Author Interview: Alix E. Harrow on A Mirror Mended

Alix E. Harrow turns her considerable talents to all things fairytale in her Fractured Fables novellas. Alix is here today to talk about this latest installment A Mirror Mended, inspiration, and all things writing.

Miss Print: Can you tell me a bit about your path as a writer? How did you get to this point?

Alix E. Harrow: Like all writers, I got here by hard work, luck, and help, and I try not to think about the percentages of that pie chart. Basically, I started writing short fiction in my early twenties, in between adjuncting and renovating our semi-abandoned house. One of my stories happened to go around twitter a little bit, and I got messages from an editor and an agent asking if I happened to have a novel–which I did! And here I am.

Miss Print: It’s no secret that the Fractured Fables novellas are your version of a “spiderverse” treatment for fairytales. Where did this idea come from? Did you always know that Sleeping Beauty would be your starting point?

Alix E. Harrow: The idea came about twelve minutes after walking out of the movie theater after seeing Spider-Verse. Aside from being a perfect film, it also struck me as the perfect retelling–an expansive, inclusive sprawl of a plot that was big enough to fit all the previous versions of itself. Every retelling is trailed by its own ghosts, but Spider-Verse was the first one to give the ghosts speaking lines. And I wanted to do that with my own personal problematic canon: Disney-fied princess fairy tales.

It took me a little longer to settle on Sleeping Beauty, but of course it had to be her. If there’s any story I would break the physical laws of the universe to escape, it’s that one.

Miss Print: Working off the last question, do you have a favorite Spider-Man/person/entity?

Alix E. Harrow: I mean, my five year old still watches the “What’s Up Danger” leap of faith scene from Spider-Verse every time he gets his nails clipped, so, it has to be Miles. But I have a huge affection for all past and future spider-folk.

Miss Print: While A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended are novellas, you also write both novels and short stories. Do you have a favorite format to use? Does the format change or influence your writing process?

Alix E. Harrow: That’s the wonderful thing about science fiction and fantasy! Unlike most other genres (romance is an exception, maybe?), there are legit venues for almost any length of story, from flash fiction online magazines to multi-book series. So instead of finding an idea to fit the correct scale, I have the enormous privilege of having an idea and figuring out what scale it happens to be.

Miss Print: We’re living in a strange time with the pandemic as we all continue to wear masks, practice social distancing, and work together to stop the spread of Covid-19. How would Zinnia be handling the pandemic?

Alix E. Harrow: As someone with a high-risk preexisting condition, I personally think Zinnia would simply exit our dimension for a while. Honestly, there’s got to be better ones out there.

Miss Print: What does a typical writing day look like for you? Has this changed in light of the pandemic?

Alix E. Harrow: I mostly write in the mornings, Monday through Friday. Another unearned function of privilege is that my husband is home full time with the kids.

Miss Print: Can you tell me anything about what you’re currently working on?

Alix E. Harrow: I just turned in my third full length novel, which I’ve been describing as “kentucky gothic” and “what if A24 did Beauty and the Beast.” The current title is Starling House, and it’ll be out in early 2023!

Miss Print: Do you have any advice to offer aspiring authors?

Alix E. Harrow: I’m so suspicious of advice, but so totally unable to prevent myself from handing it out! None of the most common bits of writing wisdom–write daily, finish every story, keep a journal, write longhand, write what you know, keep your dayjob, quit your dayjob, get an MFA, don’t get an MFA under any circumstances–are actually universally helpful, except one: read. Read so widely and weirdly that you just can’t help but try it yourself.

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Thank you to Alix for taking the time to answer my questions. You can find out more about Alix and her books on her website: https://alixeharrow.wixsite.com/author

You can read my reviews of A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended here on the blog.

A Mirror Mended: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

Five years ago Zinnia Gray dodged her unhappy ending when she stepped out of her own version of Sleeping Beauty and found a way to save a different dying girl. Now Aurora and Zinnia’s former best friend Charm are living their happily ever after. Not that Zinnia has seen much of it.

When one strategic spindle prick is all it takes to run away from her problems, Zinnia sees no reason to stick around. Not when her GRM (Generalized Roseville Malady) is still waiting to break her down if she stops hopping across fairy tales long enough to see any of her doctors.

Forty-nine happily ever afters later, Zinnia has the process down pat, complete with stepping out before the annoying happily ever after parties get too saccharine. When Zinnia tries to leave her latest princess to enjoy her latest HEA, Zinnia’s formulaic story-hopping goes very off script.

Instead of jumping into another version of Sleeping Beauty, Zinnia is pulled into a very different tale. And this time it isn’t a princess who needs saving.

An evil queen is asking for help, specifically Snow White’s Evil Queen. Zinnia is quick to agree that the queen is very, very trapped (and very, very hot) but Zinnia isn’t sure that means she should help her when, you know, she’s evil and all.

