set in a fantasy version of Victorian London. She’s lucky enough to live in Colorado at the base of the beautiful Rocky Mountains, where she enjoys reading, gardening, hiking, a glass of wine at the end of the day, and finding the magic in everyday life.
My Q&A with the author:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Luanne G. Smith's website.
The Raven Spell was the second title we came up with. It was originally called The Raven Sisters, which worked well but had already been used by another 47North author. Titles aren’t copyrighted, so we could have used the original, but it would have infringed on another in-house author’s previous claim to the title. The Raven Spell is a good second choice. It hints at shadowy, dark magic and the ultimate secret the sisters are hiding. The follow-up in the duology is titled The Raven Song, which gives a nice balance.
What’s in a name?
There wasn’t a ton of consideration that went into choosing my main characters’ names. I wanted something very Victorian, very English for the sisters, hence Edwina and Mary. The cadence of the names together also lended itself to borrowing a well-known nursery rhyme, which opens the novel: Edwina and Mary, quite contrary. And then there’s old Tom Hob the elf who is named after my very hairy dog Tommy. I did also make an embarrassing mistake with one of my characters in The Raven Spell. I called a gentleman wizard Sir Henry Elvanfoot because I loved that name! But, alas, as it works within the English system, he should be called Sir Henry not Sir Elvanfoot. A clumsy faux pas that this American didn’t catch.
How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?
I was very much on a literary path in high school. Shakespeare was my thing and I loved being involved in theater and choir. Working behind the curtain felt like I was a secret-keeper, aware of things the audience wasn’t. I don’t know if I knew then I wanted to write novels, but my teenage self would not have been surprised that I ended up writing fantasy. Those were my favorite parts of Shakespeare – Macbeth’s witches, the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Mercutio’s speech about Queen Mab infecting men’s dreams in Romeo and Juliet. It’s why thethree novels in The Vine Witch series contain subtle odes to those plays and in that order.
Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?
Beginnings come very easily for me. I love to kick off a novel and see where it goes. What is decidedly more difficult is reining in all those storylines and subplots at the end so that they sum up the story with some emotional oomph that resonates with the reader. I usually know I’ve hit a satisfactory ending when I start tearing up. The story feels done and I’m left a little bereft after carrying all those words to the end.
Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?
A bit of both, really. Obviously, all of my characters are generated from somewhere within my psyche—both the protagonists and the villains. I can easily channel personal emotions into a character’s behavior or motivation for good or ill, but I’m less convinced any of the characters I’ve written represent me, per se. Because I write about witches, I’m often asked if I’m a witch too, but I’m ultimately a writer with a deep affection for the mysterious and supernatural side of life, which I’m lucky enough to explore in my novels.
--Marshal Zeringue