Magic on Main Street: Baking Inspiration

I've seen a lot of discussion about Jade's baking mishaps on the blog/discord/Facebook, so I wanted to share more about the inspiration behind it!

Thanks to Joyce/Moon Shadow Press from my Street Team for this awesome image! As we've seen in this series (and in the short story, Family Bonding) Jade is very close to her family - both her nuclear/immediate family and her extended family including her grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. In the Midwest food is a big deal at family get togethers (I realize this happens in other areas too!) and favorite family recipes are a vital part of the holidays and extended get togethers. These recipes are often either a closely guarded secret, handed down with utmost reverence, or given out in broken bits that leaves the family member attempting to reproduce the recipe foam at the mouth and losing their mind. As someone who has experienced hardships while trying to reproduce family recipes and/or while attempting to document favorite family recipes electronically, Jade's situations are pulled from my firsthand experiences!

I specifically wanted to show you the recipe that has infuriated me the most. Behold:

Notice the following highlights:

1. Torn edges and rips

2. Mysterious stains

3. Places where the ink has faded/run

4. The fact that it is obviously written on a random scratch piece of paper of unknown origin

5. The dividing line after the cocoa ingredient that makes no sense

6. And the overall lack of instructionsCan you tell what recipe this is? (Originally this little piece of paper didn't even have the recipe name on it, but I previously rage wrote the name at the top of the paper, which is why it is folded over in the first photo.) For those of you that are amazing bakers who have your own trademark recipes I hope Jade's experience has given you a little empathy for all of us who struggle to follow what you tell us to do. And if you have failed at reproducing a family recipe in the past please know that you are not alone and you are probably in the majority! The answer to what recipe this is: this is my Mom's recipe for tuxedo cupcakes AKA black bottom cupcakes. They are very delicious and were a childhood favorite of mine. However, they are a sore spot of mine because one year for Christmas as a gift to my mom I typed out our family's most famous recipes and uploaded them to the computer. My mom was thrilled, but was surprised I hadn't included the tuxedo cupcakes since they're so beloved. I hadn't included them because this recipe had no title, so when I was pawing through her recipe box I found the scrap piece of paper, was mystified, and continued on. When I said I didn't include them because I couldn't find the tuxedo cupcake recipe, she pulled this ratty thing out and apparently thought I should recognize it based on the ingredients alone?? (She laughed hard when I pointed out the recipe lacked a title, and at the time didn't even have a complete set of instructions.) So, yes, I have a lot of sympathy for Jade. (Don't even get me started on the multiple recipes my mom has given me that require a specific bowl that was made in the 70s to reproduce, because she doesn't know the amount of ingredients that goes in, she just knows what it should look like in the bowl. My family hit up a lot of estate sales to find and purchase multiple copies of that bowl--again, made in the 70s--so we can actually recreate the recipes and just in case the original bowl should ever break.) Have you ever experienced family recipe hardships? Share them in the comments below!

What to read after Magic on Main Street series?

So you've finished The Order of Blood and Ruin and now you are wondering what to read next? Here's some helpful information about books and bonus content related to Magic on Main Street and other popular series I've written so you can decide what to binge next!

Recommendation # 1: If you haven't finished the other Magiford Supernatural Series trilogies go read those now! The official Kitty recommendation is to start with Hall of Blood and Mercy series and then Court of Midnight and Deception series. There are two more trilogies after that (Pack of Dawn and Destiny and Gate of Myth and Power) but you can read them in any order. But you can also read them in any order you want as each series is mostly self contained. Hall of Blood and Mercy - An underdog wizard is driven out of her house in a coup and is taken in by the most dangerous vampire in the region. If you loved the Drake vampires in the Magic on Main Street series then this trilogy will feel like your favorite dessert as a follow up! Tropes: Opposites attract and enemies to lovers. Court of Midnight and Deception - A reluctant half Fae is selected as the new Queen of the Night Court and picks the deadly court assassin as her consort. Tropes: Marriage of Convenience, coffee, and magic pets! Pack of Dawn and Destiny - When werewolves start turning feral and mindlessly attacking innocent humans Hunter Pip is forced to team up with werewolf Alpha Greyson to crush the source of the outbreak. Tropes: Fated Mates and Found Family Gate of Myth and Power - Chloe can turn into a cat! Unfortunately for her Noctus, the deadly elf king secretly living in her city, decided to do a good deed and adopts the "stray cat" that the local fae are picking on. Tropes: Hades & Persephone retelling (yes, really!) and found family Recommendation # 2: Make sure you’ve read all the bonus short stories I’ve written Magiford books! In addition to the short stories there are a ton of other fun things like character bios and worldbuilding blog posts that talk about the different types of supernaturals in Magiford. Recommendation # 3: Have you seen the bonus short story for Magiford that is only available as part of my newsletter? It's related to the Hall of Blood and Mercy series, so if you haven't read it yet signup for my newsletter and get the link! (If you don't want to receive my newsletter long term it's ok to unsubscribe after you get the short story - I promise it doesn't hurt my feelings!).

Recommendation # 4: I have several other books I've written that have the same humor, magical fantasy, and slow burn romance as the Magiford stories. But before I can recommend which you should try I need to know what fantasy genres you like?

1. If you love Paranormal Romance and/or Urban Fantasy then I have another series I wrote that is not part of the Magiford world. The Magical Beings' Rehabilitation Center (MBRC) is a completed series that follows the journey of teenage Morgan discovering vampires, werewolves, dinosaurs, and elves are both real and secretly living among regular humans. Once she learns their secret they draft her into teaching them about the very confusing human culture topics and slang. This is arguably the funniest series I have ever written so as long as you are OK with some paranormal satire (I tease because I care!) you should give this a read! If you love Epic Fantasy then I have two potential series I recommend!

