Guest Post: Katherine Harbour + The Night And Nothing Series

I'm so pleased today to welcome author Katherine Harbour back to the blog to talk a little bit more about her Night and Nothing series. I'm a huge fan of all things fairytale or mythology related, so I was thrilled when Katherine was more than willing to tackle that topic and give us all a few goosebumps by discussing things with teeth. Take it away Katherine!

There’s something almost supernatural about teeth. Teeth remain after we die. Teeth are alive although they appear lifeless. Teeth in mammals contributed to the success of human evolution. (In Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, teeth are used to resurrect an entire race of beings.) Children’s teeth, lost naturally, were once given to Norse warriors as amulets and believed to bring good fortune in battle. In some cultures, children’s teeth were destroyed or hidden as a preventative against their being used for malevolent purposes.

For most children, losing a tooth is an unpleasant experience—a piece of them is falling off, there’s blood. But it’s a rite of passage, a first step toward adolescence. In J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, Peter is described as “a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices of trees, but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all of his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.” On the other hand, the title character in Graham Joyce’s The Tooth Fairy is a disturbing presence who ushers the protagonist into adulthood.

And what does the Tooth Fairy do with all of those teeth she collects? The Tooth Fairy goes rogue in Gregory Maguire’s children’s book What-the-Dickens. In Zenoscope’s graphic novel series Grimm Fairy Tales, the tooth fairy is a sexy dentist by day and a bloodthirsty monster at night. The sinister aspect of this childhood icon, established in the twentieth century, has been the source of horror films such as Darkness Falls, in which the tooth fairy becomes a vengeful entity, and The Haunting of Helena, where she’s portrayed as a terrifying spirit with a bloody history. In Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy movies, the tooth fairies are as vicious as swarming piranhas.

Teeth become terrifying when in the mouths of monsters, alluring (to some) between the lips of (attractive) vampires. In my dark fantasy novels Thorn Jack and Briar Queen, the supernatural Fatas use human teeth as currency, as weapons, but, to the protean Fatas, who can sometimes shift into monstrous shapes and who are really the formless children of nothing and night, we are the things with teeth.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by Katherine! And I just want to add that the movie Darkness Falls traumatized me. It said it was rated PG-13 and I was all "I'm an adult, I've got this, how bad could it be?" and then I nearly died of terror. Just saying ;-)

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THORN JACK

Finn Sullivan has lost her older sister to suicide. Fleeing the memories left in San Francisco, she and her father move to an upstate New York town filled with socialities, hippies, movie and Theatre folk, where every corner holds possibilities and mysteries. As she settles in and begins college at the local university, HallowHeart, she discovers her sisters journal, filled with ominous musings on otherworldly beings.  She also meets the devastatingly handsome Jack Fata—and the rest of the enigmatic Fata family. 

As Finn’s fascination with Jack and his family deepens—and theirs for her does the same—she learns that they and the rest of the town denizens are far more than they seem, both for good and evil. Her sister’s journal suddenly seems much more menacing and realistic than she could ever have imagined.

Soon Finn learns that attention from the Fatas brings dangerous consequences. To free herself and save her friends and her love, Finn must confront the Fatas and unravel the secrets surrounding her sister’s death.

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BRIAR QUEEN

Serafina Sullivan and her father left San Francisco to escape the painful memory of her older sister Lily Rose's suicide. But soon after she arrived in bohemian Fair Hollow, New York, Finn discovered a terrifying secret connected to Lily Rose. The placid surface of this picture-perfect town concealed an eerie supernatural world--and at its center, the wealthy, beautiful, and terrifying Fata family.

Though the striking and mysterious Jack Fata tried to push Finn away to protect her, their attraction was too powerful to resist. To save him, Finn--a girl named for the angels and a brave Irish prince--banished a cabal of malevolent enemies to shadows, freeing him from their diabolical grip.

