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Tag Archives: The Untold Tale

The Untold Tale by J.M. Frey…Read Along Tour!

18 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by Kathleen Palm in Blog Tour, Thoughts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

book, fantasy, J.M. Frey, Read along, The Untold Tale, thoughts

I read this book and enjoyed it SUPER SUPER MUCH! Yes…super super. I am very excited about book two! So I am helping to celebrate the upcoming release by hosting this read along, where the fantastic Cal Spivey give us insight into the happenings of chapters 6 and 7!

If you like fantasy…you’ll love this book. And Pip is the absolute BEST!

untold-tale-blog-tour

 

“Your brother is a slimeball.”: The Untold Read-Along Part Three

 

Welcome to The Untold Tale read-along! The Untold Tale by J.M. Frey is the first book in the Accidental Turn series, the second book of which, The Forgotten Tale, will be released on December 6th. To prep for book two, we’re sharing a ten-part series that will be part recap, part review, and part discussion of the book that has been called the “most important work of fantasy written in 2015.”

If you want to read along with us and avoid the SPOILERS that will follow, you can pick up your copy of The Untold Tale from major online retailers.

About the book

Forsyth Turn is not a hero. Lordling of Turn Hall and Lysse Chipping, yes. Spymaster for the king, certainly. But hero? That’s his older brother’s job, and Kintyre Turn is nothing if not legendary. However, when a raid on the kingdom’s worst criminal results in the rescue of a bafflingly blunt woman, oddly named and even more oddly mannered, Forsyth finds his quaint, sedentary life is turned on its head.

Dragged reluctantly into a quest he never expected, and fighting villains that even his brother has never managed to best, Forsyth is forced to confront his own self-shame and the demons that come with always being second-best. And, more than that, when he finally realizes where Lucy came from and why she’s here, he’ll be forced to question not only his place in the world, but the very meaning of his own existence.

Smartly crafted, The Untold Tale gives agency to the unlikeliest of heroes: the silenced, the marginalized, and the overlooked. It asks what it really means to be a fan when the worlds you love don’t resemble the world you live in, celebrates the power of the written word, challenges tropes, and shows us what happens when someone stands up and refuses to remain a secondary character in their own life.

Part One: “I assume the body is a corpse.” Chapters 1 and 2

Part Two: “Information, at last!” Chapters 3, 4, and 5

 

Part Three: Chapters 6 and 7

 

Cal Spivey

 

In this section, Forsyth is staggered by Pip’s revelation that the world he lives in is the fictional setting of a series of books called The Tales of Kintyre Turn, by Elgar Reed. Reed, an author from Pip’s real world, wrote these books as a very pulp-fantasy, Terry Goodkind-esque saga of the glorious hero Kintyre Turn and his squire and chronicler Sir Bevel Dom. In other words, Forsyth has lived his entire life in Kintyre’s shadow by design.

Pip and Forsyth recover enough to return to the dinner party, where Bevel promptly bullies Pip into dancing, despite her first polite and then blunt protests. At least he is a kind partner, instructive as he leads her through an unfamiliar dance. But before anyone can relax, Kintyre cuts in, groping Pip and exacerbating her injuries.

The emotional roller-coaster of an evening comes to a head when Bevel, per his and Kintyre’s usual routine with maidens, proposes a threesome with Pip. When Pip refuses, an argument as to whose bed she’ll go to (“How about I go to nobody’s bed?” Pip says) culminates in her outing of Kintyre and Bevel as lovers, per the homosexual subtext of the novels.

Kintyre refuses to escort Pip home, and Pip refuses to accept his help anyway. Pip convinces Forsyth that they can take on the quest together instead.

 

—–

 

“The whole world was created for my brother. To serve him. To exalt and glorify him.” (page 142)

In my life, I have heard people say–in earnest–that a particular deity created this world to serve and fulfill the needs of men. Not mankind, but men, specifically.

Imagine if that were true.

Or, that not only was the world created to serve and fulfill the needs of men, but one man in particular.

Poor Forsyth! The chapters we’ve read so far have all expertly led to this moment. Every reminder of Kintyre’s existence has led to dark recollections from Forsyth of his brother’s rudeness, selfishness, and cruelty. Having been introduced to Kintyre, we see how boorish and offensive he is. I would be crushed to learn that my whole world existed to support someone like him.

