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ENTRY TYPE: new
WORK TITLE: Liar’s Kingdom
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WEBSITE: https://www.christinecalella.com/
CITY: New York
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COUNTRY: United States
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RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Columbia University, M.F.A. (creative writing).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author of young adult and adult romance novels.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 2025, Stacey Comfort, review of Liar’s Kingdom, p. 60.
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2024, review of The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray; November 15, 2024, review of Liar’s Kingdom.
Publishers Weekly, January 15, 2024, review of The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray, p. 80.
ONLINE
Christine Calella homepage, https://www.christinecalella.com/ (June 15, 2025).
Nerd Daily, https://thenerddaily.com/ (January 14, 2025), Elise Dumpleton, “Q&A: Christine Calella.”
When not writing, Christine Calella spends her spare time singing showtunes in the shower, drinking more chai lattes than is strictly necessary, and either over- or under-watering an unfortunate string of houseplants named after sitcom characters. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, and she lives in New York City.
As her romance alter ego, Madeline Bell, Christine also pens adult rom-coms with a bookish twist. For more information, check out the Books section, under the "By Madeline Bell" drop-down.
We chat with author Christine Calella about Liar’s Kingdom, which is a dark Cinderella retelling in the vein of Into the Woods!
Hi, Christine! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m Christine Calella, and I’m a writer of both YA Fantasy and Adult rom-coms. My interests include musical theatre, chai tea lattes, sitcoms, and of course, all things book-related. LIAR’S KINGDOM is my second published novel, following my debut last year, THE FINAL CURSE OF OPHELIA CRAY. I spend my days working in a creative field and gradually cozying up my NYC apartment until it officially qualifies as a hobbit-hole.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
My mom started taking me to the local library really young, so I have her to thank for this lifelong passion. At least once a week, I would visit the children’s section and load up my arms with Magic Treehouse or Junie B. Jones books until I physically couldn’t carry any more to check-out. But I definitely found my heart in writing fantasy stories around fifth grade when I started reading Tamora Pierce (my signed copy of First Test is still a treasured possession!), and then I knew I wouldn’t rest until I was an author of fantasy books about feisty women who fight to make the world a better place.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
The first book you ever remember reading: Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary
The one that made you want to become an author: A School Story by Andrew Clements
The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
Your latest novel, Liar’s Kingdom, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Girlboss. Gatekeep. Gaslight. Glass Slipper.
What can readers expect?
Cue the voice of the narrating Grandpa from The Princess Bride: “Deception, revenge, political intrigue, plot twists, pet rats, chases, escapes, love triangles, references to Stephen Sondheim…”
Where did the inspiration for Liar’s Kingdom come from?
As I constantly rewound my VHS tape of the 1997 Cinderella TV-movie starring Brandy and Whitney Houston, I could never shake the idea that it sure was convenient that no other person in the kingdom shared the same shoe size as our girl, Cindy. What would have happened if somebody else who fit the glass slipper had tried it on first? And then I got to thinking… “Well, that story about the fairy godmother and the pumpkin carriage and the rats is awfully convenient too… What if Cinderella was actually the fraud who fit the slipper by accident? What if her magical fairy tale was a just cover-up for a lucky twist of fate?” So LIAR’S KINGDOM was born from that, with Ell, my protagonist, capitalizing on her first possible chance to escape her stepmother into a better life. From there, the rest of the book sprang from my desire to point out that a kingdom could do a lot worse in a future queen than a woman who’s used to rolling up her sleeves and doing some dirty work.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
My favorite character in this book is actually Zita, Ell’s brutally honest chambermaid. I’ve read a lot of fantasy books where the spunky princess ropes her maid into helping her with her shenanigans, and I wanted to write something that explored the difficulties with that power dynamic, and the class issues at play. I took a lot of satisfaction in crafting Zita to be a character who boldly sets boundaries with the aristocrats who employ her…but still has a soft, gooey center beneath her prickly exterior.
See also
Q&A: Channelle Desamours, Author of ‘Needy Little Things’
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I actually wrote the first draft of LIAR’S KINGDOM way back in 2020 while we were all still quarantining in the pandemic. So in many ways, writing this book helped me overcome the twin challenges of boredom and isolation!
What’s next for you?
2025 is a big publishing year for me! After LIAR’S KINGDOM drops in January, I have an adult rom-com (written under my pen name Madeline Bell) releasing from St. Martin’s Griffin on September 16th. It’s called THE AUSTEN AFFAIR, and it’s about two feuding co-stars on a Jane Austen film adaptation who accidentally travel back in time to the real Regency era, and have to lean on each other (and ultimately fall in love) to survive their adventure in the past.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up in 2025?
Ooh, my only question is: is there a word count limit here? Let’s go with Elle Tesch’s WHAT WAKES THE BELLS, Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos’ HOMEGROWN MAGIC, and M.K. Lobb’s TO STEAL FROM THIEVES, all in March 2025, Stacey McEwan’s A FORBIDDEN ALCHEMY in July 2025, Kamilah Cole’s AN ARCANE INHERITANCE in October 2025, plus KATABASIS by R.F. Kuang, and of course…SUNRISE ON THE REAPING. You can take a girl out of middle school but you can’t take a love of The Hunger Games out of the girl.
