Showing results by author "Kate Labahn" in All Categories

Get ready for a Red Riding Hood Retelling like no other before! Originally conceived as a play script, now published with visual aids, Red is an eager young woman, and Peter, who works at the nearby goods store, is sweet on her. But Red’s grandmother doesn’t want her granddaughter to grow up too fast too soon. One day, Red encourages a big wolf who has been doing what some would look upon as bad things. Even Peter warns Red not to trust wolves, but Red, in a moment of compassion for a suffering animal, brings Wolf home to her grandmother.

In Ancient Greece after the Trojan War, as described in The Iliad, there were a brother and sister, Avel and Syma, who suffered at the hands of their stepfamily. Until three Goddesses decide to visit the siblings and give them tests and gifts to help change their lives for the better. In the kingdom where the brother and sister live, the Goddess of Love wants the young ruling queen Charis to find love again, so the goddesses again take part in bringing Avel, Syma, and the young queen together, changing the lives of all three of them, so much so that it would be painted on pottery one day.

Chip, a thoughtful chocolate chip is unique in a bag of chocolate chips. His view of the world gets much bigger and slightly scarier when Mother Daisy and her daughter Kit open the bag and Chip starts talking to a nearby Egg. Soon Chip's wonder at the wider world gets scary when he sees what happens to his friend egg and what Kit does to his fellow chocolate chips. With the transformational process of mixing and baking Chip gets turned into a brownie, but that doesn't change his thoughtfulness.

In this short sequel that takes place during the same time as Snakes and Diamonds, we follow King Roscoe, left behind in Malachite after the war between Malachite and the Amber Empire. Roscoe meets another who had been frogged by the Wizard Henry, Celine, the former Queen of Malachite’s neighboring kingdom, Obsidian. Celine tells Roscoe she knows of one who might be able to help them, Philla of Beryl, the fae daughter of Oberon and Titania. But Roscoe, frog or no, is determined to get back to the Amber Empire, so the two frogs part ways.

When a young lion lures a human away to protect his pride, he meets a crab, and their friendship changes everyone’s lives forever. At Pond School, on the banks of the Nile, the friendship of a hippo and a demoiselle crane is tested when a class assignment changes the bird’s way of thinking about his lifestyle. At Central Park Zoo in New York City, giraffe brothers Joff and Ruzz must put their sibling squabbles aside to help a lost dog reunite with her owner, and in this effort, both learn what being tall means.

Two stories that take place at two different Christmas times. Jim and Della struggle during hard times in 1906 New York City. Della has gorgeous hair, and Jim has a beautiful watch. Each of the young lovers decide to give up their most prized possessions to get a Christmas present for the other. Annabelle and Henry each run special shops in the city that have the gifts Jim and Della want, but when Annabelle does much more than help Della, hers and Jim’s love for each other will be put to a series of tests. Wink was an elf baby orphaned in the woods after a winter storm.

Stacy Dee Haverly, nicknamed Dagmar, is navigating an even greater grief than the sudden loss of her father. This time, it is the inevitable loss of her mother. Her grief affects her and her estranged grandmother Helena deeply, but Dagmar has four friends she grew up with who have been there for her far more than her distant grandmother. We follow Dagmar in her grief before returning to an earlier time, when Dagmar, Adrian, Iona, Sam, and Rodney all went to school together and grew up as friends.

Isadora Stilton and Quinn Avery have known each other since before they were ten. They continued being friends through puberty and into high school. Alas, first love withers under the long, icy axe of college acceptance letters. The two young lovers decide to say goodbye to each other and hello to successful careers, his as an actor and hers as a writer. Years later, the dance of life brings them both around to see each other again, and an unexpected health crisis brings them closer than ever before.

Mesagan, immortal son of the God of Light Susegi and the Goddess of Love Unacoria, was born with the gift of foresight. But one thing his parents taught him was that the future is always changing, affected by one’s choices in the present. It has been three months since the events of Cole’s Hunt and only nineteen years since Mesagan told Deucalion “Cal,” the light wolf he loves, “See you in twenty-eight years.” Mesagan met Rislucian, Cal’s young son from a previous relationship during the events of Cole’s Hunt for a reason.

On the planet Entitya, on the island of Sinuatollion, Mendina’s father Susegi, God of Creation and Light, offers Mendina the chance to have her soulmate made for her, but she declines, having met her first love Tarius. She and Tarius live a life together and have a daughter, Solange, staying together for almost nineteen years. When Tarius is mortally wounded by Tajincour, son of the God of Darkness, Nefarion, neither Mendina’s kiss of love nor her unicorn horn are able to heal him, and Tarius dies.