2. If you want something with lots of battles/fighting or if you like the King Arthur myths then try the King Arthur and Her Knights series! This is my own spin on the classic King Arthur stories and features a time traveling modern women who is forced by the surprisingly young and handsome Merlin to pose as the King Arthur from legends. And there is NO LOVE TRIANGLE in my version (although Guinevere and Lancelot do appear). Side tip: The audiobook version of this series is amazing so go listen to the preview on Audible even if you don't plan to buy it - you'll thank me!

3. If you love Epic Fantasy mixed with fairy tales then check out The Snow Queen series. In this timeless good versus evil story the princess Rakel must team up with the very people who have kept her imprisoned to save their country from an invading army of magic users who intend to destroy them all. Finally, if you'd really love some good Romantasy in your life then try one of these:

4. In the Elves of Lessa series the humans of Calnor have protected the elves of Lessa for centuries but have remained divided due to the deep differences in their languages and culture... until now! This is a series of standalone books so even though there will eventually be four books in the series you can read the existing three books with no cliffhangers. If you've ever wished you could read the story of how Aragon and Arwen from Lord of the Rings fell in love then these books are exactly what you are looking for!
   

5. If you love fairy tales I have a 11 book series of standalone, but related, stories that are just what you are looking for! The Timeless Fairy Tales series includes Disney favorites (like Beauty and the Beast) as well as lesser know stories (like The Twelve Dancing Princesses) and since they are standalone you can read them out of order so I recommend you start with your favorite fairy tale and go from there.

Magic on Main Street: The inspiration

A lot of my urban fantasy series have kernels of inspiration from fairy tales. (Hall of Blood and Mercy is my PG take on Donkey Skin, I used a lot of fae lore from the Ballad of Tam Lin for Court of Midnight and Deception, and Gate of Myth and Power is my version of Hades and Persephone.) The Magic on Main Street series doesn't have any direct fairy tale source, instead it came from an idea I've been pondering since back in the "Ye Olden" days of my career when I wrote my Timeless Fairy Tale series. Specifically, my retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It all started with this image...

This meme/image has been making the rounds of Facebook, Instagram, and social media for over a decade, and I stumbled upon it when I was doing research for my aforementioned Sleeping Beauty story. This image, combined with the original story which explained that the Sleeping Beauty's parents only had 12 sets of gold dishware for fairy visitors when there were 13 fairies and so they decided to leave the one fairy out of the guest list which resulted in Sleeping Beauty's curse, made me ponder the intricacies of fae lore. Across the board, fairy tales usually imply that fairies/fairy queens/fairy godmothers all know one another, and see each other frequently. In some stories, it's implied that they even have meetings that they all show up for, or perhaps even live near each other, and that they have their own society with complex rules and factions. Not all fairies got along, and there were often sides--like Maleficent and the three fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather in the Disney movie. For more inspiration fodder, around the time I was writing Sleeping Beauty, superheroes were dominating the movie industry. In 2016 Batman V Superman and Captain America: Civil War both came out, showcasing superhero versus superhero movies. All of this got me thinking...what if a "bad" fae and a "good" fae fell in love--wouldn't that be similar to if a supervillain fell in love with a superhero? I'm sure all Batman fans are mentally screaming at me about Catwoman right now, but I specifically wanted to know what would happen if the genders were reversed and the male love interest was the villain while the woman was the hero. The idea was full of possible tension. If I looked at it from the fairy perspective it would be an interesting idea as they'd be able to understand each other, their history, their abilities, even though they disagreed about things. If I went at it from a superhero angle, it would be both interesting and entertaining to have the supervillain and superhero injuring each other at night, and then being dismayed that their daytime bestie had gotten hurt, never knowing it was their doing. However, I didn't want to write an actual superhero book--even though I am a fan, that isn't my writing vibe--and I couldn't find a way to work it into my Timeless Fairy Tale world because my lore was already set and I wouldn't be able to fully capture the good fae/bad fae vibe with what I had planned for the spinoff series Fairy Tale Enchantress. So I kept the thought in the back of my mind and let it ferment. And then came Magiford. As urban fantasy, Magiford walks that line between fairy tales and superheroes, borrowing abundantly from both genres. It was the perfect setting that would let me capture the best of both worlds and spin them into one story. Thus, Considine and Jade strutted their way into existence. (Well, Considine strutted. Jade marched in and then smartly saluted.) Jade being a slayer and Considine hiding from Killian and the Dracos kiddos meant I was able to implement the superhero secret identity aspect of the story, and Jade's job is basically to be a magic cop, which made it easy to draw moral lines to show how different the pair was. In the same way, their backgrounds meant Jade naturally understood Considine, and that the relationship between their night identities was a lot more personal than the typical superhero story and much more in line with how personally fairy tale fae knew each other. Considine's brand of morally gray-ness was directly inspired from the original Sleeping Beauty story (called "Little Briar Rose") as the original never actually calls the fairy that curses Briar Rose evil, it just states she was angry she wasn't invited, so she stormed in and cursed the princess out of spite. Similarly, Considine is perhaps one of my least dark/antihero urban fantasy heroes--particularly considering Noctus' and Rigel's history, and Killian's political machinations--but instead his long life has worn him down and made him cynical and tired to the point that he mostly lives to cause chaos and acts out much the way the uninvited fairy did. And that's the story about how fairy godmothers and superheroes inspired a vampire and slayer romance! The more you look the more you'll see similarities from my inspiration reflected in Magic on Main Street, so share other examples you think of in the comments down below. I hope you enjoyed that peek into how I craft stories, and until next time, Champions, thanks for reading!