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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Royally Beswitched Blog Tour: Review&Guest Post with Molly Snow

Author: Snow, Molly
Title: Royally Beswitched
Publisher:Breezy Reads
Publication: June 10, 2012
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy, Paranormal
Audience: 12 and up
Rating: 4.5 out 5
Source: Author/Blog Tour
Purchase: Amazon 

My Thoughts:
 I certainly wasn't expecting some of the things that happened in this one, so I was in for an interesting surprise. Snow has once again combined humor, wit and romance so effortlessly that as a reader, it's hard not to love the characters and the story which she has created. We meet up with Surla and Jax after they have been banished by his father back in time to the year 1730 and they find themselves with the task of getting Prince Nicholas to fall in love with the maid, Noella. This particular switching is different from the other two as it's not so much about the switching but the mystery surrounding the Morreau family. I was intrigued by how the events unfolded and perplexed by a genealogical aspect that I will not tell you about because of it's importance to the story. Now, in the previous books Surla doesn't see what all the fuss is about being human and can't wait to get back in her cat skin but her feelings for Jax are complication and she finds herself having very human feelings of jealousy, envy and longing. The story is an easy read and the characters are lovable and realistic, even the crazy witch Idis. In essence this is a good read about love and family.



For those aspiring writers, Molly is sharing her Three tips to Writing Juicy Secrets:
1.) Outline in advance.
Before ever writing a story, I outline main events. This keeps me focused and the plot stays strong. Of course, I may deviate a bit from the plan, but overall it stays the same. With outlining in advance, surprises at the end will make more sense; I’ve laid the foundation and prepared the reader.
2.) Foreshadowing.
Giving hints at what may come in subtle ways is great. The key to making sure secrets stay secrets is to not give away too much. The author needs to be in charge of the grand revelation. The clues will be just enough so that when they are hit with the surprise, they will recall different points in the story that makes them think, “Oh yeah…”
3.) Make it juicy.
Okay, so that’s redundant to the title of this post, but the secrets can’t just be “blah.” Really do make them juicy; there’s no sense in keeping a secret that doesn’t “wow.” With my stories I like to have fun with the climaxes. I want the turning points and revelations to be exaggerated as much as possible within the realms of believability. We can learn a lot from soap operas :)

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