Rating: 5✨
I love stories where the author has twisted known fairy tales into their own interpretations of these beloved characters and takes on their universes and themes.
Inked in Ashes is author Shannon Mayer’s first novel in her new Inkbound series about a princess hidden in a book of Fairy Tales until the time is finally come for her to make her way back home and save her kingdom.
From such a simple sounding premise comes an incredible story, starting with a devastating scene of sacrifice, death , and the magic that sends a toddler princess into a book of fairy tales just as her father’s enemy destroys everything around her. It’s heartbreaking and terrifying as any a prologue.
Harmony Fallowell is the young woman we meet in a slum town, Hollow, along with her best friend, Moll, trying to get her friend out of going to the ball. Harmony’s got a stepfather, stepmother, and her kids. Yes, she’s not been treated well as an extra mouth or adopted sibling.
Things go badly at the ball for Moll and then Harmony who is there for her.
Mayer beautifully pulls in many of the familiar themes and fairy tale staples here, ones that will make the reader nod in acknowledgment. But those are just a fantastic framework for a deeper story.
One that has inspired characters, including falcons, violence, gore in action scenes, and some detailed deaths. There’s also an off the page mention of a SA.
So think Grimm’s instead of Disney and you would be more prepared for the type of characters and scenarios found here.
The journey that propels Harmony throughout this book is so well written. It combines a number of different elements, all perfectly executed to give the feeling of multiple layers being utilized at the same time to help her develop and become the person needed at the end of her journey. The one needed to save her kingdom.
How I love this book and characters. Absolutely amazing.
Molli too. She’s a tremendous character.
I need Inked in Onyx asap!
Highly recommended!
Cover by HiJinks Ink Publishing
Inkbound series:
Inked in Ashes #1
Inked in Onyx #2 – June 10,2025
Buy link
Blurb
For fans of Once Upon a Time, and Wicked.
Escape the page, or die trying…
I’ve spent twenty-five years in the Hollow, poor as dirt, cursed with a stepmother who hates me, and dreaming about a faraway land that I don’t understand. Only two things that make life worth living are my falcon, Fetch, and my best friend, Molly.
But when Moll’s plot to land a royal husband at the palace ball goes horribly wrong, I find myself staring at a king with a glass stiletto buried in his chest and a blood-covered Molly standing over him. We’ve got to move…and fast, or we’ll both wind up swinging from the hangman’s noose.
Worse? The palace sorcerer is using everything he can to find the culprit including raising the dead.
More complicated? Duncan…brother to the King, whose eye I’ve unintentionally caught, a man whose secrets might be deadlier than the undead soldiers breathing down our necks, is making me second-guess everything I’ve ever known.
With revolution brewing and a mysterious man calling to me from my dreams, I have no choice but to embrace my fate…
But what if my fate is beyond anything I could ever imagine? What if the only land I’ve ever known isn’t home at all?
What if I’m trapped inside a fairytale, and the only way out…is through?
- Publisher: Hijinks Ink Publishing
- Accessibility: Learn more
- Publication date: May 13, 2025
- Language: English
- Book 1 of 2: Inkbound
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 