Now, the rhythm of life in Fair Hollow is beginning to feel a little closer to ordinary. But Finn knows better than to be lulled by this comfortable sense of normalcy. It's just the calm before the storm. For soon, a chance encounter outside the magical Brambleberry Books will lead her down a rabbit hole, into a fairy world of secrets and legacies . . . straight towards the shocking truth about her sister's death.

Lush and gorgeously written, featuring star-crossed lovers and the collision of the magical and the mundane, Briar Queen will appeal to the fans of Cassandra Clare's bestselling Mortal Instruments series and Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely.

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KATHERINE HARBOUR

Born in upstate New York, Katherine Harbour is now a bookseller in Sarasota, Florida living with a tempestuous black cat named Pooka and too many books. She has been writing since she was 15 and has had several short stories published. THORN JACK is her first novel.

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Cathy Reviews: Thorn Jack

I'm so pleased today to welcome my mother in law Cathy back to the blog to share her thoughts on Thorn Jack!

THORN JACK
Night and Nothing #1
Katherine Harbour
Fantasy/Fairy Tale Retelling
352 pages
Harper Voyager
Available Now
Source: Finished copy from publisher for review

THE STORY
Finn Sullivan has lost her older sister to suicide. Fleeing the memories left in San Francisco, she and her father move to an upstate New York town filled with socialities, hippies, movie and Theatre folk, where every corner holds possibilities and mysteries. As she settles in and begins college at the local university, HallowHeart, she discovers her sisters journal, filled with ominous musings on otherworldly beings.  She also meets the devastatingly handsome Jack Fata—and the rest of the enigmatic Fata family. 

As Finn’s fascination with Jack and his family deepens—and theirs for her does the same—she learns that they and the rest of the town denizens are far more than they seem, both for good and evil. Her sister’s journal suddenly seems much more menacing and realistic than she could ever have imagined.

Soon Finn learns that attention from the Fatas brings dangerous consequences. To free herself and save her friends and her love, Finn must confront the Fatas and unravel the secrets surrounding her sister’s death.

CATHY'S THOUGHTS
Most of us grew up hearing or reading fairy tales. Being Irish, I'd heard many stories about the fae but always thought of them as whimsical or benign. Not so true of the mystical characters that Katherine Harbour has created. Ms. Harbour has done a wonderful and titillating job of weaving a story where we can't distinguish good from evil until it's too late.

After the death of Finn's sister, Lily Rose, she and her father move back to the tiny town of Fair Hollow, her father's old home and hometown. This is a town filled with a sinister history. The description of the students at the college Finn attends reminds you of those you might see at a renaissance fair, complete with historical costumes. You can easily envision all of the students running around in velvet and lace.

Finn makes two immediate friends, Christie and Sylvia. The three of them soon discover that some of the residents of Fair Hollow are not exactly what they appear to be. Finn might not have delved deeper into the strange goings on in town if not for her sister's journal though. A journal filled with stories of faeries and other mythical creatures. And then there is Jack!!! Finn is captivated by Jack even after she realizes he is not what he seems and is missing something crucial.

Ms. Harbour does an excellent job of making our heroine the right combination of young woman with a savior complex and just plain frustrating. Like in any good horror story, Finn runs blindly ahead into danger, causing us to want to scream at her to STOP, but we're also glad that she's plunged ahead because we're hanging on to see what happens next.

Ms. Harbour uses literary references, such as Yeats and Shakespeare, to reaffirm the possibility that there may indeed be a faerie world and most of us just can't see it. There are a lot of Gaelic references as well, but don't be put off because there is a glossary at the back of the book. And thrown in for good measure is an old hotel that would rival the one in The Shining.

For me, Thorn Jack was a page turner, filled with mystery, dark thrills, and romance. As we read the epilogue, we hear soft voices that lead us to believe that we have not seen the last of the faerie world. I find that exciting and can't wait for the next book.

Rating: 4/5

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my (or in this case, Cathy's) honest opinion.