Every queen was once a princess. But as Zinnia and this queen land in a Grimm-dark horror version of Snow White, does that mean every queen–even an evil one–also deserves a happy ending? in A Mirror Mended (2022) by Alix E. Harrow.

Find it on Bookshop.

A Mirror Mended is Zinnia’s second jaunt through the fairytale multiverse introduced in A Spindle Splintered where she traveled through myriad versions of Sleeping Beauty. While Zinnia and the principle cast are white, this installment does feature characters of color in key roles. This expansion of the cast also gives the narrative space to explore the dangers of white savior narratives common to fairytales (especially when Zinnia is decidedly not needed) alongside commentary on the reciprocity of heroism and whether survival has to be a solitary pursuit. This series also features characters across the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

Zinnia is used to helping all kinds of princesses but even she is unsure how to handle the rescue of a canonical villain–especially one prepared to threaten captivity and bodily harm if Zinnia refuses. As Zinnia learns more about the Evil Queen and her own complicated relationship with her story, Harrow explores themes of agency and empowerment while also highlighting how the framing of a story can entirely change who becomes the protagonist (and the hero).

A Mirror Mended is a fast-paced fairytale adventure filled with Zinnia’s whip-smart observations, snarky banter, and lots of chemistry between Zinnia and the Evil Queen. A must read for fans of the series and a great entry point for anyone with a fondness for fractured (and mended) fairytales.

Possible Pairings: Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao, The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell, Ash by Malinda Lo, Gilded by Marissa Meyer, The Shadow Queen by C. J. Redwine, Nameless by Lili St. Crow, Into the Spider-Verse

You can also check out my exclusive interview with Alix.

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

A Spindle Splintered: A Review

“Sleeping Beauty is pretty much the worst fairy tale, any way you slice it. It’s aimless and amoral and chauvinist as shit. It’s the fairy tale that feminist scholars cite when they want to talk about women’s passivity in historical narratives. Even among the other nerds who majored in folklore, Sleeping Beauty is nobody’s favorite. Romantic girls like Beauty and the Beast; vanilla girls like Cinderella; goth girls like Snow White. Only dying girls like Sleeping Beauty.”

Zinnia Gray has always known Sleeping Beauty has its problems, even before she read about the medieval version Zelladine (don’t Google that one, you don’t want to know). She also knows that Sleeping Beauty is the one story where a girl like her manages to turn things around and get a happy ending. Of course Zinnia loves Sleeping Beauty.

After years of moving fast and trying to pretend her clock isn’t running out thanks to the rare Generalized Roseville Malady that causes protein to build up in all the places it shouldn’t be in her organs, Zinnia knows she’s almost out of time. She rushed through high school, a degree in folklore at the local college, and she tried to rush away from her parents’ stifling efforts to save her.

Now Zinnia is here at her twenty-first birthday. She knows no one else with GRM has lived to see twenty-two. She knows true love’s kiss isn’t going to save her because she never gave herself permission to fall in love. That doesn’t stop her best friend Charmaine “Charm” Baldwin from loving Zinnia fiercely and giving her the exact kind of Sleeping Beauty themed birthday party she’d want for her last one.

The party is about what you’d expect: Whimsical and ironic until it turns maudlin and sad. Until things go sideways when Zinnia pricks herself on a spindle (she has to try it, okay?) and finds herself in another version of Sleeping Beauty with another dying girl trying to dodge her supposed happy ending–one that Zinnia might actually be able to save–in A Spindle Splintered (2021) by Alix E. Harrow.

Find it on Bookshop.

A Spindle Splintered is a novella inspired by Harrow’s desire to “spiderverse” a fairytale and the start of a new series. The story includes silhouette illustrations by Arthur Rackham that, as the copyright page notes, “were unavoidably harmed, fractures, and splintered during the design process.” These illustrations add an eerie note to the physical book while hinting at the darker origins behind many fairy tales that have become sanitized over time.

Zinnia’s narration is sharp-witted and often bitter–fitting for a character who knows she’s almost out of time–while her unshakeable friendship with Charm provides a grounding force throughout the fast-paced story. On the other side of the portal (or whatever it is that transports her, Zinnia was never big on science) she meets another dying girl. Primrose is the epitome of a fairy tale princess. Except that after she’s saved from her own hundred year sleep, she has no desire to marry her rescuer, Prince Harold, or any other man for that matter.

Part portal fantasy, part retelling, A Spindle Splintered offers a new interpretation of Sleeping Beauty both for Zinnia and the girl she meets after that fateful spindle prick. Recommended for readers looking for a no-nonsense protagonists and a decidedly modern take on a classic fairy tale.

Possible Pairings: Sleepless by Cyn Balog, Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust, Stain by A. G. Howard, Princess of Thorns by Stacey Jay, Ash by Malinda Lo, Gilded by Marissa Meyer, A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan, Into the Spider-Verse

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

The Once and Future Witches: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

“We may be either beloved or burned, but never trusted with any degree of power.”

