Читать книгу Save the Last Dance: The Ballerina Bride / Invitation to the Boss's Ball - Фиона Харпер - Страница 6

Dear Reader,

We all love the magic of fairy tales, don’t we? There’s something in those enduring stories that resonates with us.

Some time ago now I was asked if I would like to write another book based on a fairy tale (I’d already done a modern-day Cinderella story in Invitation To The Boss’s Ball), and after researching many fairy tales, I settled on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. There was a sense of yearning in that story that stayed with me long after I’d finished reading it.

So that was how Finn and Allegra’s story was born, but I turned my “fish out of water” heroine into a privileged ballerina, thrust into the hero’s world, only to discover that reaching for her heart’s desire is much harder and more painful than she ever could have imagined.

I used the original fairy tale quite a lot for inspiration as I wrote this book. It influenced the major themes and plot points and even the colors of the hero’s and heroine’s eyes. I “borrowed” a hero who was looking for beauty in the wrong place, too blind to see what was just under his nose, and a brave heroine looking for a soul, who had the chance to destroy the object of her devotion in order to save herself. I hope you enjoy finding all the hidden—and not-so-hidden—parallels as much as I did putting them in between the pages of this book.

Blessings,

Fiona