Why, though? Isn’t he a hero? Hasn’t he saved people and done great things for the kingdom? One of the amazing things about this series is that as much as it lifts up non-traditional heroism, it also directly challenges the traditional–but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

This section specifically shines a light on Kintyre’s personal relationships and the way his version of masculinity inhibits and damages them.

On page 157, Pip criticizes the fact that Kintyre knows “the social cues and common practices of politeness,” but “has decided…that learning to communicate and interact with other human beings is beneath him. That everyone will just…marvel and obey.” We see this in Kintyre’s behavior toward Forsyth, his own brother, whose every request regarding Kintyre’s stay at Turn Hall is utterly ignored. Kintyre shows up and shows no consideration for what’s already going on. He demands accommodation, but won’t accommodate–not even, or perhaps especially not, when it comes to respecting Pip’s triggers and boundaries, first when Forsyth warns him of them and later when Pip herself tries to set them.

And poor Bevel! His exchange with Pip on pages 173-175, the morning after the party and Pip’s outing of him as in love with Kintyre, is heartbreaking. He’s terrified because Kintyre “doesn’t love anyone,” including Bevel, though they’ve been traveling together for more than a decade and have a sexual relationship (albeit one expressed through threesomes with a woman). Pip’s exposure of them has brought an end to even that, Bevel fears, because Kintyre views love as a game: “he makes [women] fall in love with him and then he runs…now he knows, and he’s going to run away from me.” Kintyre won’t even look at Bevel.

Kintyre’s adventures are rife with sexual exploits, an integral part of any male power fantasy given the expectations placed on men to only want one thing, as I and I’m sure others heard from our mothers when we were teenage girls. But that’s all they are: exploitations. Kintyre’s masculinity is about being adored, not adoring, and he’s never shown to have even the smallest bit of kindness to give in return.

Even as Bevel propositions Pip for a threesome, it has a perfunctory feel about it. There’s no excitement, there’s certainly no chemistry between Pip and either hero. “Why don’t we just jump ahead to the end of the evening?” Bevel says, as he must do whenever there’s a maiden about–organizing threesomes, as Pip says, just so he can touch Kintyre. Kintyre, for his part, is in an “indolent slouch” until Pip says no, and only then does he interject. To my reading, he doesn’t care about having sex with Pip–he cares that she went against the script and rejected him.

I could go on–we haven’t even talked about the way Kintyre’s behavior, even at a remove, infects Forsyth’s instinctual reactions to Pip and their potential relationship, though we did touch on that last week–but by the end of this section, Kintyre is gone, and Pip and Forsyth have a new challenge to overcome: quest planning.

 

Coming up
This next one goes out to all the fantasy nerds out there. Join us–and author J.M. Frey!–for a little nerding out as Pip and Forsyth hit the books before they hit the road. Next week, part four will be hosted by Michelle Hoehn over at A Sleuth of Bears and cover chapters 8, 9, and 10.

 

The Untold Tale

07 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Kathleen Palm in book showcase, Review, Thoughts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

book, challege stereotypes, fantasy, fantasy book, J.M. Frey, The Untold Tale, thoughts

Back in December I was scheduled to give you my thoughts on a book I was super pumped to read. If you remember, I didn’t have it finished then and left you with a very excited me and half a review-ish kind of thing.

Soooo… THE UNTOLD TALE! I’m finished!

Lostgirlfistbump

First of all, about the book…

The Untold Tale cover

Forsyth Turn is not a hero. Lordling of Turn Hall and Lysse Chipping, yes. Spymaster for the king, certainly. But hero? That’s his older brother’s job, and Kintyre Turn is nothing if not legendary. However, when a raid on the kingdom’s worst criminal results in the rescue of a bafflingly blunt woman, oddly named and even more oddly mannered, Forsyth finds his quaint, sedentary life is turned on its head. Dragged reluctantly into a quest he never expected, and fighting villains that even his brother has never managed to best, Forsyth is forced to confront his own self-shame and the demons that come with always being second-best. And, more than that, when he finally realizes where Lucy came from and why she’s here, he’ll be forced to question not only his place in the world, but the very meaning of his own existence. Smartly crafted, The Untold Tale gives agency to the unlikeliest of heroes: the silenced, the marginalized, and the overlooked. It asks what it really means to be a fan when the worlds you love don’t resemble the world you live in, celebrates the power of the written word, challenges tropes, and shows us what happens when someone stands up and refuses to remain a secondary character in their own life.