The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray
Christine Calella. Page Street, $18.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-6456-7872-4
Anxious Betsy Young hardly has the courage to leave her house; her half sister Ophelia, by comparison, is bold and assertive, and dreams of escaping the teens' island hometown, where she's regarded with suspicion because of her late mother's reputation as notorious pirate Ophelia Cray. Shortly after Cray is executed, Ophelia steals Betsy's identity and joins the navy. When she learns of Ophelia's ruse, Betsy too takes to the sea to bring her sister home before she's arrested. While Ophelia conceals her identity from a mutinous crew she's not sure she can trust, Betsy is forced to confront vicious pirates, and both sisters grapple with their own identities and sense of self-worth. Ophelia and Betsy spend most of Calella's debut apart, but their alternating POVs deftly render their complex relationship and parallel arcs. Some of its many plot and worldbuilding elements--such as the lore surrounding Cray's secret island and information about her other daughters--are underdeveloped, but swashbuckling action and hints of magic make this a rousing jaunt for fans of fantasy adventure. Most characters read as white; Betsy's love interest, Ravi, has brown skin. Ages 14--up. Agent: Laurel Symonds, KT Literary. (Apr.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 2, 15 Jan. 2024, p. 80. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A781251501/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=570f906b. Accessed 20 Apr. 2025.
Calella, Christine THE FINAL CURSE OF OPHELIA CRAY Page Street (Teen None) $18.99 4, 9 ISBN: 9781645678724
Two sisters find themselves and each other on the high seas.
Sixteen-year-old Ophelia Young has never felt at home on the island of Peu Jolie, where she lives with her father, stepmother, and anxious half sister, Betsy. She's ostracized because of her resemblance to her absent birth mother, the "cursed" pirate queen Ophelia Cray. After witnessing Cray's hanging, Ophelia steals her sister's identity and joins the Imperial Navy, hoping to make a new life for herself. When their father dies while Ophelia is away, Betsy vows to find her and bring her home. The chapters, told in the third person, alternate between following Betsy and Ophelia as they chart their own courses of self-discovery, and the story is filled with sadistic pirates, mutinous crews, and newfound friendships. The clunky, unpolished prose is frequently cringeworthy, however, filled with awkward similes, self-conscious dialogue, and excessive telling rather than showing. Ophelia, who has "wild curls" and "light olive" skin, is coded as aromantic and asexual; Betsy, who has "blond hair," "rosy cheeks," and "an appealing roundness," is agoraphobic. Betsy's male love interest is this fictional world's equivalent of South Asian. While it's exciting to see characters with these underrepresented identities having high-seas adventures, the weak prose undermines this strength. Readers looking for diverse stories of swashbuckling ladies should pick up Mackenzi Lee's The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy or C.B. Lee's A Clash of Steel instead.
Skip this one for more seaworthy tales. (note to readers) (Adventure. 14-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Calella, Christine: THE FINAL CURSE OF OPHELIA CRAY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A782202509/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c6ee5d11. Accessed 20 Apr. 2025.
Liar's Kingdom.
By Christine Calella.
Jan. 2025. 384p. Page Street YA, $18.99 (9798890039675).
Gr. 9-12.
Ell, stuck as a subservient and abused maid to her evil stepmother and stepsisters, can only dream of escape. Her luck turns up when Prince Bayard comes looking with a glass slipper that just so happens to fit her --even though she's not his mystery true love from the ball. As the prince whisks her away to the palace, Ell thinks she can make a quick escape and be free, but her growing affection for the prince and mounting distrust of his friend Duke Maxim hold her back. And the longer she stays, the more excuses she finds to hold off on her glorious escape. As she's pulled into the courtly drama and an ongoing war with the fairies of the nearby forest, she finds that as nice as royal life is, it's not at all what she was expecting. Calella, who previously wrote the swashbuckling riot The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray (2024), swings into fairy-tale territory here and has come up with an original and intriguing plot twist on Cinderella.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Comfort, Stacey. "Liar's Kingdom." Booklist, vol. 121, no. 9-10, Jan. 2025, p. 60. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A829739474/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4c2161b7. Accessed 20 Apr. 2025.
Calella, Christine LIAR'S KINGDOM Page Street (Teen None) $18.99 1, 14 ISBN: 9798890039675
Cinderella is a liar.
In this fairy-tale retelling, Prince Bayard D'Harcourt of Holbein arrives at the door of Ellain DeBrun, places the glass slipper on her foot, and whisks her away from her cruel stepfamily. Ell doesn't confess that she didn't attend the ball and has never met the prince. Their engagement is announced--she's to wed Bayard in just three days. At court, lonely Ell makes friends for the first time since her father's death, but she faces new dangers. Duke Maxim D'Arcy, Bayard's best friend, knows about Ell's lie, but he can't expose her without risking his own secrets. The ill-tempered King Alaric is waging war on Fairyland, burdening the peasants with its costs. He also despises his son, regarding him as cowardly and spineless and speaking scornfully about Bayard's inability to recognize people's faces (his prosopagnosia isn't named as such in the book). Meanwhile, Ell's stepfamily still seeks to destroy her, and Maxim quietly plots to prevent the marriage. With war threatening Holbein and her position precarious, Ell must save herself and the kingdom. In this version of the story, Ell is spirited and has a strong sense of self-preservation. Her abusive past makes her deeply empathetic toward the commoners. Quick-thinking, kind, and resilient, she will earn readers' affection as she carves out her own path for survival, offering "Cinderella" a much-needed 21st-century update. Main characters present white.
A clever and spirited twist on a classic tale. (note to readers)(Fiction. 13-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Calella, Christine: LIAR'S KINGDOM." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Nov. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A815560561/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=15f18c11. Accessed 20 Apr. 2025.