Welcome Selena Kitt!

I'm thrilled to welcome today's guest of honour, erotic romance author Selena Kitt - no stranger to retold fairytales! Welcome Selena!

In Search of Happily Ever After by Selena Kitt

Why do fairy tales stand the test of time? There are hundreds—thousands, perhaps millions!—of stories that have been told and forgotten throughout the years. So why is it that stories like Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Little Pigs have survived, not just in our literature, but in our psyches? These are tales that have been immortalized, passed down like heirlooms to new generations, again and again. Disney, of course, is our modern vehicle, re-telling tales like SleepingBeauty or Cinderella in full color, animated form.

But fairy tales don’t just appeal to children. In fact, there was a time when the intended audience for fairy tales was quite adult. Disney has cleaned up their versions for a younger audience, taking out the violence and the sex, but those themes have existed in our fairy tales for far longer than they’ve been sanitized. These are themes that go to the core of our being, that we wrestle with daily, that touch the deepest aspects of our lives. We keep our children “young” far longer today than we ever have before, attempting to shelter them from the harsh realities depicted so often in those long-ago fairy tales. We prefer our children to stay innocent because we adults know the extent to which our modern world can corrupt.

But fairy tales are coming finally into their own in today’s world. Recent retellings—Alice in Wonderland, Beastly, Mirror-Mirror—have brought fairy tales to the forefront. Some have even turned fairy tales on their head, telling them from the villains’ side, as in Wicked or the upcoming Malificent. Even television has gotten into the act with series like Once Upon a Time and Grimm. Fairy tales are morphing, changing before our very eyes, adapting to the modern world in which we live.

The time has come for the fairy tale, for their telling to circle back to their original audience—the time has come for the grown-up fairy tale.

The days of princesses waiting in their castles for their rescuing prince are over—but our search for our happily ever after is not. The basics never change, and the universal themes of fairy tales always come through. That’s what appeals to me as a writer. Injustice, corruption, fear, hatred, greed—they never change. But goodness, kindness, generosity, ethics and love—those never change either. Fairy tales are stories of good vs. evil, indifference vs. love, and in the end, we are always searching for one to conquer the other. And we all know which should win out in the end. We all know, even if the world doesn’t always give us what we want—fairy tales will.

In the modern versions of fairy tales I’ve attempted to re-tell so far—including Gretel, Red, Beauty, Goldilocks, Briar Rose, Rapunzel, Alice and Wendy—the focus in each is on our modern heroine, not a princess locked in a castle, not willing to passively wait for her rescue—but still longing, as always, for her happily ever after. Villains no longer come in the form of dragons or trolls. The enemies we fight in the modern world are less visible, but are just as difficult to vanquish—things like cancer and betrayal by the ones we love most. These are modern fairy tales that take place in the modern world, and they have modern characters, situations, and consequences, but they re-tell familiar tales with universal themes.  

Today I am offering my latest re-told modern fairy tale to one lucky winner—Bluebeard—which is the first of a new volume in the Modern Wicked Fairy Tales series that will focus on the masculine rather that the feminine, and which will include Bluebeard, Pinocchio, Aladdin, Pied Piper, Rumpelstiltskin, Peter and the Wolf, The Frog Prince and Jack and the Beanstalk. Look for these new releases in 2013!

For now you can read ALL of the collected fairy tales (aside from Bluebeard) in Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: The Complete Collection. And if you are a lover of fairy tales and would like to read my modern take on Bluebeard, leave a comment below telling me what it is that appeals you about fairy tales. I will choose one lucky winner!

Just a word of warning: my stories bring back the sex—and in some instances, even the violence—to fairy tales. They are told in modern language, and they give us a view of the universal themes that existed then, and now. But of course, as in all fairy tales—things always come out all right in the end!

-Selena Kitt

www.selenakitt.com

Excerpt from Bluebeard:

In this modern version of the fairy tale classic, who wouldn’t want to marry a rock star? That’s what Petra told herself when she agreed to fly from Minsk to Los Angeles—a mail-order bride to the lead singer of Bluebeard, one of the most popular American rock bands of the twentieth century. The question really was—why would a rock star want to marry her? Find out in this modern take on the Bluebeard fairy tale by Selena Kitt!

Warnings: This title contains elements of BDSM including domination, submission and spanking. It also makes mention of sex, drugs, rock and roll, masturbation, German philisophers, Hindu goddesses, and an incorrigible pug dog who likes to steal things, including your heart!

