Woodencloak: Author Guest Post + Giveaway

 

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Woodencloak by Dawn Ford, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!

About the Book

Title: Woodencloak 

Series: Band of Unlikely Heroes #1 

Author: Dawn Ford 

Publisher: Scrivenings Press 

Release Date: February 7, 2023 

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Thirteen-year-old troll princess Horra Fyd’s life changes forever after an unexpected visit from the fairy queen and her two daughters. Tales of fairies gave Horra nightmares as a young troll. Before evening falls, however, a real nightmare unfolds. Horra’s father, King Fyd, goes missing. Her woodgoblin instructor is poisoned and uses his magic to revert to a seed. And a mysterious, gaunt man wearing a cape and playing a panflute joins the fairies in trying to capture her.

Horra flees but is instantly lost in a world she’s never had to travel alone. A letter hidden in her knapsack from her late instructor informs her that a power hungry Erlking seeks revenge against her kingdom and their allies for a two-generation old war. She is tasked with getting his seed to the Weald, a magical forest. There it can regenerate into a druid, the only creature with the power to hold the balance between good and evil, and who is able to defeat the Erlking. 

However, the Erlking is always one step behind her.  Horra must fight to protect herself, but she has no magic. She accepts a gift from a dead druid spirit of a charmed woodencloak to disguise her. But magic failed her mother, how can she possibly trust it? 

Can Horra have faith and courage enough to trust a power she can’t see, and become a warrior heroine her foremothers can be proud of? Or will she allow fear to rule over her and lose everything that matters—including her life?

PURCHASE LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | BookDepository | IndieBound | BookBub

Also Available

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About the Author

Dawn Ford lives in a small town nestled among the Loess Hills in Western Iowa with her husband and Snickers, the Wonder Beagle. Dawn’s love for stories came naturally to her as a child who was lucky enough to be able to explore the Iowa pastures and countryside in search of adventure.

Dawn adores anything steampunk, is mesmerized by shiny, pretty things, loves purses, shoes, and needs at least one good, strong cup of coffee a day to wake up. Dawn’s novel, The Girl With Stars In Her Eyes, won the 2016 ACFW Genesis Award under the title, Kingdom Come. Her flash fiction stories have been featured in Havok, an online magazine. 

Connect with Dawn by visiting dawnfordauthor.com to follow her on social media or subscribe to email newsletter updates.

Author Guest Post

The Story Behind the Story 

Years ago while working at an insurance company in the mail room, I came across a letter with the last name of Fied on it. The name intrigued me. Being a big Addams Family fan, I imagined all kinds of fun names in the Fied family: Hora Fied, Petra Fied, Morta Fied, Tera Fied, and so on. But I wasn’t a writer yet. These names were just fodder I left in the back of my mind. 

Fast forward a dozen years later and I’m working with Splickety Publishing Group, a group of flash fiction magazines. The owner, Ben Wolf, challenged me to write a flash fiction story from a sentence in a manuscript he was editing for me. I mentioned a library of the undead in a funeral scene which stuck out to him. I took him up on that challenge and recalled that name I’d seen on the insurance correspondence years before. I created a character based one of the many versions I’d played with in my mind: Bona Fied.  

It was about a troll girl with two fairy half-sisters in a Cinderella’esque piece. The step-sisters had placed a spell on Bona to turn her ugly, thick troll hide paper thin so she’d be more beautiful like them. Bona, believing herself perfect with her thick hide and warts, flees to the library of the undead to find a counterspell. Before she can finish the concoction however, the fairies show up, sneak something into the mix, and when the reversal happens, it turns her back to a live girl. But not a troll girl—a lovely fairy girl. She became a Bona Fied Beauty—a fate worse than death itself to Bona. It took me less than two hours to write, and it was like the Fied name had finally found a home.  

I sent it in to the Havok magazine team to see what feedback they would give me and was surprised when the lead editor loved the piece so much, she had it published in Havok’s Halloween edition. That became my first published work. I was so proud! 

After that, I liked the characters so much I took the main character, made some changes such as her name: Bona to Horra, and created a unique storyworld around her. She and the fairies changed to princesses, but I kept the part where Horra was very proud of her green hide and warts, my favorite part of her personality. The fairies then become the catalyst in Horra’s story when they overtake her castle, ousting Horra from her kingdom. She’s running for her life, and the life of the unplanted seed which she has to get to the magical forest so it can grow into a special druid woodgoblin.  

And thus starts our adventure with Horra as she has to traverse a kingdom she knows on paper, but not so much in real life. Like the seed she has to get to the forest, the seed of a name was the beginning of Horra’s life. You never know what will stick with you and what path it will take to become something special.  

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Tour Giveaway

(3) winners will receive a signed paperback copy of Woodencloak!

Full tour schedule linked below. The giveaway begins at midnight March 13, 2023 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on March 20, 2023. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.

Giveaway is subject to JustRead Publicity Tours Giveaway Policies.

Enter Giveaway

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Follow along at JustRead Tours for a full list of stops!