I finally finished and submitted my latest book. It’s #2 in Stories Tales and Legends: Retold Series and is my longest yet. I had real trouble cropping it to below 85K to fit Siren’s guidelines. The story just wanted to go on and on. I was ruthless though and managed to fit in the guidelines (with 10 words to spare woo-hoo)
The book is based on my favourite fairy-tale – The Sister of Seven Ravens. The version I based it on is a Mazovian fairy-tale adapted and written down by a well-known Polish children-book author Janina Porazinska. Her adaptation of the story is less gore-filled and gruesome than Grimms’ fairy-tales but it has strong links to Polish folklore. As a child I was fascinated with how a simple peasant girl embarked on an adventure to save her brothers. The fairy-tale was different than most because the main character was a girl, and she didn’t really need saving. She was the one doing all the saving in the story, instead. Still, looking at the story through adult eyes there were elements that I didn’t like. Like the fact that the wise-woman who told the sister how to save her brothers made the plain-looking girl beautiful by magic. Or that the duke fell in love with the girl’s beauty and just decided he had to have her as his wife. And then there’s the part where the old duchess managed to finally drive a wedge between the duke and his wife and the Duke believed his mother’s lies sentencing his wife to death. All these facts did not sit well with me. It’s not what real love should be like so I decided to give the story my own twist.
I started with the biggest change. In my book the sister is actually another brother. He’s more delicate looking and much prettier than his brothers and so they teasingly call him their sister. But my main character is also a very strong-willed person with a strong personality. He is the de-facto leader of his family despite being the youngest and ravaged by illness.
The second change comes when the curse is cast. In addition to changing the seven brothers into ravens the curse has a second effect on the Youngest.
The meeting of two main characters differs from the original fairy-tale as well. True, the duke is taken with Yasko’s beauty but it is his personality that actually causes the Duke (Casimir) to fall in love with him.
I added a period of courtship to the story as I’m a fan of slow-burn romance. Even if there is love at first sight, the people in the relationship will always have to work on their differences, I don’t believe anything else is possible.
My final big change is Casimir’s unwavering loyalty to his husband. Despite all accusations and aspercions being cast at Yasko Cas never believes his husband guilty of any wrongdoing. I just couldn’t imagine how (in the original fairy-tale) a wife could forgive her husband accusing her of killing their children and sentencing her to death by burning. It is such a huge betrayal on the husband’s part that I don’t see how the marriage could survive it. I mean, what would he say to her afterwards? “sorry I condemned you to a slow and agonizing death by burning alive, but I really thought you killed our sons. So, water under the bridge, right?”
Anyway, I much prefer my version of the main characters relationship.
Like in the first book in the series I drew heavily from history and culture when world-building.
Yasko’s family belongs to lesser nobility, but lives more like peasants than nobles. It was pretty common in XV-XVIII century Poland. The social group even had it’s own name “Szlachta zaściankowa” which does not translate well but a close term would be petty nobility.
When writing the old duchess I tried to base her on XVI-th century polish queen Bona Sforza. She was a great queen and politician but had many enemies amongst the nobility and they created this dark legend around her accusing her of poisoning, greed, intrigue, scheming etc.
The tribe of Yotvingians was a real one. They had a strong warrior culture and were generally well known as great warriors and hunters, and were feared by neighbouring Baltic tribes for their skill in warfare. Skalmantas, leader of the Yotvingians was responsible for single-handedly raiding Pinsk in the Principality of Turov.
XVII century Poland was torn by wars. Fighting against Russia, Sweden, Turkey and inner conflict with Kosacs. In my book I decided to allow Cas and Yasko some peace after the resolution of conflict with the fictional Southern Turk Empire. This is the beauty of writing fiction. I can change all the shitty things that actually happened in history.
This book dives deeeper into Slavic folklor and beliefs. In actuality the remnants of Slavic religion were still strong in parts of Poland even in nineteenth century. In the fictional world I created a mish-mash of XVI-XVIII centuries, the gods old exist alongside the new one. Mentions of Dola and Niedola – a person’s individual fate, as well as Leshy or Borovy, the lord of the forest are made. The practice of sacrificing children to Borovy is my own invention. From what I’m aware the only sacrifices for leshy were food and drink. Still, in tales of the Forest Lord there are mentions of his wife and children. It fit my idea of the duchess abandoning her grandchildren in the forest. I might even write a short story of Borowy’s children at a later date. It’s only a vague idea at the moment.
I will dive deeper into Slavic beliefs in my next book in this series. The plan is for it to be only a short story, but I’ll see where it takes me. I’ve got the main plot-line worked out, but there’s still details to iron-out.
I’m really excited for The Sister of Seven Ravens to be published and I’m waiting with bated breath to see whether it’ll be accepted. I still have several other things that I need to work on in the meantime and not nearly enough time on my hands. Ah, eal life, why must you intrude on my daydreaming? 
