Given that I was raised on a solid diet of fantasy novels, it’s no wonder that I’ve finally published one.
Although my YA fantasy, The Raven, the Wolf, and the Rose, is set in England, in the Cotswolds, it is inspired by a typically South African reverence for nature—and by my own particular love of trees.
When I was a kid growing up on a farm in eSwatini with no TV, reading was our family’s go-to entertainment. Sometimes, we’d all sit in armchairs and on sofas, books open, with perhaps Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue spinning on the record player in the background. My parents smoked quietly and drank Mainstay poured at a special drinks trolley complete with ice bucket and tongs. The room was probably blue with smoke, but we were so used to it we barely noticed. Perhaps it kept the mosquitoes at bay.
More frequently, I’d read in bed, propped against the pillows. Hours passed this way, entire afternoons swallowed whole, especially if it was raining and you couldn’t swim.
I discovered Tolkien pretty young and devoured The Hobbit before moving on to Lord of the Rings. Before that, there was Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree series, horribly dated now.
The Chronicles of Narnia featured heavily, too, and led to much testing of the unyielding backs of wooden wardrobes.
When we wanted a communal experience, somebody would bring out the big pink box filled with shiny black records in white sleeves—all of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass read aloud, unabridged. It was either Alice or Call of the Wild, featuring the roars of lions and the laughter of hyenas. Often, we would sample a bit of each, so that the Red Queen still sometimes gibbers like a hyena in my subconscious.
The hills of our farm were perfect for a clutch of kids who half-believed in fairies. We spent a lot of time in a wooded gully cut through by a burbling stream. Little Pine Forest, we called it. The moss was thick and cushiony, and we had secret pathways to special clearings where we regularly saw the traces of circles tramped out by fairy feet.
Sometimes, perfect rings of mushrooms sprang up overnight, more confirmation that the Fair Folk had been dancing and feasting.
Once, as we ranged barefoot over the veld, we saw a man put something into the hollow of a tree. Or at least, legend says we did. (I was the little sister. I believed what the older ones told me.) Who was this mysterious man? I will never know, nor what he hid there. The mystery lives on, ripe for a story.
Another even more memorable time, my friend Fiona and I woke to find a tiny fairy on the windowsill, along with a dead beetle and a few wisps of spiderweb. Outside, my older sister, Debbie, pointed to a bush and whispered, “Look, more fairies!” Sure enough, the bush was studded with tiny fairies in purple skirts. Even now, a part of my brain denies that the windowsill fairy was the plastic ballerina from a musical box and the fairies in the bush were made of matchsticks and fuchsia petals.
Is it any wonder that I still love woodland fantasy?
As a post graduate student in the US, I developed a fascination with the Green Man of English folklore—you know, the gargoyle surrounded by leaves, sometimes even disgorging foliage, often referred to as a foliate head? I wrote an essay about the use of the archetype in literature, ranging from Lord of the Rings to the works of A. S. Byatt. It’s not surprising that Jack of the Green himself is a character in my first fantasy novel.
I am already at work on Book 2 of the Deepwood Trilogy, with a hazy plan for Book 3 jotted down in a notebook. My aim is to write YA that the whole family can enjoy, with both a girl and a boy at the heart of the story.
Above all, the series is for people who see faces in tree trunks—and who can’t help hoping that, when they stare off into the woods, something magical might be looking back.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Raven, the Wolf, and the Rose follows Willow McBane, a seventeen-year-old parkour champion uprooted from London to rural England, who discovers a hidden realm whose dying magic is threatening Earth. It has the atmosphere and romance of cozy fantasy but with real stakes and an eco-conscious thread running through it. It also has a reluctant heroine, slow-burn romance, and a dangerous prophecy. The BookLife Prize called it “a dazzling adventure” with “expressive worldbuilding and breathtaking action.” It’s Book One in The Deepwood Trilogy and will be published on September 8 by Catalyst Press. Click here to pre-order your copy.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.