Wrapping up to the WordCrafter “Once Upon an Ever After” Book Blog Tour

Thank you all for following the WordCrafter Once Upon an Ever After Book Blog Tour. We’ve had a great tour, with two reviews, my interview with Robbie Cheadle, and guest posts from five of the contributing authors. We had a great group of authors contributing to this anthology and I want to thank authors Sarah Lyn Eaton, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Olivia Merchiston, Linsay Elizabeth Gilbert, and A. E. Lanier for sharing their story inspirations. If you missed a stop, you may still visit it through the links below.

Tour Schedule

Monday – August 22 – Opening Day Post – Writing to be Read – Intro. & Guest Post – Sarah Lyn Eaton

Tuesday – August 23 – Patty’s World – Review & Guest Post – Robbie Cheadle

Wednesday – August 24 – The Showers of Blessings – Guest Post – Olivia Merchiston

Thursday – August 25 –Roberta Writes – Interview w/ Kaye Lynne Booth

Friday – August 26 – Zigler’s News – Review & Guest Post – Lyndsay Elizabeth Gilbert

Saturday – August 27 – Closing Post – Writing to be Read – Guest Post – A.E. Lanier

Digital Giveaway

For a chance to win a free digital copy of Once Upon an Ever After,
just leave a comment to show you were here.

Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win.

Three copies will be given away in a random drawing

Today, we’re wrapping up the WordCrafter Once Upon an Ever After Book Blog Tour with a guest post from contributing author A.E. Lanier, who wrote “The Fourth Spire”, a haunting tale of knowledge lost. It’s a thought provoking tale of a burning library within a castle spire with a genuine fairy tale feel.

The Fourth Spire

Like most bookish people, I love a good library. Whether real or fictional, I like the idea of many books gathered in one place, the physical monument to the pursuit of knowledge, the fantasy of actually getting work done. 

There have been many wonderful libraries–both real and fictional–in my life. I adored my local library as a child and ,like many people, was fundamentally changed by the library in the 1991 Beauty and the Beast. But my favorite library growing up was the one from Avatar the Last Airbender. A single tower reaching up out of the desert, hiding floor upon floor of mystically curated information, briefly discovered before vanishing below the sand once more–buried forever.

There is a romance to the destruction of a library. It feeds into the idea that there were things we once knew and never will again. The hope that perhaps we can relearn, tinged with understanding that the struggle between loss and rediscovery will cost us. It is nostalgia and a love of books and lost places all tied up in one.

“The Fourth Spire” came from my fascination with the aesthetic of the burning library. I wanted to explore what was valuable in mourning the destruction of a library and to consider whether there was something dangerous in romanticizing it. It was, in many ways, a question I was asking of myself. 

I am the kind of person that watches an action film and winces harder when a scroll is burned than when an unnamed character is killed. At the end of the day, neither the character nor the scroll is real. But the scroll feels real in a way the character does not. And I sometimes find that impulse within myself disturbing. Books and artifacts are valuable and important, but I will mourn an unknown book in a way that I will not mourn an unknown person; its possibility is somehow more tangible to me. 

“The Fourth Spire” is about that tendency to appreciate books more than people. And about the ways in which the knowledge we have lost is often more captivating than the knowledge we still have. I am not certain the story provided answers for me, but then I’m not entirely convinced I was looking for them. Certainly, it provided a feeling. A set of questions. And what more can we ask, really, of a burning library?

A.E. Lanier

A. E. Lanier is a writer, educator, and chronic overthinker living in Central Texas.She enjoys caves, silent reading, and other people’s cats. Her work has appeared in The Arcanist and Daily Science Fiction.

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About Once Upon an Ever After

This unique and imaginative collection of eleven thought provoking fantasy stories will delight readers who enjoy stories of wishes gone awry.
What happens when…
A woman desires to carry on her family’s legacy, uncovering a long-buried curse?
A not so perfect witch casts a spell to defy age and preserve her relationship with her handsome shapeshifting familiar?
A time traveler longs to be the savior of knowledge lost?
An incompetent delivery boy becomes an unlikely savior of forgotten artifacts?
A magic mirror yearns for a different question?
A tiny story witch desires to share her stories with the world?

Spells are cast, unlikely alliances made, and wishes granted, sometimes with surprising outcomes. You’ll love this anthology of modern myths, lore, and fairy tales. Once you read these twisted tales, you’ll be sure to be careful what you wish for….

If you liked Gilded Glass, you’ll enjoy Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Myths & Fairy Tales, short stories with thought provoking themes, captivating characters and diverse cultures, from humorous to horrifying, from the legendary past to possible futures and back to the here and now.

You can get your copy of Once Upon an Ever After at your favorite book distributor through the Books2Read UBL here: https://books2read.com/u/mKdWGV

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Book your WordCrafter Book Blog Tour today!