Cole wakes in a dark cave with no memory of his real name, what happened before the cave, or anything else from his life. The only thing he knows for sure is he is always cold, even though he lives on an island and it's summertime. Just when Cole is making his cave into a home, everything changes when he helps out two Davinay Players who nearly fall off the mountainside seeking mountain goats and Gem Dragons in equal measure. It isn't until Cole comes down from his mountain cave and joins the Davinay Players that he begins seeking answers about his past and, by doing so, finds his destiny.

Vavra, the first immortal winged unicorn, was born even before the god Mesagan and the goddess Mendina. Over five hundred years later, Vavra’s stepchildren, the twins Cornelia and Cygnet, go to Mauvewood to meet their grandparents and build a relationship with the community there.

On the planet of Entitya, on the rural and fantastical island of Sinuatollion, where certain humans and certain animals have telepathic and empathetic bonds, eighteen-year-old Solange and her foster brother Leviathan, a fire-breathing, aquatic dragon, leave their hometown of Gemini to find their individual birth parents. Mesagan, Solange’s uncle, who raised both girl and dragon side by side, gives them one clue: a bloodstained stone, which unbeknownst to the adopted siblings is part of an ancient magic tool called the Alicorn Sword.

Back in the beginning, Mother Universe had two sons: Susegi, being of Light, and Nefarion, being of Darkness. Though she loved her sons dearly, she also longed for a daughter to teach and raise. Finally, her wish was granted when Unacoria, a young, wandering, and lonely being was found by Mother Universe and was raised not to be a sister to her sons but the power of love personified—to inspire love in others.

Selene and Sunny are a pair of carousel unicorn figurines on a music box that belongs to young Monica. When Monica turns the winding key, Selene and Sunny move up and down on their carousel poles as the music plays. While Monica sleeps, a frog hops in through the open window, hopping over to the music box, and uses his long tongue to break off part of Sunny’s horn, escaping back through the window with his prize.

The Amber Empire is ruled by three brothers—Garth the eldest has a brilliant mind for military strategy and seeing the bigger picture for the future of the Empire, Caleb the youngest is a sorcerer, and Roscoe the one who slows down and takes the time to love Harriet, make her his queen, and have a daughter, the princess Evaine. When King Roscoe leaves to fight in a war against the kingdom of Malachite, he finds love with the gentle Malachite woman, Zoe. When Zoe becomes pregnant with Roscoe’s illegitimate child, he sends her back to the Amber Kingdom with a protection letter.

In the land of Beryl, there is a forest, and in those woods lived Widow Abigail and her two dear daughters Snow and Rosie. The girls are opposite to each other in their dispositions, but they love each other dearly. Living off what the forest provides, they play games and help their mother with chores around the home, but the sisters love most for their mother to tell them stories after dinner. One winter’s night, the line between fairy tale and reality begins to blur when their mother begins the tale about a forest spirit who falls prey to his own inner demon of greed.

In a time long past, along the Nile, a peace treaty is signed between the powers of Egypt and Rome. As an act of good faith, Arsinoe, Pharaoh Ptolemy's daughter, invites the Roman envoy Albanus to dinner, making for him her three stone soup. As Ptolemy sees the attraction between the two, the pharaoh decides to drive a wedge between the two.

In the same medieval fantasy world where Raina and Bowen had seven sky colors named after them and Clara’s beloved stepsister Kelly of Yule went to veterinary school, there is another tale about the Kingdom of Marigold. In the forest where golden things grew, the being only Mori knew as Rumpelstiltskin grew bored watching the wheat and yarrow grow. One day, Rumpelstiltskin confides in Mori he wants to reinvigorate his endless existence by becoming a father, and right from the start, he sees that Rumpelstiltskin’s desire is no laughing matter.

Once upon an ancient time, a Grecian prince made the goddess Artemis angry by choosing the wrong prey in a hunt. As a consequence, Artemis and Apollo cursed the prince and others involved in the hunt with lives unaffected by time. In the present, Widower Carl Westmore leaves the cottage home he shares with his daughter Vella for a doctor's appointment in the city. When he gets lost, with no money for an Uber, he trespasses on a quiet cursed estate. However, the watchmen Hal and the gardener Kalen grant their guest hospitality. In the morning, Carl plucks a red rose from the cluster of white.