Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let it show… Calonita’s book is one all of us should know!
Author Jen Calonita weaves webs of wonder in her Twisted Tales series. She maintains the key tenets of the classic Disney stories she adopts while developing a tale all her own.
Conceal, Don’t Feel: A Twisted Tale charmed us after we received an advanced reader copy courtesy of Disney Publishing, and it is sure to charm you. Conceal, Don’t Feel physically separates Anna and Elsa from the very beginning; both characters raised by different parents in different households. Different enough to make us want to read on and similar enough that we are reunited we the main characters we know and love! Plus, there are some wonderful new characters you will get to meet that beautifully round out Calonita’s take on the Frozen tale.
Released on October 1, Conceal, Don’t Feel is Calonita’s second novel in her Twisted Tale series, following the April 2019 release of Mirror, Mirror, which spins off Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Check out our review of Mirror, Mirror here.
I recently had the pleasure of chatting to Jen about Mirror, Mirror and the upcoming release Conceal, Don’t Feel, as well as what other twists her tales may take going forward.
Jen, thanks for chatting to us here at The Disney Blog. We are loving your Twisted Tales!
Thank you! I can’t tell you what a thrill it’s been for me to be part of this series. I’m such a huge Disney fan that this feels like a dream come true.
Have you always been a Disney fan?
YES! I’ve always loved Disney movies and our whole family adores the parks. We try to go yearly, and we even started doing some of the RunDisney races. I’ve done the Princess Half Marathon and the Wine and Dine Half twice. I love to run in costume and have dressed as Cinderella, Snow White and even Princess Anna.
Love it! What do you consider to be the most appropriate description for your Twisted Tales? Do you think of them simply as new versions of Disney stories; adaptations, remakes or something else? How do you describe them?
I think the series title sums it up perfectly: These books are a twist on the stories you know and love. There are three authors of the series right now-Liz Braswell, Elizabeth Lim and me—and each of us approaches the stories in a fun new way using the familiar characters that Disney fans have grown to love. I particularly love to take classic lines from the films and have other characters utter the lines!
You have written two Twisted Tales so far: Mirror, Mirror and Conceal, Don’t Feel. Both books provide an intriguing, fresh new spin on classic Disney tales. Mirror, Mirror takes on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs while Conceal, Don’t Feel gives us a different version of Frozen. Tell us a little bit about how you came to write these two Twisted Tales in particular.
I write a middle grade fairy tale series called Fairy Tale Reform School and my author bio actually says I’m a huge Disney fan who dreams of kicking Cinderella out of her castle at Walt Disney World so that my family can move in! My editor read the series and called me to ask about writing Mirror, Mirror and I couldn’t stop screaming. It was truly a dream come true to be given this opportunity.