Tuesday, June 21, 2016

The Fun of Midsummer Fairies

Posted by: Veronica Scott
Veronica sez: Today we have a guest post from Eliza Walker, author of A Midsummer Night's Fling. This is also the first release from author Marie Force's new venture Jack's House Publishing. Eliza is also the author of The Beauty's Beast Fantasy Series, writing as E. D. Walker.


I have a confession: my new release A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S FLING is a straight contemporary romance and not a fantasy,  BUT the play from which it borrows its title (Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream) is all about supernatural creatures. Namely: fairies.

I played a fairy once in A Midsummer Night's Dream; it was one of the great pleasures of my life. And one of my favorite parts of writing this book was deciding how I was going to have my fictional people portray Shakespeare's fairies. The wonderful website Pinterest was great for this, and I happened to have a pretty great costume designer character in my book so I could let my imagination go wild.

And I did. :)

Here's how the fairy looks are described in the book:
All four of the actresses playing Titania's handmaidens now had soft, pastel colored hair of various shades -- a soft lilac for Cobweb; an icy, silvery blue for Moth; a peachy orange for Mustardseed; and a soft blend of pale green, blue and violet for Peaseblossom. Elaborate headdresses of flowers and feathers, twigs and seashells crowned their heads.

Their costumes were also a tactile delight of texture, some with scaled black leather, some with shredded silk pieces; one had an amazing corset that looked like wood. The most incredible, though, was Moth's. Somehow, with clear sea glass beads knit with wire, the designer had fashioned a dress that actually seemed made of water droplets for the Moth character.

If you want to check out my Midsummer fairy looks and other fun pictures that provided inspiration, check out the book's Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.com/AuthorElizaW/a-midsummer-nights-fling/

Two quotes from the Shakespeare play:

“Love's stories written in love's richest books.
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.” 

And this description a fairy gives, about cowslips as gentlemen waiting for the Fairy Queen:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

― William ShakespeareA Midsummer Night's Dream 

There's more info below about my tale of  behind-the scenes and on-the-stage romance if you're curious. (Even though it's not a fantasy novel. ;)

Blurb:
The show must go on, but the price of admission could be her heart.

Sick of a touring actor’s vagabond life, Nicola returns to California to put the past firmly behind her. It would help if the six-foot-three-inch beautiful man who is her past didn’t come knocking. Max. The mistake Nicola can’t seem to stop making.

Though she has no desire to re-re-rekindle their old flame, Nicola jumps at his offer to play Titania to his Oberon. But when their first rehearsal kiss disintegrates into a passionate liplock, she’s tempted to jump ship before Max can break her heart again.


Unless he can convince her that the torch he’s been carrying is an eternal flame.

Buy Links:

Author Bio:
Eliza Walker, a native of Los Angeles, is the author of the Much Ado About Love Series that begins with A Midsummer Night's Fling. Her experiences as an actress helped inspire the series about actors finding love amidst the bedlam backstage at a world-class repertory theater. Once upon a time, Eliza met her own wonderful husband when they did a play together.

By day Eliza helps corral engineers for NASA (without doing any of the tech stuff herself, of course). By night she loves to write her sarcastic heroes and heroines bantering their way to true love. Eliza is a total geek, a movie buff and a mediocre swing dancer. Eliza and her husband live in sunny Southern California with two of the neediest housecats on the planet.

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