The Vine Witch e-book is on sale on Amazon for a limited time in the U.S. right now, so I thought it might be a good time to share a little insider info on the books in the series.
Okay, so my very first literary crush was on Shakespeare. I was in high school, and most of the accomplished authors I was reading were doing impressive summersaults with their words, but Shakespeare's writing was on a Cirque du Soleil-level of ability for me.
And while it was maybe a little self-indulgent of me to do so, with The Vine Witch trilogy I set out to give homage to Shakespeare for inspiring me to become a writer and lifelong lover of words.
None of the novels are retellings, but there are scenes and words sprinkled into the novels that are simply there because of my love of his plays. In this case Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. All three plays contained elements of fantasy already, so it was a natural fit for me.
For example, In The Vine Witch, there’s a reason a witch’s tavern in the French countryside has an English name. Grimalkin & Paddock (cat and toad) are two of the three witches from Macbeth. There’s also an encounter with a pair of “weird sisters”, a little "hurly-burly" on the road, and a theme of murder and deep-seated betrayal.
In The Glamourist, the connections are a little more apparent. Yvette grew up in a cabaret named Le Reve, which means the dream in French. Her whole life has been a dream basically. And then (*spoiler) she discovers her mixed heritage includes a famous name from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
And The Conjurer is a classic tale of forbidden love and miscommunication. There's also an odd character in the novel who is based on Queen Mab, the tiny fairy that invades men's dreams according to Mercutios's speech:
"She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;"
There are other examples, but those novels are my little homage to Shakespeare. Did you notice?