Fox Tale by Karen Hulene Bartell

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Welcome to It's Raining Books. Tell us about your publishing journey.

IMHO, getting published isn’t one journey. It’s closer to an interwoven, five-strand braid of trails rather than an isolated path. For me, one goal was to be published, but another dream was to rescue horses. A third was to finish school, a fourth was to travel, and the fifth was simply to pay the bills. My journey amounted to juggling those five objectives.

I broke into the publishing world through writing cookbooks. In school, my master’s Thesis was a novel, which incidentally, still has not been published. Traveling has always been my inspiration for writing, and I wrote both my first textbook and first published novel while teaching in Taiwan.

Rescuing animals is my passion, and I wrote a children’s book and another novel, while rescuing mustangs. Paying the bills has amounted to being primarily a technical editor or an ESL professor, while writing my novels on the side.

Rather than a straight path, my publishing journey has been/continues to be a five-strand braid of trails.

What's the funniest thing to happen to you along your road to publication and what was the most exciting?

The funniest thing to happen to me along my road to publication was receiving an email from a publisher, offering a contract on a book I had just self-published the day before. Long story short, that email turned into a seven-book contract.

The most exciting thing that happened to me was receiving a phone call—out of the blue, at my work office, roughly a year after I had submitted my manuscript—congratulating me on having my novel published. I was walking on sunshine!

What has been the most challenging thing related to publishing you've had to deal with on your journey?

About five years ago, I experienced a caustic editor that nearly made me stop writing.

This person began by making 125 edits on the first thirteen pages of my manuscript. Yes, you read right—125 edits on thirteen pages. I revised the entire manuscript according to her notes and returned it.

She made it to page 26 on the next round with 150 edits. I again revised the manuscript based on her notes and returned it—although many times her edits disputed or reversed her previous edits.

This slow rewrite continued for ten months. After each round of “edits,” I again revised the entire manuscript to her specs, but after thousands of contradictory edits, she had reached only page 123 of the manuscript’s 300+ pages.

With each rewrite, my self-confidence plummeted. Under her “tutelage,” writing was no longer creative. It became merely rewriting her dictation. Demoralized, I nearly quit. Instead, I complained to my publisher and was assigned a new editor.

She and I scrapped the first editor’s thousands of “edits” and began with my original manuscript. After a dozen or so minor changes, my second editor pronounced my manuscript ready for publication.

Vindication!

The moral? Beware of “editors” that are frustrated authors, who not only try to overwrite your style with their own, but who are power-playing sadists that enjoy crushing authors’ creativity.

Who is your favorite author, and what are you currently reading?

Naming my favorite author is tricky because I have so many favorites. The authors of the books I’m reading are my “favorites” until I read the next book and the next. So because I’m currently reading The Last Garden in England and Before We Were Yours, I’d have to say Julia Kelly and Lisa Wingate are my favorite authors.

If Fox Tale was made into a movie, who would play the role of your hero and heroine?

Ava, the female protagonist for Fox Tale, would have to be Millie Bobby Brown because of her amazing acting range. With her talent, she could climb mountains despite her fear of heights, as well as overcome two years of bitter resentment toward her ex, while becoming the unwitting love interest of a shapeshifter.

The male protagonist would have to be Timothée Chalamet. Not only is he a heartthrob, but he’s a versatile actor, whether the genre be drama, comedy, or action. I can see him as the heartbroken missionary in Japan, moonlighting as an ESL teacher, yet being the pawn of a kitsune conspiracy.

These two actors would be a dream cast for Fox Tale.

Heights terrify Ava. When a stranger saves her from plunging down a mountain, he diverts her fears with tales of Japanese kitsune—shapeshifting foxes—and she begins a journey into the supernatural.

She’s attracted to Chase, both physically and metaphysically, yet primal instincts urge caution when shadows suggest more than meets the eye.

She’s torn between Chase and Rafe, her ex, when a chance reunion reignites their passion, but she struggles to overcome two years of bitter resentment. Did Rafe jilt her, or were they pawns of a larger conspiracy? Are the ancient legends true of kitsunes twisting time and events?

Read an Excerpt

I applied my makeup with an artist’s hand, blending three shades of eyeshadow and going heavy on the mascara. Then I slipped into the black cocktail dress I’d bought for the occasion--a fusion of chic and slutty.

Wish I knew what Rafe planned for my birthday. Dinner at an upscale restaurant? Pub food at a sports bar?

“A surprise,” was all he’d said.

What’s the fine line between dressed to kill and overdressed? Glancing at the mirror, I glimpsed the exposed décolletage, then examined my naked left hand. More importantly, is tonight the night? After dating for three years, the conversation had finally turned to rings and weddings, and with graduation a month away, I was eager to take the next step.

At six o’clock sharp, I sat by the door, butterflies fluttering in my belly.

Ten minutes passed, fifteen. I texted him. An hour later, I called. When he didn’t pick up, I left a voicemail.

At eight o’clock, I checked my email. No messages, no texts--radio silence.

At nine o’clock, I removed my makeup, the black, smoky taupe, mauve, and greige streaks on the cotton pad mirroring my mood. After showering, I picked at soggy leftovers as I studied my bare left hand. Leftovers…

When the phone dinged, I flinched. Rafe?

Mia--Guess who’s at Tootsie’s? And Rafe’s not alone. What’s going on?--

I sat back, stunned. He wouldn’t break up with me on my birthday--without even the courtesy of telling me--would he?

About the Author:

Author of the Trans-Pecos and Sacred Emblem series, Karen is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, wife, and all-around pilgrim of life, who writes multicultural, offbeat love stories. Born to rolling-stone parents who moved often, Bartell found her earliest playmates as fictional friends in books. Paperbacks became her portable pals. Ghost stories kept her up at night—reading feverishly. The paranormal was her passion. Novels offered an imaginative escape. An only child, she began writing her first novel at the age of nine, learning the joy of creating her own happy endings. Professor emeritus of the University of Texas at Austin, Karen resides in the Texas Piney Woods with her husband Peter and her “mews”—three rescued cats and a rescued *Cat*ahoula Leopard dog.

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