A themed book tour through Prism Book Tours.
We're launching the BOOK TOUR forThe Cinderella TheoremBy Kristee Ravan
Come read along on our rather logical fairy tale journey!
Also, make sure you don't miss reading the excerpt below!!August Dates:
11 - Launch
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15
17
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19
20
21
22
24 - Grand Finale
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The Cinderella Theorem
(The Lily Sparrow Chronicles #1)by Kristee Ravan
YA Urban Fantasy
Paperback, 367 pages
March 17th 2014
Fairy tales are naturally non-mathematical. That is a fact, and fifteen-year-old Lily Sparrow loves factual, mathematical logic. So when her mother confesses that Lily’s deceased father is (a) not dead, (b) coming to dinner, and (c) the ruler of a fairy tale kingdom accessible through the upstairs bathtub, Lily clings to her math to help her make sense of this new double life (1 life in the real world + 1 secret life in the fairy tale world = a double life).
Even though it’s not mathematical, Lily finds herself being pulled into a mystery involving an unhappy Cinderella, a greasy sycophant called Levi, and a slew of vanishing fairy tale characters. Racing against the clock, with a sound mathematical plan, Lily attempts to save her fairy tale friends while proving that normality = happiness.
Excerpt
Mom smiled at me. “How was school?”
“Not enough math.” I munched a pretzel. “What time are we going out tonight?”
“Going out?” Mom’s voice was quieter, distracted. She was sinking back into her novel.
“For dinner? For my birthday?”
Eyes fixed on her computer screen, she answered, “No. Matt is bringing dinner.”
“Matt? Matt who?” I quickly ran a mental index of my mother’s friends, acquaintances, and contacts for a Matt.
Mom gasped, covered her mouth with her hand, and mumbled,“Oh! It was supposed to be a surprise! What am I—”
“Mom!” I grabbed her shoulders, crushing a pretzel in my palm. “Stop. Who is Matt? Explain logically.”
She nodded. “Okay. Let’s sit down.” She led the way to the living room, and sat beside me on the couch, patting me on the back. “The thing is, Lily, I don’t want to explain too much without your father. He—”
“Wait. What?” I interrupted. “My father?”
“Oh! Fiddlesticks! I did it again! Matt’s going to kill me. I do fine for fifteen years and blow it on the last day. Why am I—”
“Mom!”“Right. Well,” she took a breath. “To begin, I should say that your father is not dead.”
“But, he is dead. You told me that he died–that the train he was on hit a cow.”[i]
“No, Sweetie.” She patted my knee. “He’s not dead. He is alive and he’s coming to dinner.”
“I don’t understand. The train wrecked, the cow died, Dad died. You showed me the news story.”
Mom sighed. (Why is she sighing? Did she think that I would automatically understand? Did I miss the Lily, your dad is not dead memo?) “There was a train wreck, a cow did die. And it was on the news. But your father was not on the train.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. Where was he?”
“He wants to explain all this to you, and he should be the one to do it. Can we just leave it at: he’s not dead, and he’s coming to dinner tonight?”
“Why did you tell me he was dead?”
“It was safer for everyone if you thought that. But, Lily, your father can explain this a lot better than me.” She stood up. “Now, I need to work on getting the prince to fall in love with the princess, and you should probably get your homework done before dinner. I’m sure you’re going to have a lot to talk about with your dad.” She turned to go back to the office.
Are you kidding me? That’s the end of the conversation?
[i] If I seem a little slow to understand what my mom is telling me, keep in mind that fifteen years of believing my dad is dead is greater than 3 minutes of hearinghe is alive. (15 > 3.)
Kristee Ravan lives in Oklahoma with her husband, daughter, and pet fish, Val (short for Valentine). She wanted to be many things as she grew up including a general, an artist, and an architect. But she never bothered to say, "I want to be a writer when I grow up." She was always writing stories and thought of herself as a writer anyway. She sent her first story to a publisher in the sixth grade. (It was rejected - in a nice way.) When she is not making up stories in her head, she enjoys reading, juggling, green smoothies, playing dollhouse with her daughter, and hearing from her fans. You can contact Kristee at the facebook page for her Lily Sparrow books: The Lily Sparrow Chronicles.
Confession: I love to write Levi, the evil villain in The Cinderella Theorem. He’s to develop, he makes Lily (and everyone else) squirm and lose their cool, plus he’s greasy. Let’s explore the qualities that make up a good bad guy.Anatomy of a Good Bad Guy
A good bad guy has to have the right look. Think about it. Dark clothing, brooding eyes, a rare smile, and in Levi’s case: grease. Levi’s evil greasiness was originally inspired by the leather pants Keanu Reeves wore in Much Ado About Nothing. They just looked greasy to me, especially in that massage scene. I loved that Don Juan (Keanu’s character) was a self-proclaimed “plain-dealing villain.”
To me that meant he’s just bad because he likes to be bad. No fuss. No muss. Just let’s be evil for evil’s sake. And that’s how Levi started out for me. He just liked to cause trouble. But, as I wrote more of him, he surprised me by having a very interesting back story. Even the reason he’s so greasy became an important part of his history.
Which is another thing a good bad guy should have. I bet Don Juan had some jealousy issues about his brother, Don Pedro (Denzel Washington’s character). Maybe Don Pedro was always smarter, faster, or better. Maybe Don Juan just feels second class as the illegitimate son. But there should be something that causes the villain to be bad. My world was rocked when I figured out Levi’s something. (It’s so good! I can’t wait ‘til you all can know it. Part of it is revealed in The Cinderella Theorem and the rest of it will leak out in future books.)
A good bad guy should also be cool, obviously, to have audience appeal. But also, he should never appear ruffled. He should always be in control and always several steps ahead of you. You want the main character to really have to work to defeat the bad guy, like Sherlock and Moriarty. Levi is excellent at this. He’s several steps ahead of Lily the whole time and in every encounter they have, he never appears ruffled, worried, or less than in control.
There should also be hope for redemption for a good bad guy. Even if it’s a far off glimmer, there should be a way that the bad guy could come back to the good side, a way for him to leave his darkness behind. My favorite example of this is Guy of Gisbourne from the BBC series, Robin Hood. His love of Marian is his way of redemption. If he could just have her, he would be on the straight and narrow. Whether or not Levi will be redeemed remains to be seen. So far, he has not revealed (to the readers) his glimmer of hope.
Tour-Wide Giveaway
5 copies of The Cinderella Theorem (print for US winners, ebook for international winners)
Ends August 31st
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