The All-Amazing Prince Nicolas Talks About Twins

Hello, random people, Nicolas here, again. My dear twin Nicoline isn't here with us today, and I really couldn't say where she is. There was a situation with a cream pie, and... well, she's not here to write the post with me.

So, I just wanted to take the time for a moment to tell you some things about being a twin. First of all, don't ask me what it's like to actually be a twin. Because I really wouldn't know how to answer that. I don't know what it's like to not be a twin. 

Nicoline has been my best friend and my worst enemy... since birth. I really don't remember which one of us is older. I think our older brother Dmitri knows, but he won't tell me. I keep asking, because I'm pretty sure I'm the older twin. But if I was the older twin, that would be awesome. Nicoline would hate it, and that would be so much fun. But Dmitri won't tell us which is older. 

Older brothers really can be a pest sometimes.

But who's the better twin? Obviously, me! I'm smarter, better looking, more popular... only Nicoline probably would never admit to all of that. 

But being a twin really is a lot of fun! I know most of you probably will never understand what I'm talking about, but anyway. It's like having a built-in partner to do everything with. There's always someone to pester. 

But, no. Nicoline and I do not, repeat DO NOT, switch places. That would be highly disturbing. After all, I'm a dashing, royal prince, and she's only my sister. When we were little people used to mix us up all time, but then I thankfully got old enough to wear real trousers, and Nicoline grew her hair out longer. 

And, I don't like to admit it, but we do sometimes finish each other's sentences. It's rare, though, considering that we usually don't like to think the same about things. Every once in a while, we work well together.

The only problem with my twin is that Nicoline is a girl. We used to argue horribly about what we wanted to do, because Nicoline couldn't see the sense of having a sword fight in the ballroom, and I really don't like tea parties. Dmitri used to make us take turns at choosing what we were going to do - one day was Nicoline's and we'd do whatever she wanted to do. Then, the next day was mine, and we'd do all the fun stuff.

But that was before Nicoline and I started our competition. It all began when I hid a toad inside the tea pot during a tea party that I was forced to attend. After that, she coated my sword hilt with honey, and then we progressed to more and more pranks. 

The ultimate goal of our competition is to eventually kill each other. But it's all in fun. I'm going to win, of course, and poor Nicoline just can't agree to that. 

Of course, she's not happy for the stunt I pulled right at the beginning of our book. But it really wasn't my fault that the balloon destroyed Lord Roux's garden. It really wasn't! But, Nicoline is intent on blaming me for everything, and therefore, I am behind on the competition. 

Never fear, I have some plans to catch up, and pull ahead in our competition. I always have a plan. I...

Nicolas, what's going on?

Ahh! Nicoline, don't do that!

What are you doing??

Writing a blog post. Nope! Sorry, can't read it. It's already live.

Um, no, it's not. What did you write?

Nothing important!

Nicolas! Don't publish it before I get to proofread it!

Like I said. I'm the faster twin. Hey, random people, go read our book. 

OUR BOOK IS OUT!

Hey, random people! Prince Nicolas here!

And Princess Nicoline. Why do you get to speak first?

Because I'm faster. And better looking.

Doubtful on both accounts. 

Kiri has officially published The Rose and the Balloon and it is available on CreateSpace! And on Amazon!

So please go visit and purchase!

And love us! Kiri said something about getting a Kindle version up too, but we think that might go through in a couple of days. So, you can get your paperback now, and then get the ebook in a few days. Even though I haven't the slightest idea of what an ebook is. But we'll let you know when that will be available. 

You know, I feel like Kiri isn't going to approve of our advertising.

Who cares? It's too much fun!

Anyway, she has several very fun interviews lined up this week, so be sure to keep an eye out on the blogging world. To give you a taste of what's in store, here's her schedule: 

Monday, August 1st

Interview with Kara at Saved By Grace

Tuesday, August 2nd

Interview with Christine at Musings of an Elf

Wednesday, August 3rd

Interview with Hayden at A Singular and Whimsical Problem

Thursday, August 4th

Interview with Korin at I'm Going on an Adventure

Wow! That looks really official! Where'd you get that?

Nicolas, if I told you all my secrets, they would fail to be secrets.

But we're twins! We're not supposed to have secrets from each other!

You know very well that's not true.

Fine. Random people, we will also be popping on here at Lianne Taimenlore every day from now until August 5th, so be sure to look out for more fun posts from us, the royal twins of Rohesia!

It's probably a good thing Kiri is still distracted. If she knew, she would so have our heads.

She'll probably punish us by not writing us in more stories for another five years.

Ugh. I'd almost rather she took our heads. 

This is Nicolas and Nicoline.

Oh, well, that's a fantastic title. 

Can you think of anything better?

*huffs*

I'll take that as a no. 

So, are you going to introduce us?

I just did. In the title. 

*glares*

You know you're doing an awful lot of nonverbal communication here, sis. *clears throat* Hello, all random people. I am Prince Nicolas of Rohesia, and the vision sitting next to me is my twelve-year-old twin sister, Nicoline.

I'm not a vision!

True, but you are a grump. Ouch! Don't hit.

I only hit if you deserve it. And you completely deserved that one.

Well, anyway, random people, we just wanted to let you know that we kicked Kiri off the face of the planet.

Um, no, we didn't.

Okay, fine. She left her computer unguarded, and we confiscated it. 

See, we're really trying to do her a favor. She's very busy with a lot of stuff at home right now, and trying to get our story published, and then she's also really distracted with writing on The Dragon Tamer again. 

I don't know why she'd want to write about all of them when we're so much more fun.