Interview: Katherine Harbour + Thorn Jack

Today I'm super excited to have debut author Katherine Harbour stopping by the blog to answer a few questions about her retelling of the Tam Lin fairy tale, Thorn Jack. I'm a HUGE fan of fairy tale retellings of all kinds as there's nothing more fascinating to me than reading a different take on a familiar story, so if you're anything like me I hope you'll add Thorn Jack to your lists. Welcome to Supernatural Snark Katherine!

Finn’s sister kept a journal containing descriptions of various supernatural creatures. Which of the creatures in that journal terrifies you most at the thought of it being real?

That would be the Grindylow, which resemble grotesque, human-sized, ball-joint dolls that move when no one is looking. The idea came from golem myths and an old Twilight Zone episode about mannequins.

You mention that Thorn Jack was influenced in part by Frankenstein. Continuing in that same vein, can you introduce Jack to those of us who have yet to meet him by describing his various physical/personality traits through the filter of other fictional or mythological characters? For instance, he has the charm of Puck mixed with the danger of Captain Hook.   

I’d describe Jack as having the valor of Lancelot with the savagery of Dionysus; the cunning of Raven with the moodiness of Hamlet; the humor of Hermes with the pride of Lucifer.

What’s one question Finn would love to ask Jack (or a member of his family) but can’t because she’s too afraid of what the answer will reveal? 

One question would be: Are you the dead? Finn knows Jack and the Fata family aren’t human. Discovering that they’re spirits who have managed to hang on to some replica of life would be disturbing for her.

If you were in Finn’s shoes, thrust into a world where nothing is quite as it seems, what would you do to ensure you didn’t lose yourself in all the madness?

I’d try to center myself with friends, or just go with it and learn the rules of the unreal world. Most likely, I’d go crazy.

In your research for Thorn Jack, did you come across any interesting tidbits or stories of paranormal experiences that thoroughly surprised you?

I had my own paranormal experience when I was ten. I was with my friends on a corner, at dusk, and one block away was my old grade school, which had closed. We heard a weird rustling and saw a black shadow in a gown just gliding along near the school. That was terrifying. While doing research for Thorn Jack, I found a creepy phrase that used to be spoken against the faery folk in Ireland: ‘May their backs be toward us, their faces turned away from us, and may God save us from harm.’ And the stories about the faery fool, the Amadan, were pretty unsettling.

If you were to write yourself into Thorn Jack as a friend who joins Finn in her attempt to solve the mystery surrounding her sister’s death, what special skill or trait would you say you possess that would be useful to her?

If I was one of Finn’s friends, I think a helpful skill would be to know what kind of Fata she was dealing with and what his/her weaknesses were.

Looking ahead to the sequels, what’s one question you wish someone would ask you about the changes the characters go through or the events that unfold?

One question I wish people would ask would be: Will the human protagonists be irrevocably transformed by their time with the Fatas? Or will they remain mortal? Although I won’t answer it.

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions Katherine!

• • • • • • • • • • • 

THORN JACK

Finn Sullivan has lost her older sister to suicide. Fleeing the memories left in San Francisco, she and her father move to an upstate New York town filled with socialities, hippies, movie and Theatre folk, where every corner holds possibilities and mysteries. As she settles in and begins college at the local university, HallowHeart, she discovers her sisters journal, filled with ominous musings on otherworldly beings.  She also meets the devastatingly handsome Jack Fata—and the rest of the enigmatic Fata family. 

As Finn’s fascination with Jack and his family deepens—and theirs for her does the same—she learns that they and the rest of the town denizens are far more than they seem, both for good and evil. Her sister’s journal suddenly seems much more menacing and realistic than she could ever have imagined.

Soon Finn learns that attention from the Fatas brings dangerous consequences. To free herself and save her friends and her love, Finn must confront the Fatas and unravel the secrets surrounding her sister’s death.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N

• • • • • • • • • • •

KATHERINE HARBOUR

Born in upstate New York, Katherine Harbour is now a bookseller in Sarasota, Florida living with a tempestuous black cat named Pooka and too many books. She has been writing since she was 15 and has had several short stories published. THORN JACK is her first novel.

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