A standalone book by the author of The Decoder Series
Once Upon a Pattern
85 stories · fairy tales, fables, and myths
“Something about that story never sat right, and you never said why.”
Once Upon a Pattern turns 85 of the stories you already know, fairy tales, fables, and myths, and shows you exactly what each one taught you to accept.
The pea was placed there on purpose: someone slipped it under twenty mattresses and waited to see if she'd complain. Under another roof, the same test wore a different face. Cinderella wasn't rewarded for her patience; she was trained by it. And the wolf never had to attack Red Riding Hood. She'd already been taught to be polite.
What it is
The Decoder Series already contains a book's worth of stories. Every outward-facing card in Volume One opens with a tale you know, then turns it. Collected, ordered, and given room, those turns are a book of their own: a way in for a reader who isn't ready to open a book with “narcissism” on the cover, but who will read a book about Cinderella.
Inside, you'll be able to
- Recognize the moment a childhood story taught you that love was conditional, or that silence was the price of being loved
- See a fable's “lesson” for what it actually trained you to accept: who gets to be right, who gets believed, who gets to keep what's theirs
- Meet the myths you grew into without ever knowing their names, and recognize the family you were raised in on sight
- Find the exact card in the Decoder Series for any pattern this book uncovers, whenever you're ready to go further
You don't need anyone's permission to trust what you noticed as a child. You'll recognize every story here. By the end, you'll recognize the pattern too.
Part of the same world
This book stands beside the eight volumes of The Decoder Series, not inside them.
No number on the spine, and every pattern it names has a fuller home in the series, starting with SEE, Volume One.
Beta readers
Read it before it publishes.
A small team reads Once Upon a Pattern first and tells Jennifer the truth of it. Leave your name and email and she'll write when the advance copy is ready.
Know first
Hear when it publishes.