Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where writers from a wide variety of genres share excerpts from their work in snippets of ten sentences or less.

I’m so excited.  We might actually get a bit of winter here in Oregon. While the rest of the US has been gripped in the icy talons of the polar vortex, we’ve been watching the crocuses and dandelions begin to bloom. But this week, there was a dusting of snow! I had to wear a coat! Thrilling times here, let me tell you.

As it is in the world of Snow, my current work-in-progress. Prince Gabriel has returned home on the eve of The Hunter’s Moon, a celebration that carries dark memories for him.  Last week, Gabriel lied to Galvin Falkner, the king’s huntsman, telling him he didn’t remember him.  Note: the king is Gabriel’s brother.

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“Well, there was a mob of us,” Falkner said, looking away as if he suddenly remembered what the mob had gotten up to.

“If this is the king’s hunt, where is the king?”

“Back at Greenswale meadow, where the tents are set up for the festival of the Hunter’s Moon.”

Ah, yes, how could Gabriel have forgotten? The most tiresome day of the year. At Castle Craigmoor, where he’d spent the last several years, much less fuss was made over the celebration. Yes, the villagers offered piles of slain rabbits and pheasants to Astrid, the goddess of the hunt, and everyone drank too much, but at Castle Rosenthal, the slaying of a stag on the day before the Hunter’s Moon was considered an essential rite of passage for the nobility, one that Gabriel had never passed.

His mother the Queen had never cared nor pressed him on the matter, but his brother took it as a personal affront, a rejection of all that was manly, noble and respectable. The more his brother taunted him, the more Gabriel dug in his heels and refused to go along on the hunts at all.  The brothers—bonded by the early death of their father—grew quickly and irrevocably apart.

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Blurb-in-progress for Snow, a reimagined fairy tale:

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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Weekend Writing Warriors is a blog hop where writers from a wide variety of genres share from their work in excerpts of ten sentences or less.  Click the link to check out the other writers participating today.  It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book!