So this book was all I wanted and more.

As a teen, I loved fantasy bofoks. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms… anything written by Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, and Raymond E. Feist. If it had a dragon on the cover or a guy with a kick-butt sword, I was in. But it was more than a interest, I wanted to live in those worlds. I wanted to go on quests. I wanted a kick-butt sword. I imagined a portal opening up and taking me to another world… because I was certain I didn’t belong on this one.

As a teen I drew, a lot. I put on paper images of stories in my head, of characters that lived in the world I wanted to be a part of. I created me in that world… Tyra. She had a back story, a pain to overcome, she was AWESOME. Before I fell asleep I would live her (my) story in my mind. She had a quest to retrieve a sword… a special sword that would only respond to her. She had friends, like all fantasy stories did. An elf. A dwarf. A crazy shifter. A hero guy, who discovered there was more to Tyra than a pretty face. Dude. It was awesome. I probably still have that sketch book full of all those people.

So I connected with Pip (Lucy Piper) in The Untold Tale. And more than once I wished for the book to be in her POV. But it was Forsyth’s story and I enjoyed seeing Pip through his eyes.

But getting your wish to live in a fantasy world, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. To face the stereotypes: hero, villain, damsel in distress. To try to fit in when you are none of those.

This book has heroes and fabulous villains. There is a quest and a great battle at the end. But this story goes further. It challenges the stereotypes. What if the hero isn’t what he seems? What if the monster is just trying to be heard? What if the damsel in distress can be vulnerable and strong? It screams for everyone to have their voice, while reminding us how necessary it is to listen.

I enjoyed this book beyond just reading a tale.

The end held a fabulous twist and left a smile on my face.

And any book that mentions Karl Urban, Boris Vallejo, and Iron Man wins all the cookies.

riseoftheguardianselfcookie

So thank you, J.M. Frey, for the quest.

How about it, kids? Sound good to you?

Available now in paperback and ebook!

 

And the fabulous author!

JMFrey_Author Photo

Toronto-based J.M Frey (pronounced “fry”) is a science fiction and fantasy author, as well as a fanthropologist and pop culture scholar who appears in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. Her debut novel TRIPTYCH has been nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, won the San Francisco Book Festival award for SF/F, was nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly.

Find more of J.M Frey online.

 

 

 

The Untold Tale… Blog Tour

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by Kathleen Palm in Blog Tour, Review, Thoughts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book, fantasy, J.M. Frey, review, The Untold Tale, thoughts

So shame of shame… it is my day to give my thoughts on this new book and once again, because the reading gods have not looked favorably upon me, I am not done.

Elfcottonheadedninnymuggins

I am about a third of the way through. DO NOT think that I haven’t finished because I don’t like it or don’t want to read it. DO NOT!

First to re-introduce you all to…

The Untold Tale cover

Forsyth Turn is not a hero. Lordling of Turn Hall and Lysse Chipping, yes. Spymaster for the king, certainly. But hero? That’s his older brother’s job, and Kintyre Turn is nothing if not legendary. However, when a raid on the kingdom’s worst criminal results in the rescue of a bafflingly blunt woman, oddly named and even more oddly mannered, Forsyth finds his quaint, sedentary life is turned on its head. Dragged reluctantly into a quest he never expected, and fighting villains that even his brother has never managed to best, Forsyth is forced to confront his own self-shame and the demons that come with always being second-best. And, more than that, when he finally realizes where Lucy came from and why she’s here, he’ll be forced to question not only his place in the world, but the very meaning of his own existence. Smartly crafted, The Untold Tale gives agency to the unlikeliest of heroes: the silenced, the marginalized, and the overlooked. It asks what it really means to be a fan when the worlds you love don’t resemble the world you live in, celebrates the power of the written word, challenges tropes, and shows us what happens when someone stands up and refuses to remain a secondary character in their own life.

Available now in paperback and ebook!