Word Count: 12,800

Cheryl, Manic Readers Reviews, 4/5 Stars!

"...[A] really spicy read. I have read several books by Ms. Kitt, and they are always good. Warning, if you wear eye glasses, you may want to keep a rag handy to wipe off the fog you will get from reading this book...[The characters] were smoking together. This book will have you looking at fairy tales in a whole new light."

EXCERPT:

Blue leaned in close, whispering into her ear. “Guess what?”

“What?” She looked up at him, inquisitive, his presence making her already racing heart skip beats, fighting the urge to put her arms around him.

“I gave Max and Mrs. Ribya the day off.” Blue slipped his arms around her waist, lifting her, breathing in her scent.

She gasped, crying out in surprise at his touch. “You did? Why?”

“Because you’ve been a very, very bad girl.” He nuzzled her neck, his hands moving lower, oh god, grabbing her ass, lifting her higher! “And you need to be punished.”

“Blue!” She cried out as he squatted down, easily hefting her over his shoulder. She squealed all the way down the hall, wiggling on his arms. “What are you doing? Put me down? Milyi!”

The poor little pug was only one left in the house she could call for help!

“He’s locked in your room, remember?” Blue smacked her ass—hard! “By the way, he dropped the key under the dining room table.”

“How did you…?” But of course he knew. Her heart sank. The cameras. They were everywhere. And Max. Had he been watching? Oh god, he would have told Blue everything. “Please, put me down. Let me explain.”

“Stop talking.”

SLAP

She cried out again. He was angry—an emotion she didn’t often see in him. She could tell by the way he strode down the hall, her body bouncing as he carried her down the stairs. “I’m going to give you one more chance to do as I say.”

One more chance. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes, praying he was taking her to his bedroom. Oh, god, his unlocked bedroom. He knew she’d been in there too. And were there cameras…? No!

“You’re familiar with this room, aren’t you?”

Her eyes flew open as she twisted, trying to see. He strode through the carved door, slamming it hard behind him. Was this it, then? Would she be one of those mail-order brides murdered by their American husbands?

“Blue, please,” she begged. My god, he’d her carried across the whole house, down a flight of stairs, and he hadn’t even broken a sweat!

Then he was opening the second the door, the one she hadn’t unlocked. He didn’t use a key. She saw it all upside down, making it even more surreal. There was a bed in the corner, similar to the one in his room, a four-poster. Over the bed there were decorations on the wall, things reminiscent of his concert days—floggers, crops, ball-gags, handcuffs.

Then he was sitting, putting her upright in front of him, pulling her into his lap. Her head swam and she clung to him, so surprised by his nearness, the way he grabbed her, touched her, after months of so much distance between them.

“Where are we?” she whispered, wanting to look around more, but unable to take her eyes off his. They were dark, animalistic—and angry. She wiggled in his lap and he grabbed her hips, growling low in his throat.

“Hold still,” he hissed. “Don’t make me tear this dress off you.”

The blood drained from her face, heading straight between her thighs.

Selena Kitt is a bestselling and award-winning author of erotic fiction. She is one of the highest selling erotic writers in the business. With half a million ebooks sold in 2011 alone, she is the cream-at-the-top of erotica! 

Her writing embodies everything from the spicy to the scandalous, but watch out-this kitty also has sharp claws and her stories often include intriguing edges and twists that take readers to new, thought-provoking depths.

When she’s not pawing away at her keyboard, Selena runs an innovative publishing company (www.excessica.com) and in her spare time, she devotes herself to her family—a husband and four children—and her growing organic garden. She loves bellydancing and photography. She also loves four poster beds, tattoos, voyeurism, blindfolds, velvet, baby oil, the smell of chewing gum and leather, and playing kitty cat.

Her books EcoErotica (2009), The Real Mother Goose (2010) and Heidi and the Kaiser (2011) were all Epic Award Finalists. Her only gay male romance, Second Chance, won the Epic Award in Erotica in 2011. Her story, Connections, was one of the runners-up for the 2006 Rauxa Prize, given annually to an erotic short story of “exceptional literary quality,” out of over 1,000 nominees, where awards are judged by a select jury and all entries are read “blind” (without author’s name available.)

Selena loves hearing from readers!

website: http://www.selenakitt.com

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Today, Selena is giving away a copy of Bluebeard to one commenter who answers her question above, What is it that appeals to you about fairy tales? Her contest will close at midnight tonight and the winner will be announced tomorrow on this thread.