Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where writers from a wide variety of genres share from their work in excerpts of ten sentences or less. I hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a good one, and those of you who don’t, I hope you had a very nice Thursday!

I’m sharing from my current work-in-progress, a reimagined fairy tale inspired by the story of Snow White. In my world, Snow is a prince, the Huntsman is hot, but possibly evil, and dwarves are not cuddly, rosie-cheeked fellows named Happy. My first stab at a blurb is included below.

In chapter one, Prince Gabriel is returning home after a long absence. He’s traveling with his manservant, Webster, who’s having an altercation with a bee while Gabriel muses on his imminent homecoming. You can read last week’s snippet here.

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He supposed, once Webster was flung into the swirling mire of schemes and whispers that filled Castle Rosenthal’s corridors, this man too would draw away from him and regard him with suspicion, his manners poisoned by the slight veneer of contempt Rosenthal servants regularly got away with. How long before he started to call Gabriel “Snow” behind his back?

But he was a servant, so Gabriel shouldn’t care. Only, it had been pleasant to simply be master and servant for this brief journey.

“Is something the matter, your grace? Have I done something wrong—Ow!” Webster slapped his neck. “It bit me! The vicious little beastie!”

“No, Webster, I was thinking of something else.”

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Into the swirling mire of Castle Rosenthal

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Following the death of his mother the Queen, Prince Gabriel is called home by his brother, now King. Gabriel hopes for a reconciliation with his estranged brother, but all is not well at Castle Rosenthal. King Tristan has fallen under the sway of a scheming alchemist, the magical denizens of the bordering Black Forest are on the move, and Gabriel begins to fear for his life. Is the handsome huntsman in on a plot to assassinate him, or is there an even darker, more evil force afoot? A forced flight into the Black Forest may expose ancient powers at work, if only Gabriel can survive long enough to uncover them.

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