 

I am a lover of fantasy. It was my first love as a reader. Other worlds will always win in my book. Always. So I am very excited about The Untold Tale.

We open with a map of the world Hain. Yes, please! I can’t wait to explore this place!

The book opens with this…

“The Sigil that Never Fades

The Quill that Never Dulls

The Cup that Never Runs Dry

The Parchment that Never Fills

The Blade that Never Fails

The Desk that Never Rots

The Spirit that Never Lies

With these tools our world was born,

And with them can be broken.

Or born again.” ~ J. M. Frey

Hello. I’m with you.

The story begins with a mystery and a bit of magic. The book starts perfectly for me. It intrigues me as well as lets me get to know the characters, get to know the world, and enjoy it. J.M. Frey gives me the chance to sink in and doesn’t throw me in.

Written beautifully in first person present tense, I was immediately drawn in. I know some people don’t like that first person thing, but I happen to love it.

Forsyth Turn… What a great character! I like him. An uncertain guy, yet has this almost alter-ego. I can’t wait to see him grow and change and BECOME. I know he will.

Lucy Piper… or Pip. I love her! So much mystery about her. The way she talks and acts screams of here and now, but there she is on Hain. She’s survived torture to keep her secrets, ones I can’t wait to learn.

Sheriff Pointe… Have to love him. Every one needs someone who believes in him.

I love the relationship developing between Forsyth and Pip. Feels so real. How he is attracted to her, but won’t allow himself to act. He’s not good enough. I relate to this!

And Kintyre Turn… the big brother, the hero. The guy I just want to hit. Cocky and uncaring. I’m sure he’ll have a part in Forsyth’s growth.

Even though I have just dipped my toe in the water of this world, I love it. The writing brings it to life. I am being carefully woven into the place with the language and people. And I am eager to see more of the world…because there was a map and I want to go every where and solve all the mysteries, or as many as I am shown for this is a book one!

Thank you, J. M. Frey… I MUST FIND MORE READING TIME!

JMFrey_Author Photo

Toronto-based J.M Frey (pronounced “fry”) is a science fiction and fantasy author, as well as a fanthropologist and pop culture scholar who appears in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. Her debut novel TRIPTYCH has been nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, won the San Francisco Book Festival award for SF/F, was nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly.

 

Find more of J.M Frey online.

 

 

 

The Untold Tale… Release Day!

08 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by Kathleen Palm in Release day

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

fantasy book, J.M. Frey, release day, The Untold Tale

Today a new book enters the world.

The Untold Tale cover

Forsyth Turn is not a hero. Lordling of Turn Hall and Lysse Chipping, yes. Spymaster for the king, certainly. But hero? That’s his older brother’s job, and Kintyre Turn is nothing if not legendary. However, when a raid on the kingdom’s worst criminal results in the rescue of a bafflingly blunt woman, oddly named and even more oddly mannered, Forsyth finds his quaint, sedentary life is turned on its head. Dragged reluctantly into a quest he never expected, and fighting villains that even his brother has never managed to best, Forsyth is forced to confront his own self-shame and the demons that come with always being second-best. And, more than that, when he finally realizes where Lucy came from and why she’s here, he’ll be forced to question not only his place in the world, but the very meaning of his own existence. Smartly crafted, The Untold Tale gives agency to the unlikeliest of heroes: the silenced, the marginalized, and the overlooked. It asks what it really means to be a fan when the worlds you love don’t resemble the world you live in, celebrates the power of the written word, challenges tropes, and shows us what happens when someone stands up and refuses to remain a secondary character in their own life.

Available now in paperback and ebook!

My first reading love was fantasy. Other worlds where anything is possible makes my heart go all aflutter. I am really excited to read this one… the e-arc waits for me and my thoughts on it will come later this month.

supernaturaldeanyes

Meet the author!

JMFrey_Author Photo

Toronto-based J.M Frey (pronounced “fry”) is a science fiction and fantasy author, as well as a fanthropologist and pop culture scholar who appears in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. Her debut novel TRIPTYCH has been nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, won the San Francisco Book Festival award for SF/F, was nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly.

 

Find more of J.M Frey online.

Happy release day! Hope there’s cake.

 

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Kathleen Palm, Author

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