Katherine Harbour's Blog - Posts Tagged "faeries"

Thorn Jack: A Night and Nothing Novel
1) I sometimes wish Thorn Jack's subtitle could be Thorn Jack: It's Not Twilight (No offense to the lovely Stephanie Meyers, who also touched on the Beauty and the Beast trope)

2) HallowHeart College: The more eccentric classes were inspired by actual courses from colleges. (At least I didn't use the Buffy the Vampire Slayer course)Since the dean and a select group of professors know about the Fatas, some of the courses were designed to instruct the students on otherworldly subjects.
The characters are freshman, one summer removed from being high school seniors. There are mean girls and idiots in college. Some of them are in sororities and fraternities.

3) Moving to a New Town: Although it's a well-worn trope, I wanted a fish-out-of-water story. I love it when a character is discovering their surroundings and everything is new.

4) The Demon Lover: Jack begins as the elf knight, the fairy tale beast, the dangerous element. His first encounter with Finn is his attempting to enchant her, until the moth key snaps her out of it. As the story moves on, she becomes less intrigued by his otherworldliness and more in love with his humanity.

5) Thorn Jack, Briar Queen, and Nettle King are a story arc about losing a loved one. The first book is about the shock and depression. The second book is about magical thinking. The third book is ...well about acceptance of death.

6) 'Emory' is ivy. An autocorrect mistake (Not mine or my editor's!) made at the last minute when a character's last name was changed from ivy to Emory. It was fixed in the trade paperback and future ebook editions.


Nettle King
Finn and Jack's story ends in Nettle King, out April 2016. To learn future news about The Children of Night & Nothing series, you can sign up for my newsletter here:http://katherineharbour.com/contact.p...

The Call
This is not a fairy tale, but horror, brutal and grim. Nessa and other young people live in a future Ireland closed off by an enchanted mist. When they're teenagers, they're sent to schools to learn the very necessary art of survival--because, at any moment, they could vanish into a horrifying otherworld for 3 minutes, during which they have to survive being hunted by the Sidhe, beautiful psychopaths with a penchant for transforming their victims into monsters.
Nessa was born with a disability in her legs that won't allow her to walk without extreme difficulty. But she's determined to survive, and learns to run with crutches. Then she beings losing friends to the Sidhe...
The story was a little depressing at first, like the Hunger Games with monstrous faery folk, but Nessa and her schoolmates are tough kids in a nightmarish world. I read this in two days, just to find out what was going to happen. That's a record for me.

You Let Me In
Told from a first person narrative, by a writer of romance with a tragic past. She may have died. She may be narrating from beyond.
Novelist Cassandra Tipp grew up in a household that was abusive, but this abuse is only hinted at. She finds solace as a child with a vampiric, twisted tree of a fairy man she simply calls Pepper Man. He is with her throughout her life, but is he the one causing her grief or is he the one keeping her alive? I found this book in the mystery section and was delighted by the terrifying and strange descriptions of Cassandra's fairy folk, who are linked with the dead. It's hinted that the fairies might be in her mind, a coping device. But, despite her therapist's insistence, this theory doesn't add up.
This was a fabulous surprise, for anyone who enjoys the darker side of Faery.

The Iron King
Meghan is a teen with an ordinary life on a farm. But when her little brother is taken and a terrifying changeling put in his place, her best friend Robin reveals that he's a faery, Puck to be exact, and so is she, daughter of the faery king.
He brings her to the NeverNever, where she encounters a Cheshire cat-like talking cat and Ash, prince of the dark sidhe. Meghan must travel back and forth, in faery-inhabited worlds, to rescue her brother.
I loved the characters and the world-building elements, making familiar tropes uncanny and original. The past history between Ash and Robin is a fun reveal. A fabulous addition to the faery genre.

Under the Pendulum Sun

10 Reasons I Worship This Book

1)The Fae are terrifying and weird
2)The setting is an alternate Victorian world, where faeryland is the New Continent
3)Catherine is a Bronte-esque young woman who arrives in Arcadia (Faeryland) to find her missionary brother, Laon
4)An intriguing theme of faith and its pitfalls
5)A Gothic house called Gethsemane
6)A gnome who has converted to Christianity, a woman who is a soulless changeling, and the mysterious Salamander
7) The Fae queen may have biblical origins
8)Gorgeous and lyrical writing
9)A forbidden romance
10)Catherine is a genteel young woman with courage and a secret