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Stella's Novels Master Thread



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Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:48 pm
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StellaThomas says...



I saw @BluesClues and @Carlito doing this so I figured, why not?!

My work is mostly, and always has been, deeply rooted in European fairytales and folklore. I've always loved fairytales, Robin McKinley and Shannon Hale were my favourite authors growing up, and authors like Naomi Novik and Katherine Arden who use fairytale elements to build other stories have since become favourites too. That's not to say that it's everything I do, in fact two of the projects I have in the work are not fairytale related at all. But if there's one way to describe my portfolio, that's the word I would use - they're fairytales.

I also focus a lot on friendships and romances, and less so on familial relationships though they do make appearances. Friendships, especially among women, have a place of pride in my writing, and none of my stories go without a romantic subplot - or in some cases, plot.

Will update tonight and build as I go.

There are four five main projects I'm here to talk about:

1. Unruly

When the Crown Princess goes missing, her best friend, teenage duchess Astrid Race, and the other young aristocrats of the kingdom, have to face political intrigue, magical duels, and dragons to save her.

A fantasy, coming-of-age YA novel, strongly inspired by fairytales but with an original plot.

Status: six drafts complete

2. Silk

Pip Starsfall doesn't believe in curses, until his family lose everything and have to move to a lonesome house on the edge of the Barrow Woods, which the people of the town say is haunted by a terrible Beast.

A steampunk, gender-bent bastardisation of Beauty and the Beast. A fantasy romance, fairytale retelling, adult/new adult.

Status: third and maybe final draft almost complete.

3. Linen

Poppy MacTarriff witnesses Conrad Rice being cursed to die before his twenty first birthday - but a girl at the party thinks they can reduce this to a sleeping curse only - but only with Poppy's help.

A steampunk, gender-bent bastardisation of Sleeping Beauty. Semi-sequel to Silk. A fantasy romance, fairytale retelling, adult/new adult.

Status: Just a dream.

4. The Desert Rose

Mae is a street rat in the oasis city of Moresha, until she is plucked from the crowd to join the infamous Red Heretic, a con woman of legend, whose crew plan on pulling off the biggest heist the city has ever seen.

An ensemble cast in a cosmopolitan fantasy city in the desert. Fantasy heist YA.

Status: 30k of first draft written.

5. the light at the edge of the world

As members of Brightling families, who keep the Shadowsquall from destroying the world every night, Arianna and Fitz know they must marry other Brightlings to keep the bloodlines pure. They're both more interested in being vigilantes - so Arianna makes a daring proposal.

Dual PoV, fantasy romance. YA.

Status: 30k of first draft written.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:49 pm
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StellaThomas says...



Unruly


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Outside the ballroom, the air was thick with magic.

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A part of him always thought that perhaps Goddess had made Astrid out of the leftover clay from Alicia- he didn't mean it cruelly but it felt so true. She was two inches smaller, her hair two shades darker and two feet shorter, skin two degrees deeper, she always stood two steps behind Alicia, two measures quieter. A part of Nathaniel had just gotten used to her, like a second shadow. It didn't seem right, seeing her by herself.

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Laurel was not sure how much longer she could listen to the screaming.

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“Oh, Astrid Race,” she whispered. “You are so much more than I had ever dared to hope.”

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Crown Princess Alicia has disappeared.

Her best friend, Astrid Race, and her other classmates at Avery's Academy for Gifted Girls, are deeply troubled - even moreso when no one around them seems to care. The kingdom of Samina is on the brink of civil war, there's more important matters than a runaway princess.

The only help they're offered is from Alicia's all-but-fiancé, Sir Nathaniel Bolt. Just one complication: Astrid has been in love with Nathaniel for years, and everyone knows it but him.

In the royal palace, Laurel Sigrid, a ward of the Queen abandoned by her family, clinging to her position by a thread, is feeling ever more trapped. There's no love lost between Laurel and the Avery girls - but her position means she hears things, and she's not sure how long she can stay silent.

On an island, in Barton's School for male heirs, Fred Pillory is living a lie, and he's a little too interested in magic for his teachers' liking. All Fred wants is to ensure his and his mother's safety - he doesn't imagine getting mixed up with a missing princess.

But finding Alicia means uncovering the truth: that Samina is rotten to its core, and only the deftest politician can navigate its court. With magical duels that don't play to the rules they're used to, and rumours of a dragon roaming the sky, do Astrid and the others have what it takes to save the princess before it's too late?


I started this project in *2011*. I've left it and come back to it numerous times, and even when I think I've outgrown it, it shows me how much there is to love again. As the years have progressed the story has changed - the world has grown, and it's become clear this is actually a coming-of-age story. The plot centres around the weeks before and after Astrid's eighteenth birthday. Her mother died when she was ten, so at eighteen, she becomes a fully fledged duchess, and Peer of the Realm.

