Katherine Harbour's Blog - Posts Tagged "urban-fantasy"

Congratulations to the winners of the Briar Queen arcs! Your signed copies are in the mail, sent USPS priority, 3-day!

Thorn Jack: A Night and Nothing Novel
The Fatas in Thorn Jack call themselves 'the children of night and nothing' because they believe they CAME from nothing and night, that they are thought-forms and elementals that only take on substance when they find a belief system they can shape themselves into. Or perhaps they are the ancient dead, spirits who haven't passed on and have evolved.
The Fatas are based on the faeries of Celtic and Gaelic folklore, who are entwined with the dead, the old gods, and mythical monsters. But each country has their own tribe or court of Fatas, reflecting the historical culture of the place in which they exist. The French Fatas call themselves 'La Bestia', because their favorite shadow form is that of a wolf, yet they are elegant and modern. The native Fatas of America call themselves Blackhearts because of what happened to the original inhabitants with whom they used to communicate.
But Finn and Jack's Fatas are outlaws and criminals, banished from their various countries to the 'New World', where the Blackhearts generally have nothing to do with them they wear the shapes of dreams or nightmares. Rules keep them in those shapes and they must adhere to those rules.
And in order to survive these capricious and sometimes malevolent entities, Finn and her friends must learn the rules.

Briar Queen will be coming out as a trade paperback, ebook, and audio June 2. Here are a few reviews!
RT BOOK REVIEWS: "Harbour's characters play for high stakes, and the author is not afraid to make her characters pay." http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-rev...

BOOKLIST: "The lilting, whimsical new adult fantasy, balanced by impressively detailed and dark vignettes, is fueled by a gothemo-scenester aesthetic... The magic is mysterious, the drama is aching, and the people are beautiful"

KIRKUS: "Readers drawn to faerie lore will enjoy this lush, romantic tale" https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: "Harbour makes love, suffering, and sacrifice the most poignant parts of her worlds, and readers with even the barest knowledge of fairy lore and legends will be pulled deep into this tale of sharp magic and its ruthless children" http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0...

Briar Queen
June 22 the giveaway begins for 5 signed copies of Briar Queen!
There will also be a bonus included, but that's only for the winners to know...

Briar Queen
Congratulations to the winners of Briar Queen! I'll be sending out your books, with a bonus, this week!

Congratulations again, and your books are in the mail with the bonus!
SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ the first extra autographed page sent with the book until you are done with Briar Queen! But you'll know that.

The Girl from the Well
The heroine of this sometimes disturbing contemporary ghost story is Okiku, murdered by an unfaithful lover centuries ago in Japan and now avenging the deaths of murdered girls and children. (The Okiku story really exists and was the inspiration for the movie The Ring.) But this Okiku is a good monster and soon comes to the aid of a demon-tormented boy named Tarquin. While terrible people meet gruesome ends at Okiku's hands, the worst evil is the one infesting Tarquin--and it may have been caused by his insane mother. Okiku soon allies with Tarquin's young Aunt Callie in a race to free Tarquin from a lethal possession. But it's Okiku's story that matters here and drives the plot and it's unsettling and poignant, as she must decide whether to move on or continue her acts of vengeance. A great creepy horror tale, where the monsters aren't always supernatural.

Here's a list of songs I listened to while writing Thorn Jack, in order:

1)I Go to Sleep (Sia)

2)Hypnotic (Zella Day)

3)Young Blood (Birdy)

4)A Man You Don't Meet Every Day(The Pogues)

5)Whispering (Alex Clare)

6)Tam Lin (Fairport Convention)

7)House on a Hill (The Pretty Reckless)

8)Lucky You (Deftones)

9)Back to Black (Beyonce & Andre 3000)

10)I Know Places (Lykke Li)

11)I'll Follow You into the Dark (Death Cab for Cutie)

12)Wide Awake (Katy Perry)

You can listen to some of them here: https://soundcloud.com/katharbour/sets

Fiendish
The setting for this contemporary dark fantasy is a vividly realized magic realism version of the Ozarks. Clementine falls asleep as a child, only to wake up years later in a cellar closet, tangled in roots. She is rescued by Fisher, a young man with secrets of his own. Clementine reconnects with her wary aunt and glamorous cousin Shiny, and learns that magic has gone haywire in the town. The townspeople fixed it by burning the homes of the old families believed to practice it. Meanwhile, creatures called fiends (spirits or fairy folk, it's wonderfully not clarified) haunt the fringes of a place called The Hollow.
The supernatural elements are southern Gothic, the characters interesting and original. The story itself leaves you wanting to read more about this universe.

Here's a great post to accompany this book:
http://appalachianink.net/2015/09/06/...

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...