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Every author is shaped by the books they read. Because the best books always leave fingerprints. They alter the way we think, and the questions we ask ourselves once we are finished. They shape the stories we feel compelled to tell after having read them.
People often ask me what inspired Threads of Fate. The honest answer? Almost everything I’ve ever loved reading.
Before Fantasy, There Was Darkness…
People are often surprised when they ask what I read growing up. Because the answer isn’t fantasy or young adult literature.
It was horror.
My mother – in what was either an act of remarkable confidence, or questionable parenting skills (thanks, Mom) – introduced me to Stephen King and Anne Rice far younger than she probably should have. I owe her a great deal of debt, for that early trust. Because while many children were reading stories designed to reassure them…I was reading stories that asked what happened when the monsters won.
Stephen King taught me horror is only sometimes about monsters.
It’s about people.
Their fear.
Their trauma.
The ordinary, becoming absolutely terrifying.
Anne Rice – she taught me something else, entirely.
That villains are often the most fascinating people in the room.
Though, we rarely deign to admit it.
That darkness can be seductive.
Morality is rarely simple.
Looking back, I think those books quietly taught me not to be frightened of treading those spaces. The ones others fear to walk, afraid of what they might find there waiting for them…
Margaret Atwood Changed the Discourse
I was rather blessed that great literary fiction arrived in my formative years through school. I had phenomenal English teachers, who didn’t hesitate to throw me into the deep end of feminist literature.
Margaret Atwood became the gateway drug.
She demonstrated to me that literary fiction could interrogate society, without ever becoming a lecture. That stories could ask uncomfortable questions simply by allowing readers to inhabit another life. That stayed with me. Because stories that told people what to think never really interested me. I had textbooks for that. No – the stories that stayed with me, were always the ones that asked me to question things for myself…
As it turns out, I wanted to ask questions difficult enough that I would still be thinking about them, long after the final page…
Then, Came the Dark Russians
University took me somewhere even darker.
Tolstoy.
Dostoevsky.
Gogol.
The great Russian novelists.
I fell in love with character-driven narratives. Books populated by flawed, contradictory characters. Wrestling with impossible questions, set in brutal societies. They weren’t interested in exploring heroes – they were deep diving into humanity. People capable of astonishing compassion…and astonishing cruelty, in the very next breath.
At one point, I wondered if it was because they were bleak – because, many of them were. Then, I realised what they all had in common. I loved them because they were honest. They refused to bow to easy answers. Refused to shy away from hard truths. And that is a literary lesson that has stayed with me ever since.
Tolkien Built the World
Every fantasy writer owes Tolkien a debt, whether we bother to admit it or not.
Middle-earth taught me that worlds should feel older than the stories taking place inside them. History should exist before the first chapter. Languages should have roots. Civilisations should rise and fall, long before the protagonist is born.
A fantasy world should feel discovered…not invented.
That the best stories often demand huge sacrifices and trials, before we reach the end of the journey. And even then, it is only a way stop along the path…
Martin Raised the Stakes
Then came George R. R. Martin.
For me, Martin’s greatest gift wasn’t simply killing characters – it was consequences.
Power has consequences.
Politics has consequences.
Mercy has consequences.
Even doing the right thing has consequences.
Nobody escapes history untouched.
Morally grey is now nearly a genre of its own. And there is absolutely a reason for that. Because it is truth. He was writing the mirror of our own world. After Game of Thrones, I could never quite go back to the reader I had been before.
Robert Jordan Changed the Way I Thought About Magic
I’ve never hidden the fact that the foundations of my mortal magic system owe a respectful nod to Robert Jordan. His vision of gendered magic fascinated me. Because it opened the door to asking entirely different questions within my own mythology.
What happens when magic itself is gendered?
Because in Threads of Fate, the interesting this isn’t that male and female magic are different, like Jordan’s world.
It’s that society treats them differently for having the same exact power.
What would happen in world where a state-sanctioned religious institution has taken a natural distribution of power and constructed an entire political and religious system around deciding which half of that power is legitimate.
Sounds incredibly familiar for some vague reason, though I digress…
Sarah J. Maas Taught Me About Investment
People often assume that romance is the obvious influence in my books. It absolutely is, but perhaps not in the way people think...
Sarah J. Maas writes characters readers become fiercely attached to. Readers don’t simply follow the plot. They carry the characters with them even after the story ends. That kind of emotional investment wrung from readers is extraordinary. And also incredibly rare and extremely difficult to pull off. Though, it’s something I’ve always admired about her work.
Frank Herbert Asked Bigger Questions
Then, I read Dune.
Suddenly fantasy wasn’t simply about worlds. It fell squarely within my fascination and love of deconstructing systems.
Religion.
Power.
Empire.
Prophecy.
Who controls belief?
Who benefits from it?
How do institutions justify themselves?
Those questions had already fascinated me, long before I ever wrote a single word of Threads of Fate. The picture of my own series was beginning to take shape…
Wuthering Heights And Obsession
While writing Aria and Evander’s character arcs, which comprise a huge amount of The Spark of Rebellion, I found myself returning to Wuthering Heights.
Because I was drawn to the idea about dark obsessive romance.
Not infatuation.
Not attraction.
Obsession.
The kind of connection that consumes reason.
The kind that becomes impossible to escape.
The kind that is magnificent…yet dangerous.
The influence of Bronte is everywhere in Aria and Evander.
Not in the plotline.
In the intensity.
And Finally, Shakespeare Never Really Leaves You
The older I become…
The more Shakespeare I seem to hear, whenever I read great fiction.
Not in dialogue.
In rhythm.
Cadence.
Irony.
In the understanding that words can wound more deeply than swords. And as I‘ve very clearly chosen to be a wordsmith all my life, I’ve always believed they absolutely can. And should, at times.
Pick A Lane
When I first began writing, I was given a great deal of advice. Some of it excellent. Some of it…less so. Yet, one piece surfaced again and again.
“You need to pick a lane.”
Epic fantasy. Literary fiction. Political fantasy. Dark horror. Character-driven romantasy.
Apparently, I was interested in writing too many things at once. I remember smiling when I heard the incredulous responses. Because no matter what I was told, I simply chose not to listen. Maybe somewhere down deep, there is a ‘why chose’ defiant streak for me to explore. Much to my readers delight, I would suspect.
Because I wanted Tolkien’s mythology.
Martin’s consequences.
Maas’s emotional investment.
Herbert’s systems.
Atwood’s questions.
King’s darkness.
Rice’s moral ambiguity.
The Russians’ psychology.
Jordan’s imagination.
Shakespeare’s cadence.
I wanted all of it.
Yet, I was being told that nobody could write a story that stood with one foot in all those worlds. That readers wouldn’t understand it. That the market demanded certainty and simplicity, and that readers had changed over the years.
And my question back to them was – have they?
Or is it only what they think they want, because that is what is currently being fed to them….
And to my doubters, I had only one response.
Watch me.
The books are written.
The world exists.
And for the first time…
It isn’t my opinion that matters anymore.
Now, the readers are deciding.
