Winner of Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson

Petite is the lucky winner of Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson.  Congrats to Petite!  Petite was chosen using random.org and has been notified via email.  Petite has one week to send me her mailing address, otherwise a new winner will be chose.

Thank-you to all who entered this wonderful giveaway.  As I noted below, stay tuned as two new giveaways will be posted this week!

Fairy Tales in the Modern World by Kristine Grayson (and GIVEAWAY!)

I am excited today to have Kristine Grayson on Laura's Reviews with a guest blog about modern day fairy tales.  I loved her book Utterly Charming and can't wait to read Charming Blue later this week.  I have been a fan of fairy tales my entire life, and Grayson does an excellent job bringing them to the modern world.

Lately I’ve felt like everyone has jumped on my bandwagon. Back when I wrote “The Strangeness of the Day,” under my real name, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, no one wanted modern fairy tales. I wrote the short story for an anthology called Battle Magic, and the editor (who loves my work) said he’d never seen anything so original. That originality got me several awards, but when I decided to expand “Strangeness” into a novel, my agent and half a dozen editors told me that modern fairy tales were so 1980, and I shouldn’t even try.


I don’t listen to people, at least not when they tell me something is impossible. So I write Utterly Charming anyway, and that started my fairy-tale-in-the-modern-world career. The book won RT Book Review’s Reviewers Choice award for best paranormal romance, and launched an entire series.

Fast forward eleven years, and suddenly everyone wants to redo fairy tales. Once Upon A Time has thrown every fairy tale creature possible into its modern mix, and Grimm is taking the Gothic view. Now, my trusty Entertainment Weekly tells me there’s be a new twist on Beauty and the Beast set—you guessed it—in our world.

Hey! Wait a minute! I was here first!

Except that I wasn’t. Fairy tales have always had a modern equivalent. That’s why certain romance movies are called “fairy tales”—not just because of the Happily Ever After ending, but because you can see Cinderella being abused by her stepmother and that guy in the Porsche? He’s the Prince Charming.

We are all raised on fairy tales, and of course, we insert them into our daily lives. If you watched the royal wedding a year or so ago, you know all about fairy tales in the modern world. Heck, Kate Middleton nabbed herself a real (if balding) prince. Dunno if he’s truly charming, but he seems like it. And if that weren’t enough, every single commentator on the wedding mentioned fairy tales. Just in case we didn’t get it.

We get it. Or at least I do. I love fairy tales. I love thinking about fairy tales. I love fracturing fairy tales.

My latest makes Bluebeard a hero. Yep, fractured. And I had fun. I hope you do too.

Book Description (from Goodreads):  Once upon a time...he was the most handsome of princes. But now he's a lonely legend, hobbled by dark history. With too many dead in his wake, Bluebeard escapes through the evil spell of alcohol. But it's a far different kind of spell that's been ruining his life for centuries. Jodi Walters is a fixer, someone who can put magic back in order. But Blue has a problem she's never encountered. And worse, she finds herself perilously attracted to him

Giveaway Details
Sourcebooks has graciously offered a giveaway of one copy of Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson.

If you would like to win a copy of this book please leave a comment about what intrigues you about the this book or this guestblog.

As part of your comment, you must include an email address. If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner.

For an additional entry, blog about this giveaway or post it on your sidebar. Provide a link to this post in your comment.

I will be using random.org (or a monte carlo simulation in excel) to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is only open to US and Canadian residents (Sorry!).

No P.O. Boxes.

The deadline for entry is midnight on Friday October 5, 2012.

Please make sure to check the second week of October to see if you are a winner. I send emails to the winner but lately I have been put in their "junk mail" folder instead of their inbox.

Good luck!

Winner of Utterly Charming by Kristine Grayson!

I really enjoyed the fractured fairy tale world of Utterly Charming by Kristine Grayson and also her guest post on this blog about her love affair with fairy tales.  I'm happy to announce the winner of Utterly Charming is Suko of Suko's Notebook.  Suko was chosen using random.org and has been notified via email.  She has one week to respond with her mailing address or another winner will be chosen.

Thank-you to Kristine Grayson for writing such an enjoyable book and for also writing a guest blog for Laura's Reviews.  Thank-you to Sourcebooks for allowing me to host this giveaway and also to everyone who entered.

Sad that you lost?  There is still an ongoing giveaway for a great regency Christmas romance (one of my favorite subgenres) on my right sidebar.

Also speaking of fairy tales, is anyone watching Once Upon a Time on ABC?  I love it!

Utterly Charming by Kristine Grayson

As a child, I loved the “Fractured Fairy Tales” that were part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. Truthfully I didn’t care much for Rocky and Bullwinkle themselves, but I loved Fractured Fairy Tales, Dudley Do-Right, and Peabody’s Improbable History. I loved how the Fractured Fairy Tales took a classic tale that you thought you knew and turned it upside. I also loved reading traditional fairy tales when I was around 13 and read everything in my school library. It was interesting to see the depth of the stories so much beyond the Disney cartoons.


