Linda Winstead Jones | BRIDE BY COMMAND

First, thanks to Fresh Fiction for inviting me to be here to blog about Bride by Command, which will be officially released tomorrow. It’s always great to get out and “talk” to readers and other writers.

Bride by Command is the final book in “The Emperor’s Brides” trilogy, which has sent Emperor Jahn of Columbyana on a reluctant quest for an empress. There are two potential brides per book, and naturally, by the third book in the series many of the brides are spoken for by other heroes. At one point I joked with a friend, as we walked around the neighborhood and talked plots, that I should title this one Empress by Default. :-) At the time, the working title was Unbreakable, and as you can see I ended up with a title somewhere in between.

The core story idea for Bride by Command has been simmering for some time. Several years ago I wrote a number of fairy tale romances. I have several fairy tale volumes in my personal library, and one of them contains the original Grimm Brothers tales, stories which are very different from the Disney versions, as you can imagine. In this book, I discovered an old fairy tale I was unfamiliar with. King Thrushbeard.

In King Thrushbeard, a king is searching for a bride, just as Jahn is searching for an empress. He goes to a fine house and offers himself as a husband to the spoiled maiden there. The girl refuses him, making fun of his beard in the process. The king disguises himself and goes back to the house, and the maiden who could’ve been a queen finds herself married to a beggar. She eventually falls in love with the king, thinking him a to be beggar. It’s one of my favorite fairy tales, thanks to the romantic in me.

The beginning, the basic set up, is where the similarities between the two stories end. In the fairy tale, when the maiden accidentally finds out that her husband is actually the king, she’s thrilled, and happily ever after ensues. Morgana will not be so forgiving of Jahn. I sure wouldn’t be, in her shoes. No matter what his intentions, a man who tells such lies should have to pay, shouldn’t he? He should be made to apologize. Maybe grovel a bit. Perhaps he should be forced to earn love all over again.

Love beyond the fairy tale is complicated. Even when a couple finds their happily ever after, they’re not done. They’re not anywhere near finished.

In Bride by Command, more than Jahn’s charade gets in the way of HEA. Morgana has secrets of her own. In the world I created in The Sun Witch, magic is very real, and you never know when it might play a part. Unexpected dangers wait around every corner. The maiden Jahn falls in love with can transform - and destroy - with a touch.

HEA doesn’t come easy, not in real life and not on the page. When it comes to fiction, it isn’t supposed to come too easy, because getting there is what keeps us reading. I love romance, I love knowing that the happily ever after is a given. But oh, it’s how we get there that’s all the fun, and even in a fairy tale (Hmm. Especially in a fairy tale!) there are bumps along the way.

It’s hard to pick a favorite fairy tale, but for me King Thrushbeard is up there on the list. So are Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White. Do you have a favorite?