BVC Authors Send Characters to a Faerie Ball

News Editor
June 19, 2025

Three lucky BVC authors got invited to send a character to Queen Titania’s Court for a Grand Midsummer Night Ball. It’s a total hoot!

Gregory Frost

Thomas the Rhymer Thrust into Queen Titania’s Court

Invited into Deby Fredericks’ Queen Titania’s Court, my obvious choice of who to send was Thomas, the lead character of my “Rhymer” trilogy, the final volume of which, Rhymer: Hel, just came out last month from Baen. And as if I’d anticipated this development, I’d opened the novel with a journey into Þagalwood, a bizarre feature of the world of the Yvag (the elves), who have their own queen, Nicnevin. Why, then, might that strange wood not offer entry into a different realm—a different dimension entirely? Given that the faery queen’s court is its own world, separate from both elves and humans, where else would the portal be but deep inside Þagalwood, where time already runs askew.

In the two minutes it took me to embrace that idea, whole new story possibilities blossomed. Thomas, already stumbling through the unholy wood, could so easily come upon a new portal and step into the realm of faery. He’s already traveling through the reign of Elizabeth I, in the company of Christopher Marlowe and an actor by the name of Will Shakespeare. How fitting that he meet the Faery Queen.

Would the fae welcome him or hinder him? Might he gain the trust if not the assistance of Queen Titania herself? Let’s face it, an entire novel might easily be constructed around such an alliance. Worlds have been forged with less.

Find the Rhymer Trilogy here at Amazon.
Find more of Gregory Frost’s dark Celtic fantasy novels here at the Book View Café store.
Find Thomas’s appearance at Queen Titania’s Grand Midsummer Night Ball here.

Jennifer Stevenson

This series was so much fun to write! There are two couples in Walking on Sunshine: Veek and Sophie, and Baz and Ioni. Baz and Ioni are in show business: he’s a stagehand, like my husband, and also a retired-war-god-turned-sex-demon, kind of like my husband, and she’s a world class rock star, so I felt quite at home with them.

That said, researching Veek’s part of Walking on Sunshine gave me no end of trouble. I found that pop culture has treated vodou so badly, between novels, movies, and comic books making up all kinds of sensational and criminal nonsense about it, that it was almost impossible to find the source material I needed to help me respectfully present the practice of this deeply communal, nature-oriented way of life. Those who practice real-life vodou are tired of being asked if they really stick pins in dolls all the time. They’re not talking. (Imagine people constantly asking Catholics if they really eat God once a week.)

So I had to rework Veek’s entire life story to make him a hero who is not on the inside, but on the outside of his heritage. When I had that worked out, he was so tired from my hero personal training program that he would only sit there and sulk at me.

Luckily, Sophie came along to mess with his head. She’s “like a freight train, but running in circles,” a firehose of vitality and optimism and brainless teenage joy. She pitched him into adventure after adventure, just as his cousin and best friend did for eighty years before that. Then all I had to do was write it down.

Find the Slacker Demons and all my other books here at the Book View Café store.
Find Veek’s appearance at Queen Titania’s Grand Midsummer Night Ball here.

Irene Radford

Hi! I’m Daphne Rose Wallace Deschants—Daffy to anyone who ever wants to eat my pastries again. I may be a college graduate, with a BA in History Education, and married for thirteen years with three children, but I’m still coming of age. I’ve known for a long time, but never quite acknowledged, that my soon to be ex husband has magical powers and he has passed the gene to all three of the adolescents he sired—two of them with me and then I adopted his son by his first wife, but that’s another long, long story. But I really and truly never expected he’d taint me with magic as well.

I admit, proudly that I turn out some pretty amazing pastries, but that’s more chemistry than art.

Or is it?

I transform flour and sugar and butter into cupcakes and croissants and heavenly cinnamon rolls—you do know that cinnamon is an aphrodisiac don’t you?—that doesn’t mean there’s magic involved. I didn’t think so either until… well in a fit a pique I transformed G—the aforementioned almost ex-husband—into what he truly was. I don’t really need an old goat in my backyard. Except he did do an amazing job in pruning the invasive blackberries….

Anyway, I showed up at Queen Titania’s ball because G says I have to in order to fully qualify for membership in the International Guild of Wizards and Master Magicians. And he should know since he’s the Sheriff of the Guild who monitors memberships. And, really I do need an excuse to wear the ballgown he bought me. There are some truly wonderful bits of drapey chiffon and lace and silk flowers on it that I can transform into ballet costumes for our son’s company. And….

Oops I’ve rattled on long enough. I’ve got an appointment with the Queen in about three seconds.

Find A Spoonful of Magic and all Irene Radford’s other books here at the Book View Café store.

Find Daphne’s appearance at Queen Titania’s Grand Midsummer Night Ball on June 25.

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Watch the comments below for more posts from Queen Titania’s Grand Midsummer Night Ball this year!

Queen Titania gives this ball every June at Deby Fredericks’ blog, so you can go back to previous years to find all the posts from everyone who has participated. The range of stories is pretty wild: dark romantic fantasy, epic fantasy, historical fantasy, PNR romcom, children’s, YA, and middle-grade stories. Check it out!