A
GIVEAWAY, A STORY, A RECIPE AND A FREE COOKBOOK TODAY, ALL FROM THE
MALL FAIRIES SERIES!
Thank you, Marva,
for having me on your blog! The second in my Mall Fairies trilogy,
The Mall Fairies: War is just released and in honor of that I'm
giving away an electronic copy (all formats) of either the first
title, The Mall Fairies: Exile or the second title, The
Mall Fairies: War (in case you've read the first one) to some
lucky commenter. All you need to do is comment to be entered!
Wait, there's more, scroll down past the descriptions for a short
story and recipe from the new edition of The Mall Fairies Sweet
Tooth Cookbook. The Mall Fairies Sweet Tooth Cookbook is
free today only here:
In The Mall
Fairies: Exile Swoop the fairy lives in the attic of a shopping
mall and loves it. She’s terrified of Outside, where fairies can
die. But when Swoop finds her best friend One Wing in the company of
a human, she determines she’ll do anything to save him from being
exiled Outside.
The Mall Fairies:
War: Once, the fairies lived hidden, safe in the attic of a
shopping mall. No longer. Now the fairies must become warriors to get
a necessary potion from the troll-like pixies. Now teenage fairy
Swoop must discover a way to save her fairy clan from death. Can she
stop a war?
(Conda's note: this
story is about the pixies that are introduced in my new release, the
second in my Mall Fairies' trilogy, The Mall Fairies: War.
Enjoy meeting Flit and the rest of the pixies!)
FLIT
AND THE PUMPKIN BREAD AND BARS AND...
"What, in the
Big Digger's name, are we going to do with an entire pumpkin?"
Cheer, the leader of the pixie clan glared at Flit. Cheer sat
straight on her rock—okay, throne, as she insisted it be
called—and leaned forward.
Flit fingered the
hem of her mouse skin cloak. She'd thought that Cheer would be
pleased with what Flit and her friends had managed to find tucked
away in a human's garden and haul home. There were times when she
hated her part time job of scavenger—Dumpster diver—provider
of foodstuffs for the pixie clan. She gestured at the human's
fist-sized pumpkin. "It's a tiny pumpkin."
"For human's
maybe, not for five-inch-tall pixies. For pixies, it's big enough for
all of us to live on for a week."
Flit nodded.
"Exactly."
Cheer slumped on her
rock. "My fault for sending a healer out instead of a hunter."
"Pumpkin is
very good for you," Flit the healer said.
Cheer sighed.
"Right, but I'm sending all the complaints your way."
… Three days later
…
"Roast pumpkin,
pumpkin soup, cold pumpkin soup—no more!" Digger, Flit's best
friend, stood in front of a large group of angry pixies confronting
Flit.
"But—"
Flit looked over at the pile of cooked pumpkin, the rather large pile
of remaining cooked pumpkin.
Digger saw her
looking. "Yeah, I hate to waste food too, especially food I
helped you drag home and then cook, but we're making an exception
this time." The other pixies nodded in agreement.
"But—"
Flit cast her gaze around as she tried to think of a way to use up
the pumpkin—her gaze fell on the stack of honeycomb freshly stolen
from a hive. Aha.
"What if we had
it for dessert instead?" Flit asked.
"Dessert?"
"You know, make
up some pumpkin bread or bars with acorn flour and the honey—"
"Yeah, yeah,
that sounds—delicious," Digger said. The other pixies nodded
again.
"And it's healthy too," Flit had to add.
PUMPKIN
BARS
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking
powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
(can be omitted, but why?)
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking
soda
4 eggs
1 and 2/3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
(I use canola)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large can (15oz)
pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
Sift dry ingredients
(flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, salt &
soda) and set aside. In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, oil,
vanilla and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Add the dry ingredients,
gradually. Mix well.
Spread batter in a
greased 15x10x1 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 – 30 minutes
or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely.
For a richer
dessert, frost with one of Grandma MacDougall's frostings (recipes
follows Molasses Cake recipe in The Mall Fairies Sweet Tooth
Cookbook).
Conda grew up in the
ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho, in her folk’s funky art gallery.
She’s traveled the world and her own tiny office, writing all the
while. She delights in writing her popular tween fantasy Mall Fairies
series and getting fairy Swoop, pixie Flit, and their human
companion, Grace, into magical and fantastical trouble. The
inspiration for her Mall Fairies came from the sparrows living in the
shopping mall Towne Square Mall in Boise, Idaho. Next up, trouble
with trolls in the last of the trilogy: The Mall Fairies: Destiny.When not rescuing fairies from humans, cats and themselves, Conda works on the next title in her Starke Dead creative woman mystery series with amateur detective and jeweler Dora Starke. The more Dora discovers cursed jewelry, her aunt digging graves, and a rampant poisoner, the more fun Conda has—although sometimes Dora complains about her plight!
For more about Conda
visit: Conda's Creative Center, http://condascreativecenter.blogspot.com, for hints, tips and secrets for creative people.
