Goodreads asked E. Kaiser Writes:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

E. Kaiser Writes I've long wanted to write something titled the "Winter Queen"... but had a hard time coming up with a "new angle" that could make it exciting enough to get all written up. (The writing part takes a long time, and excitement has to be high enough to carry through!!!)
After Frozen came out, my sister and I researched on the original Snow Queen tale, (we love pinpointing what a movie does correct to the original, and where they vary) I had read the Snow Queen before, and found it too unwieldy to be memorable.
However, as our research went further and further afield, we found more and more other winter fairy-tales, and the elements from each began to align into a combined tale that intrigued me deeply.
I tried to shake it off, because I already have projects to work on; but when I "talked them out" in an attempt to be rid of the idea, my sister got super excited and insisted I write them down.

Relenting, I began to whip out a quick novella... which had so many new things happening in it that we soon realized the story was way bigger than a novella could fit. We decided to go let the story go where it wanted, and it is now set to span 5 novels... 3 of which are readying to release in January. "Winter Queen" (#2) birthed an origins novella "Winter's Child" (#1), and "Prince of Demarken" (#3) left a lot of adventure for all the characters still... so "Reindeer King" (#4) will bring most of the leftover arcs to a satisfying conclusion. Only one character has troubles yet to come, which will be explored and resolved in (#5) "Princess of Noran".

As a quintet series these five books will be a fun world to immerse into, and I think readers will be thrilled to share the lives of Girta, Kai, Hess, Halvor, Tompte, and "the blessed one" Elise, (who feels she has been much wrongly named!) But they will each learn that their lives are only threads in the hands of the Master Weaver, and each sorrow is meant as a path to a brighter tomorrow.

For those not acquainted with the original tales (the Germanic The Snow Child & Snegurken; Russia's Snegurochka; & Anderson's the Snow Queen from Denmark) you can think "Frozen retelling" and be in the ballpark.

With the current excitement over Disney's version of the Snow Queen, I think readers will enjoy delving much deeper into the snowy north and the imaginative world of ancient Europe's fairy-tales.

(There are plans for a follow-up series of spin-offs that will wander all over the quasi-Victorian set kingdoms; from the "Isle-ish" High Isle of Mona in the west, to the Russo/Polish inspired kingdom of Helsk in the north-east, to the sunny, verdant kingdom of Lucia basking on the Southern Sea. 12 tales in all... and each a tribute to a beloved fairytale.)

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