The four main characters are all really different:

Duchess Astrid Race: level-headed, quiet, loyal. Eighteen. Amateur botanist, grows flowers everywhere. She is Gifted, meaning she can fight in magical duels, making her eligible to rule. Terribly insecure about her own abilities and values.

Sir Nathaniel Bolt: handsome, skilled, proud knight of the realm. Twenty-one. Has been courting the Crown Princess for three years, the understanding of all around them that they will eventually marry. Took his best friend Charlie on as a squire as a good deed. Arrogant about his talents, Ungifted, aware of his lower rank of the Avery girls and others around him.

Laurel Sigrid: the youngest child of an odious family, abandoned in the palace at the age of eleven in the hopes she would marry Prince Sebastian. Seventeen. Lonely, bitter, Ungifted, a talented artist with a penchant for stableboys and footmen that gets her and the staff in question into trouble.

Fred Pillory: a student in Barton's School for Male Heirs. Seventeen. Loves reading about forbidden magic, even though Barton's teaches them to only use their Gift in its rawest form. Self-deprecating, mild-mannered, deeply loyal to his mother and his friends. Everyone knows Fred is a bastard, no one mentions it as they're too polite. Not sure what he's going to do with himself.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:51 pm
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StellaThomas says...



Silk


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Pip didn’t believe in curses. The reason Pip didn’t believe in curses was because curses weren’t real, witches were nothing but crooked saleswomen of false promises. His family had fallen on hard times, and letting himself get caught in the web of lies called that they called ‘magic’ would not help them.

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Kenneth’s eyebrows twitched. “I’ve had a dream about a statue as well. But never your mother. I’ve dreamt that I’m looking for her, in the woods. But I never find her.” He frowned, staring into the space beyond his children. “I get trapped.”
“By what?” Cate asked.
“By cobwebs.”


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You are my guest here. You will remain so, until you are no longer welcome.
“Who are you?” he asked again, his voice feeble with the truth he realised he’d known all along.
The voice was full of gritty reverberations, a loose carriage wheel on a rough road, rolling through Pip’s head.

I am the lady of this house.

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He couldn’t explain it, just like he couldn’t explain most of his life anymore, but he could feel it; the magic in the tree roots and brooks, Milady’s magic.
In the last of the sunset the whole forest glowed golden.
“The house will guide us home.”


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Pip Starsfall and his family have lived a charmed life as the richest merchants in the industrial city of Gerginham. After his mother's sudden death, misfortune after misfortune comes to the Starsfalls, so much that people believe they are cursed.They are forced to leave the city, and move to a tiny village called Godsdagger, a place where no one leaves their house after sunset, for fear of a terrible Beast that stalks their streets at night.

Pip doesn't believe in curses, or in monsters, but he does believe in the blacksmith's pretty daughter, Laina, which is why he breaks the curfew. That's when Pip discovers that the Beast is very, very real.

Trapped in a manor in the woods, Pip encounters a pregnant ghost called Hannah, and the spirits of dozens of servants trapped in its walls.

And last of all, he meets the Beast, only to discover there is more than meets the eye. For the Beast is the lady of the house, cursed to forget her own name, and to live an immortal and terrible life in the form of a giant spider.

Pip's greatest gift, and greatest flaw, is his ability to love. But as he strives to make his way back to his father and sisters, he's beginning to realise that love can do even more than he ever imagined.


I started Silk in 2014, and I never imagined it would come this far! In fact, it's probably the novel I'll query first, once this draft is done and a final polish. I have no idea if it's marketable - giant spider et al. But honestly, it's a beautiful story. It's Gothic, it's [reasonably] faithful to the original tale, and the characters are all pretty adorable:

Pip Starsfall - 19, a rake and playboy, rich son of a self-made merchant, who has broken the heart of every girl in Gerginham high society. Almost childlike how much he believes in love. Has never faced much hardship.

Kenneth Starsfall - Pip's father. Self-made, business-like, gruff, honest. Loves his family above everything else. Has instilled in his children a calm in the face of adversity that many of their peers lack. Has never failed before, almost doesn't know the meaning of the word.

Cate Starsfall - Pip's eldest sister, the heir to the company. Acerbic, unladylike, business-minded, and as far from romantic as can be. Doesn't care much for her appearance, or society.

Mari Starsfall - a society darling, with a thousand friends. Beautiful, can charm a room in thirty seconds. Has had a hundred suitors, hasn't shown interest in a single one of them. Has a short fuse.