Nicolas, shh! That's rude. We wanted to help Kiri out by doing the whole blog tour party book release thing for her, so she didn't have to worry about it. 

That's right, we did. And since we're going to take over the party, it'll be epic! We know everything there is to know about The Rose and the Balloon, plus we have the dirty, inside scoop on Kiri...

But we're not going to release all the dirty information on Kiri. *glares*

Well, maybe not. But our book comes out tomorrow! So, random people, get your wallets and credit cards ready, and be ready to buy it off Amazon! Bye for now!

What are credit cards anyway?

Not really sure, sis. 

The Proof is In!

And that's one more step closer to publication, folks! 

I'm very excited to report that the proof copy of The Rose and the Balloon arrived today in the mail! 

Only four more days!! 

God bless!

RatB: The Cover From the Photographer's Perspective

(RatB means The Rose and the Balloon for anyone that's confused.)

Just popping on quickly to share a cool post with you all! Yesterday, I shared my novella's cover, along with my own story about the process of getting it done. Latitude 40 Photography was great in helping me accomplish that, and last night my friend also posted the story from his perspective. 

Would you like to see how the cover came about from the photographer's perspective? Click here to visit the post on his blog! 

Again, the link is HERE. 

God bless!

The Rose and the Balloon Cover Reveal

The countdown is on and we are so close to the release of The Rose and the Balloon! 9 days! I still can't believe that I'm that close to having my first work in print.

Am I excited? Yes.

Am I nervous? Yes.

Is everything in me going everywhere all at the same time? Oh, yeah. 

And... in preparation of that great event in NINE DAYS' TIME, I have the great privilege of sharing with you the anticipated cover. 

But before I do that, let me tell you a little bit of how this little bit of graphic awesomeness came about. 

~*~

Once upon a time, there lived a young girl who desperately wanted to become an author. That girl was me, but I prefer to talk about this in third person. 

Anyway, this girl wrote a Beauty and the Beast story, and was hoping to get it published very soon. On August 1st of 2016, to be exact. But she had no cover to put on the book. She could format all the content, battle CreateSpace, struggle through all the tiny little details, but she couldn't do anything drawing/graphics/artsy to save her life.

So, she set out an SOS (or an SMB -- "save my book") to a good friend of hers. Now, this friend was very clever with things like cameras and films and graphics and images. If anyone could help her with this impossible cover problem, HE could. After all, he was Latitude 40 Photography. 

Now this friend got right down to work when he got the SMB. He braved the dangers of the wilds, blew up bridges, fought off alligators, and crawled through the depths of Tartarus itself (maybe -- I'm actually a little fuzzy on these details, but it all sounds nice) to get the perfect picture. 

But was the Latitude 40 man done there? Of course not. There was still much to do.

He edited the photo and sent it to the girl. She was so delighted with it, but she still wasn't sure what to do with it. She was so worried that she would mess it up and make it look like some cheap, self-published cover art. So, again, Latitude 40 jumped to the rescue. He did more editing, searched for all the perfect fonts, and sent back an absolute perfection of a photo for the book's cover.

And then she realized she'd sent him the wrong text for the cover. She was so upset with herself. 

But he fixed it. And then it was even more amazing than ever.

The End

~*~ 

So, that's more or less how it went. Maybe less than more, but anywhoz. It was my fault that the cover reveal was delayed like it was, but now we're all back on schedule. I am thoroughly indebted to Latitude 40 Photography (which you can "like" via this link to Facebook) and all the other friends who were so good to help me out with this. 

And, without further adieu... 

In a kingdom where fauna and flora are held in higher esteem than breakfast, Dmitri is a prince who yearns for change and plans it in a single daring act that will alter his life forever. However, when his demented mother accidentally causes the destruction of a prized garden of roses, Dmitri is horrified when she proposes his hand in marriage to make up for it. Not only will a wife hamper his glorious plans, he doesn't even want one. 

Janelle has spent her whole life on her father's rose farm, tending the roses and staying simple. But she really yearns for something greater than the flower beds. But now there's a wrench thrown in the works – the crazy Queen Maeva wants her to marry the prince, and all for ruining her father's beloved roses.

This is Beauty and the Beast with a twist like you've never seen it before.

~*~

The Rose and the Balloon will be available on Amazon August 1st! Be sure to add it to your bookshelf on Goodreads or, if you feel so inclined, check out the Pinterest board!

God bless! 

Kirsten Fichter is a twenty-something Christian writer who is trying to find the balance between being one of six kids, a church pianist, a college student, a movie buff, a disaster in the kitchen, and a writing INFP. If you know what the secret is to balancing all of that, she’d be grateful to hear from you. Otherwise, don’t contact her unless you want to send her homemade gingerbread. Or a new piano book. Or an autographed Charles Dickens novel. In the meantime, she’ll be somewhere under a maple tree – trying very hard to finish the seventeen and half other stories she unwisely started all at once.  

Cover Reveal Date!

I was hoping to set the cover reveal for The Rose and the Balloon for today, but unfortunately, that wasn't possible. A few unforeseeable setbacks - including my getting sick - kinda bumped us off schedule. 

The official cover reveal will be on Friday, July 22nd. And I am super excited to share the cover with you all! My design guy did a fantastic job, and I couldn't be more pleased! 

I'll be sending out the information to those who are participating in the cover reveal soon, so if there's anyone else who'd like to hop in on the fun, shoot me an email at liannetaimenlore(at)gmail(dot). Or just share whatever you please when I post on Friday.

11 days until the release! 

God bless!