which would soon be tilled and planted anew with wheat, hops, and barley. Together they wheeled and dove and swooped then climbed once more to do it again, rapturously sailing a sea of air a thousand feet above the dwellings of mortal men.
Lord and Lady of the sky they were, their majestic cries echoing through the clouds as they flew. Magnificent they had been separately, flying high and solitary against the azure sky, hunting for prey with sharp eyes unblinking and then with exultant cries, plummeting to Earth like deadly meteors. Together however, they were something more, so much more.
The aerial dance of the two lordly birds was joyous, triumphant. It exhibited an effervescence of being that could only come from the supreme contentment they found in doing just exactly what nature had wilt them. It would have been regarded as a beauty and a marvel, by anyone able to see it.
Sadly however, no one did.
It was not because it was a secret thing. In fact, the two mighty raptors vaunted their greatness all over the sky! They announced their approach with resonating shrieks that echoed through the upland hillocks and hummocks grandly proclaiming “Here we are! Gaze upon our majesty if you dare!” but the mortals below were simply too distracted by the hum drum comings and goings of their own mundane existence to notice. Had they but lifted their eyes just a little, their very souls would have been uplifted.
Still, the lack of an audience did not diminish their performance. Their swooping flight was not for show. The two mighty hawks whirled and soared to edify themselves. Their peerless dance was for each other and ever would be, for when a hawk takes a mate, it is for life.
On this magnificent day, high above the world, witnessed only by the sun, the clouds, and the cerulean sky they celebrated the consummation of their union. Today they had begun the lofty reel that they would continue all of the days of their life together. Together they would face the hazards and travails of these harsh lands. Together they would protect the vast territory they claimed just as they would also guard their young and each other. Together, just like today, whenever the chance might come,they would thrill again to the simple joy that they found in each other’s company as they cavorted high above the land, wild and free.
From their lofty perspective in their revelrous marriage dance they could see, though they certainly did not understand what it was, preparations for a wedding ceremony that would be, if perhaps not quite as vigorous as their own, competing with them for magnificence. Below them sat a great fortress of men, which had been built long ago, high upon a jagged cliff. It was accessible only from one side through the single tall gate that breached the towering walls. Its spiring towers stretched skyward as if yearning for the heights that were so comfortable to the feathery king and his lady. Each minaret was hung with banners and flowers, white silks and ribbons. Every inch had been scrubbed to a brilliant sheen in anticipation of the joyous celebration to come.
The grounds were a hive of activity. Frantic workers and gaily clad nobles rushed this way and that on their urgent ways and a great multitude of artisans and merchants streamed in and out of the gate like a never-ending work line of ants. Every inch of the castle seemed busy and eager. Every corner seemed to resonate with laughter and fair speech… Except, perhaps, for one.
About the Author:
David Meredith is an up and coming American author and veteran educator working out of the Nashville area. Before returning to Tennessee in 2010, he spent nearly a decade teaching English in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan.
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(Note: I received the above promo info from the author himself. ~Punya)
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