Lord Christian Rickards - Pip's best friend, even more rakish than he is, obsessed with clothes and looking good. Always getting into scrapes with Pip, a little lost without him.

Milady - the nameless lady of Valonthwaite Manor, who has been cursed to be a spider for two hundred years. A powerful witch, who was proud but fiercely protective of the people in her charge. Devastated and damaged by everything that has happened to her in these intervening centuries, does not trust anyone. Has to fight every day to keep the Beast that shares her body at bay.

Hannah Duddridge - a pregnant scullery maid who was meant to be in the walls with the staff, but the spell didn't work on her. Instead, she can hear the other staff in her head, all of the time. Driven mad by it at times. Sweet and innocent, frank, but not well able to cope with the half-life she's been dealt.

Laina Kittler - the blacksmith's daughter, nicknamed 'Beauty' for the beauty mark she used to have on her face before it was cursed off by the Barrow Woods' benevolent spirit, the Dreamweaver. Laina is frank, honest, good-natured, wants to live an uncomplicated life, which isn't going to happen as soon as she meets the Starsfall siblings.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:53 pm
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StellaThomas says...



Linen
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:54 pm
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StellaThomas says...



The Desert Rose


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Mae didn’t understand pilgrims who thought that the Kalahandra was a dead thing. It was alive, more alive than anything else, and it was tenacious.

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He saw his life draining from him, dripping from his fingertips like wax melting from a candle, and he thought, I’m going to die in this blessed city.
But then Noorah found him.
And when Noorah found you, everything changed.


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It felt like the whole pious city of Moresha was ready to convert and worship at the altar the Red Heretic offered them, whatever that meant.

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But in this tangle, the five of them more than siblings, somehow more than lovers, she thought that even the floor could be magic.

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Moresha is an oasis city visited by thousands of pilgrims and tourists a year, all coming to see the famous Ruby of Radia that lies in its central temple.

What they don't know is the dark, criminal underbelly of crime syndicates and mob families that rule Moresha, keep it in order with an indenture system that is little more than slavery.

Mae is one such indenture, working off a lifetime of debt to the vicious Knash Kilruddin, until her skills as a pickpocket get her noticed. She is whisked away to the secretive, tiny crew of the Red Heretic, an infamous conwoman who wears a scarlet mockery of the white robes of Radia's priestesses.

There's Lux, the arsonist covered in scars, handsome, charming, and the Red Heretic's second in command.

There's Crissa, beautiful, dangerous, who works as a spy and seductress, who snaps at any question about her past.

There's Deki, a soldier who escaped from a desert warlord's army, huge and intimidating to all who don't know him, but soft and quiet at home.

And finally there's Noorah, the Red Heretic herself, who is far younger and more unsure than her reputation, and who is the most powerful magician Mae has ever met, but who is damaged by secrets not even Lux knows.

The Red Heretic's crew are already working the biggest jobs in the city. But when an offer comes from an unlikely source, they find themselves planning on pulling off the impossible.


This is a story that's been a kernel for a long time, and then I wrote 37,000 words in a burst. I should finish it off. I LOVE this cast, and this city - which is loosely based on Marrakech, but a Marrakech that is truly cosmopolitan, with people from every country in the world coming to settle there. I can't wait to fully concentrate on this one.

I also suggested this was YA in the first post but re reading it I'm not so sure - this line probably discounts it from that genre: "Every night before Crissa got into bed, she pressed her ear to the wall to hear if Noorah and Lux were having sex." Maybe New Adult. I wish it really existed as a genre.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:55 pm
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StellaThomas says...



the light at the edge of the world
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Thu Oct 22, 2020 4:56 am
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Euphory says...



AAAAAAAAHHH your stories sound so exciting!! I truly love how every single one has a different aura to it, a different vibe but is still so charming! I really hope you get as much done as you can with the same determination you have now and hopefully, feel really proud of yourself in the near future!! GO YOU!!!
Viola Tricolor also known as wild pansy, Johnny Jump up, heartsease, heart's ease, heart's delight, tickle-my-fancy, Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me, come-and-cuddle-me, three faces in a hood, love-in-idleness, and pink of my john-
  





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Sun Dec 13, 2020 8:57 am
StellaThomas says...



UPDATE: the current draft of Silk is finished. I'm just getting my query materials together, and then I'll start querying it. The idea is very exciting. I have 27 agents picked out to query. I'm hopeful, though guarded. I am aware this is a tough gig. But I know that I've written this story the best way I can, and I think it's beautiful. So we'll see.

Regarding what I start next, I think it will be The Desert Rose. Often after editing for a long time I long to write from scratch, and the found family and heist aspects of it are really calling to me.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  








It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness to dream.
— Edgar Allan Poe