Utterly Charming is similar to the Fractured Fairy Tales by taking a classic story that you thought you knew, and turning it upside down into a fun, thrilling, modern adventure. Nora is just out of law school and is trying to get her struggling practice off the ground. One day she is visited by a very handsome man named Aethelstan Blackstone and his sidekick, Sancho Panza. Nora has always believed a bit in magic, but even she is overwhelmed by the events that take place when Aethelstan fights his arch nemesis, Ealhswith. Nora helps Aethelstan to break the curse on his soul mate, Emma aka Sleeping Beauty, but finds herself enamored with Aethelstan. Will they all be able to have their happy endings?

I loved Utterly Charming. The plot was witty, fast-paced, with never a dull moment. It kept you interested and wondering how it would all end. It also had its humorous moments. All of the characters were great, including the secondary characters such as Nora’s Mom, Amanda, and hardworking secretary Ruthie. Although the material is vastly differently, it reminded me of the quick-paced plot and charm of a Stephanie Plum novel, which I adore. But in a new fresh way. I thought it was a very original and interesting take on a classic fairy tale. I enjoyed the romance, it was my favorite kind with lots of build-up and the question of sex left to your own imagination.

Overall, Utterly Charming was a very charming novel that was the best romance novel I’ve read in quite a while. I will definitely be reading more Kristine Grayson novels, and particularly want to read more of her fractured fairy tales.

If you’d like to read about Kristine Grayson’s love affair with fairy tales, check out her great guest blog. If you’d like a chance to win a copy of the novel, please leave a copy by midnight November 11th.

Book Source: Review Copy from Sourcebooks. Thank-you!

My Love Affair With Fairy Tales by Kristine Grayson (and GIVEAWAY!)

I don’t remember when I first encountered fairy tales. I do recall thinking no one was more beautiful than the wasp-waisted Cinderella from the Disney film. I don’t recall what I thought of Prince Charming, way back then.


When I was four, my parents took me to Disneyland. I have a vivid memory of going on the Snow White ride, which went through a cave. Somewhere in that cave, the Wicked Witch stirred her caldron and glared and me. I screamed, “Let’s get out of here!” and would have jumped off the boat if my father hadn’t grabbed me.

I remember the terror, because back then, fairy tales were real. (In fact, that memory is so vivid that thirty years later, when I went back to Disneyland and the ride remained, I wouldn’t even look at it. I figured it was cheesy, and I didn’t want to know. In my memory, it’s beautiful and horrifying and alive.)

But the strongest influence on my fairy tale life was a babysitter whose name I no longer remember. The daughter of one of my father’s colleagues, she read fairy tales to me—obscure fairy tales, from many cultures. Then, because she was heading to college, she gave me her fairy tale books. I still have them. They’re battered now, but treasured.

And clearly, they jumble up in my head. Sancho Panza in Utterly Charming has a secret identity from Norse mythology. (He has others as well. You can find out more about him in Completely Smitten from WMG Publishing.) I steal from Greek Myths, Celtic lore, fairy tales, and Shakespeare. I figure that when you’re writing a book about make-believe, you should reference the best.

Even though I fracture them, I love fairy tales. I love the hidden meanings and the scary women, the handsome men, and the weird spells. I love them all, which is why I play with them.

Maybe I love them the most because deep down, I do believe in happily ever after. I just believe that HEA doesn’t just happen; it takes work. And that’s the only thing that the fairy tales miss.

About Kristine Grayson (from her website)

Kristine Grayson always wanted to be a romance writer when she grew up. She became one in the late 1990s with the publication of her first romance novel, Utterly Charming. Since then, she has published five more novels, including Absolutely Captivated and Totally Spellbound.

Her work has won the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, and she has been nominated for several other awards. Publishers Weekly has called her work “a delight,” and Best Reviews labeled her “the reigning queen of paranormal romance.”

Her next novel, Wickedly Charming, will appear in May.

Giveaway Details

Sourcebooks is going to send one lucky winner a copy of Utterly Charming by Kristine Grayson.

If you would like to win a copy of Utterly Charming by Kristine Grayson please leave a comment about what intrigues you about the novel or this guest blog.

As part of your comment, you must include an email address. If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner.

For an additional entry, blog about this giveaway or post it on your sidebar. Provide a link to this post in your comment.

I will be using random.org (or a monte carlo simulation in excel) to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is only open to US and Canadian residents (Sorry!).

No P.O. Boxes.

The deadline for entry is midnight, Friday November 11th.

Good luck!