I originally wrote this story for a fairytale anthology under a strict wordcount constraint. For this re-edited and re-released version, I let it breathe a bit more, bringing scenes on-page that had to be truncated or only alluded to in the original, which ended up making it about twice as long (about 20k words total)! I consider this one the ‘true’ version as a result.
For New Version, I have New Cover! This amazingly beautiful art is by the talented Amira Naval.
What if Cinderella’s step-family were fae? As a lowly human, Cinders has never been good enough for her noble fae family–but she can’t escape them. Every dawn, the magic binding her to their manor calls her back. When the fae king announces he’ll choose a bride at the Thrice-Held Ball, Cinders is of course forbidden to attend. Even if the dancing doesn’t go past dawn, her family would never allow her to be seen with them.
But after she receives a pair of enchanted shoes that alter her appearance, she can’t resist the chance to become someone else for a night. She’ll dance in disguise for the three nights of the ball and enjoy her small stolen freedom.
She never expected to catch the fae king’s eye, or for her act of rebellion to turn into something far more dangerous. Everyone wants to know who the mysterious masked lady is, and they won’t rest until they find out. King Tāwhiri sees her as no one ever has before, but how can she trust it’s more than just enchantment at work? Can she make it home by dawn? And does she even want to marry a winged king, anyway?
So, how do you get your hands on this novella? Because I know a lot of my fans have already read the original version, I am offering this new edition as a pre-order reward for my novel set in the same world, How to Find a Nameless Fae. Fill out this form with proof of your pre-order, and you can get Winged King for free.
I can finally reveal this BEAUTIFUL cover, designed by Holly Dunn:
BLURB:
What happens when a first-born bargain goes wrong?
Princess Gisele has spent her life preparing for an evil fae sorcerer to claim her. That was the bargain her mother was tricked into: one royal first-born in exchange for spinning straw into gold.
But it’s been decades, and he still hasn’t shown up.
The unfulfilled fairytale-debt, however, is refusing to lie quietly. When its chaotic magic reaches unbearable levels, Gisele takes matters into her own hands. Terrifying fae sorcerer or not, she’ll hunt him down and force him to stop ruining her life.
But instead of an evil mastermind, she finds the scholarly, nameless lord of a magical house. He wants nothing to do with the angry knife-wielding spinster on his doorstep. Unfortunately, the fairytale-debt has other ideas.
Now magically bound to her lifelong nemesis, the only way to break the magic between them is to work together to find the nameless fae’s lost name. Assuming they don’t strangle each other first.
HOW TO FIND A NAMELESS FAE is a cozy romantasy retelling of Rumplestiltskin with spice, featuring a middle-aged heroine, a buttoned-up hero, and an interfering sentient house.
How To Find A Nameless Fae is set in the same world as my novella How To Marry A Winged King, but they are each standalones that can be read in any order (though there is a small cameo of the Winged King characters in Nameless Fae).
I originally wrote Winged King under a tight wordcount constraint for an anthology. Since then, I’ve re-edited and expanded it, giving it a bit more room to breathe. The new version is about twice as long as the original story (roughly 20k words total).
I’ve decided to offer this new version as a pre-order reward for How To Find a Nameless Fae, which means that if you pre-order Nameless Fae, you can get the new version of Winged King to read right now, FREE.
Just fill out this form with proof of your pre-order to claim the reward!
The last couple of weeks have been a bit overwhelming on the award front in the best possible way. First, the audiobook of A Rake of His Own was awarded an earphones award by Audiofile magazine for its excellent narration by Nicholas Boulton. They were, of course, completely correct to do so because Nicholas has a voice like smooth chocolate and I couldn’t imagine a better performance.
Nicholas Boulton’s narration of this audiobook–part fantasy, part mystery, part romance–is all pleasure. “
Two pointy trophies, in fact, because my story How to Marry A Winged King also won the SJV Award for Best Novelette! This story first appeared in the FaRoFeb anthology Once Upon A Forbidden Desire and is currently out of print, but I’m working on a slightly revised and expanded version of the original and hope to release it later this year.
Thank you SO much to everyone who nominated and / or voted for my work this year. I’m a bit stunned (but will also of course be referring to myself as ‘multi-award-winning-author AJ Lancaster’ from here on out, of course).
I cannot fully express what it means to me to have A Rake of His Own in particular receive accolades, but I am about to get emotional and navel-gazing here and try anyway. You’ve been warned.
I often joke about A Rake of His Own being a “great bonus novella!” because that was how it started life (in theory, at least; in hindsight, it was never going to be anything but a novel). I had wrapped up my series finale, but I had this dangling romantic plotline still hanging between two secondary characters, so I thought I’d write a wee novella to tie that loose thread up.
Of course, A Rake of His Own ended up being my second-longest book, coming in at around 120k words (only The King of Faerie, my Stariel series finale, is longer). I was proud of The King of Faerie, but it had been at times an exhausting book to write, with lots of plot threads to tie up and a weight of expectations on my shoulders to finish the series on a high note.
A Rake of His Own felt free of all such expectations. I hadn’t set out to write it as part of the series or as a novel at all. There were no larger series-arc promises left to keep. So I let myself just write in a way I hadn’t for a long time, without consideration for anyone else but me.
The result is somewhat sillier than the main quartet and a bit more raunchy. The lead character is riddled with anxiety and prone to internal monologuing and self-arguments, in contrast to my more decisive heroine of the earlier Stariel books. It was my first attempt at a murder mystery and also my first book with a gay lead.
Reader, it was so much fun to write.
But I was worried no one would like it. Putting a book out into the world is always an incredible act of vulnerability, but this one in particular made me feel even more exposed than usual, perhaps because Marius’s anxious nature is in many ways my own. What if it was too much? What if no one found my banter funny or liked my murder mystery? What if everyone thought Marius was annoying? What if readers freaked out because I used the word ‘cock’?
I was tempted to tone it down, to smooth away some of its weirder corners or make the sex scenes more euphemistic, even though that felt like a betrayal of these characters. In the past I have occasionally given in to this voice of fear, to an imagined critic, not substantially but in small ways (which is something I now regret and a lesson learned for me to be braver in future).
This time, I managed to hold firm against the clamour of voices in my head. However, I remained a pile of nerves at war with myself over it right up until I hit the publish button and couldn’t unmake the decision.
(Here I would like to thank all my writerly friends who patiently suffered with me during this time.)
All of which is to say is that A Rake of His Own sits very close to my heart. I am so incredibly proud of this book and prouder still that I didn’t chicken out of letting it be its full, utterly ridiculous, shamelessly sensual self. I have been humbled and delighted by its reception and the fact that (thankfully for my career) it has been enjoyed by many people other than me. Mostly people didn’t even freak out about the cocks.
