Karen: Research

[Emma]

Karen, I found the elements of magic and alchemy in your trilogy absolutely fascinating, especially Donna's 'tattoos'– the iron in her arms that gives her such incredible strength. What research did you do for this?

[Karen]

I basically mixed two completely separate things, put them together myself:

Alchemy + The Handless Maiden

Alchemy is self-explanatory. :) I have been interested in it for so long, and used to work in an occult bookstore that had cool esoteric books on the subject. I read Dr. John Dee's journals and everything!

The Handless Maiden (or The Armless Maiden) is a less well-known fairy tale, and I took elements of that as inspiration for Donna and her iron tattoos. There are dozens of versions of that particular folklore - from all over the world - and I've read a lot of them.

[Amy]

There are so many great lesser known fairy tales! Some of the best books have sprung from those... like The Snow Child and (I think) Shadow and Bone. (Or maybe I read a short story by Leigh Bardugo that was inspired by a lesser known fairy tale). Plus, of course, Pullman's latest book about Grimm's Fairy Tales was amazing.

Such great story fodder!

[Emma]

An occult bookstore? What an amazing place to work! And yes, there are some fascinating fairy tales out there. One of the best fairy tale/folklore books I've ever read was one I found at the library, full of stories from India.