Guillermo del Toro won praise, acclaim, and Oscars for The Shape of Water last year. He created a cult classic with Hellboy. He amazed audiences with Pacific Rim. However, his most legendary film is still Pan’s Labyrinth, which is now getting a novel-length expansion.
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Pan’s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun is written by del Toro and New York Times bestselling author Cornelia Funke (Inkheart), and is illustrated by Allen Williams. It tells the story of a long-lost princess hoping to reunite with her family, and includes haunting illustrations and enchanting short stories that expand upon the film’s world and folklore.
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In spite of also including murderous soldiers, child-eating monsters, and warring rebels, the dark fantasy novel is meant for readers of all ages. This is actually a little bit strange, given how frightening and violent (yet beautiful) the original film was. Remember that one tortured guy’s bloody messed up hand? I still do.
However, no one can argue with the richness of del Toro’s fairytale-like storytelling and worldbuilding. Fewer films deserve a book continuation and expansion more than Pan’s Labyrinth.
Ser Jorah was lucky. He didn’t live long enough to see what became of his beloved Daenerys. He almost did though.
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According to EW, GoT writer Dave Hill confirmed that the noble knight was originally supposed to make it all the way to the end of the series. When the writers began plotting season 8, they hoped to have Ser Jorah accompanying Jon Snow beyond The Wall in the final scene.
For a long time we wanted Ser Jorah to be there at The Wall in the end. The three coming out of the tunnel would be Jon and Jorah and Tormund. But the amount of logic we’d have to bend to get Jorah up to The Wall and get him to leave Dany’s side right before [the events in the finale] … there’s no way to do that blithely. And Jorah should have the noble death he craves defending the woman he loves.
Ser Jorah’s reaction to the scorching of King’s Landing would definitely have been interesting to see. Admittedly though, Hill is right about the difficulties of cramming Jorah’s hypothetical back-turn on Daenerys in an already dense finale.
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Ser Jorah actor Iain Glen agreed that it was better that his character did not live to see the tragic fall of his Queen, or the results of her massacre…
“There’s a sweetness in that because Jorah will never know what she did,” Glen says. “That’s probably best. It’s a blessing for him that he never found out what happened to her.”
Since Glen will be playing Batman on Titans, the Dark Knight line, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” seems pretty relevant, and appropriate.
“No one writes of the complexities of women’s lives and loves like [New York Times and USA Today bestselling author] Melanie Benjamin.”
—Elizabeth Letts, New York Times bestselling author of Finding Dorothy.
To celebrate the release of Melanie Benjamin’s latest novel about wartime Paris, Mistress of the Ritz, we’re offering Bookstr readers the chance to win some incredible prizes, including signed copies of all of Melanie Benjamin’s novels!
Enter our amazing giveaway for your chance to win:
Signed copies of Melanie Benjamin novels, including, Mistress of the Ritz, Alice I Have Been, The Girls in the Picture, The Aviator’s Wife, The Swans of Fifth Avenue, and The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.
A stunning Paris-inspired necklace
an Eiffel Tower poster
$25 Fandango gift-card, allowing you to watch a female-centered movie celebrating women like Mistress of the ritz
About The Book:
In her newest novel, Mistress of the Ritz, Benjamin artfully weaves together suspense and love. We see the famous Ritz hotel go from glamorous to gory, after the German army invades Paris, and sets up headquarters in the very hotel that F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coco Chanel, Ernest Hemingway, and other famous, dazzling guests have vacationed.
Publishers Weekly calls this novel, “Utterly unforgettable,” and if you are interested in the power of love within a country ravaged by war, this novel is just for you!
Nothing bad can happen at the Ritz; inside its gilded walls every woman looks beautiful, every man appears witty. Favored guests like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coco Chanel, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor walk through its famous doors to be welcomed and pampered by Blanche Auzello and her husband, Claude, the hotel’s director. The Auzellos are the mistress and master of the Ritz, allowing the glamour and glitz to take their minds off their troubled marriage, and off the secrets that they keep from their guests—and each other.
Until June 1940, when the German army sweeps into Paris, setting up headquarters at the Ritz. Suddenly, with the likes of Hermann Goëring moving into suites once occupied by royalty, Blanche and Claude must navigate a terrifying new reality. One that entails even more secrets and lies. One that may destroy the tempestuous marriage between this beautiful, reckless American and her very proper Frenchman. For in order to survive—and strike a blow against their Nazi “guests”—Blanche and Claude must spin a web of deceit that ensnares everything and everyone they cherish.
But one secret is shared between Blanche and Claude alone—the secret that, in the end, threatens to imperil both of their lives, and to bring down the legendary Ritz itself.
Based on true events, Mistress of the Ritz is a taut tale of suspense wrapped up in a love story for the ages, the inspiring story of a woman and a man who discover the best in each other amid the turbulence of war.
About the Author:
MELANIE BENJAMIN is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Swans of Fifth Avenue and The Aviator’s Wife. Previous historical novels include national bestseller Alice I Have Been, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb andThe Girls in the Picture. Her novels have been translated in over fifteen languages, featured in national magazines such as Good Housekeeping, People, and Entertainment Weekly, and optioned for film. Melanie lives in Chicago with her husband, where she is at work on her next historical novel.
don’t forget to check out our other amazing giveaways!
Even the most successful showrunners, such as David Benioff and D.B. Weiss of Game of Thrones, have learned that you can’t please everybody.
Indiewire reports that their solution (which is a reasonable one) for dealing with audience reactions once the GoT finale premieres is simple—they’ll hide.
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“We’ll be in an undisclosed location, turning off our phones and opening various bottles,” Weiss said. “At some point, if and when it’s safe to come out again, somebody like [HBO’s GoT publicist Mara Mikialian] will give us a breakdown of what was out there without us having to actually experience it.”
Benioff added, “I plan to be very drunk and very far from the internet.”
The series finale is only a couple weeks away. Benioff and Weiss have the near-impossible task of concluding the legendary series in a way that will satisfy millions upon millions of fanatics.
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Finales tend to put enormous pressure on the shoulders of showrunners, and the results can be costly. The finale to Lost almost ruined Damon Lindelof, while David Chase is still being grilled about his risky cut-to-black ending to The Sopranos.
“We want people to love it,” Weiss said of GoT’s ending. “It matters a lot to us. We’ve spent eleven years doing this.”
However, it seems as though the showrunners will indeed run from their show.
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