There’s no such thing as witches in New Salem in 1893. But there used to be. You can still catch traces of them in the witch-tales collected by the Sisters Grimm; in the stories of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone–the Last Three–as they struggled to preserve the final vestiges of their power. You can hear them, the ones who came before and burned before, in the second name every mother gives every daughter, and in the special words shared only in whispered songs and stories.

Once upon a time in this world, on the spring equinox of 1893, there are three sisters. James Juniper Eastwood is the youngest. She is wild, she is canny, she is feral. She is running away or running toward. She is lost.

Agnes Amaranth is the middle sister–the one the witch-tales say isn’t destined for adventure. She is the strongest of the three, the steadiest. She is the one who is supposed to take care of her sisters until she has to choose between them and surviving–until she becomes weak.

Beatrice Belladonna is the eldest; the wisest. She is the quiet one, the listening one who loves books almost as much as her sisters. Until seven years away break her down. Until she recognizes herself as a fool.

Maybe these three sisters are the start of the story. Maybe they’re the start of something bigger. In the beginning, there’s still no such thing as witches. But there will be in The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow.

Find it on Bookshop.

A prologue and epilogue from Juniper frame what is otherwise an omniscient third person narration shifting between the three sisters as, against all odds, they cross paths for the first time in seven years at a women’s suffrage rally in St. George Square in New Salem.

The Once and Future Witches is thick with betrayals and misunderstandings as Juniper still harbors anger and resentment at being left behind while both Agnes and Bella struggle with their own reasons for leaving the others behind. Themes of both sisterhood and feminism weave this story together as the Eastwood girls try to tap into magic long thought lost and reclaim everything that has been stolen from them and so many other women.

At more than five hundred pages, this is an unwieldy book. All of the sisters have their own secret stories and hurts which Harrow explores alongside the grander narrative of discovering how witching was eradicated and how it might be reclaimed. The characters are careful to acknowledge white privilege as the mainstream suffrage movement excludes women of color and the world also hints at indigenous witches in Mississippi and out west. However, given the scope of the story, Harrow’s efforts at inclusion often feel like faint hints in this alternate history rather than concrete changes.

The Once and Future Witches is a complex alternate history wrapped in folklore, fairy tales, and a plaintive rallying cry for equality centering three sisters as they find their way back to the sisterhood and the magic they had thought long lost to them.

Possible Pairings: Spellbook For the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle, The Careful Undressing of Love by Corey Ann Haydu, Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One by Amanda Lovelace, The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

The Ten Thousand Doors of January: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

January Scaller is used to certain doors being closed to her. Living as the ward of Mr. Locke, a wealthy man who travels in his own bubble of authority and privilege, does much to ease January’s movement through a world that doesn’t always understand her.

But even Mr. Locke’s influence can never change her origins as the daughter of a poor explorer or the color of her copper skin. She is used to never quite fitting in and never quite knowing her place among the empty halls of Locke’s vast mansion. She is used to wondering when her father will return from his numerous expeditions searching out new rarities for Locke’s vast collection. Most of all, January is used to waiting.

Everything changes the moment January finds a door, although it takes her nearly a decade to truly understand its importance. In a world where doors can lead a person much farther than an adjacent room, January will have to rely on a book filled with secrets and regrets and her own wits to determine which doors are meant to be open wide and which should remain under lock and key.

Doors can be many things to many people but more than anything, they are change. For January it may be impossible to walk through a door without changing everything in The Ten Thousand Doors of January (2019) by Alix E. Harrow.

Find it on Bookshop.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is Harrow’s debut novel. The story alternates between January’s lyrical first person narration and chapters from the mysterious book she finds among Mr. Locke’s myriad artifacts.

Part portal fantasy, part coming-of-age story, The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a story about a young woman discovering her own power and agency in both a literal and figurative sense as she grows up in a world that has sought to systematically strip her of both.

Harrow builds tension well as the novel moves toward a dramatic climax both in January’s story and in the story-within-a-story of the book she finds. Moments of genuine magic and sweetness are tempered with thoughtful examinations of what it means to be a person of color in a world that too often defaults to white and favors it above all else.

January is clever, plucky heroine learning to find her voice after years of trying to keep quiet and maintain a low profile. Her personal growth is complimented well with the ragtag community she builds as she learns more about Doors and her own connection to them.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is an ambitious examination of privilege, choice, and connection wrapped up in a distinct magic system and truly singular world building. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert; Life After Life by Kate Atkinson; Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt; Passenger by Alexandra Bracken; The Meq by Steve Cash; Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore; Ink, Iron, and Glass by Gwendolyn Clare; The Glass Sentence by S. E. Grove; The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig; Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones; A Criminal Magic by Lee Kelly; Only a Monster by Vanessa Len; Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire; The Starless Sea by Erin Morgensten; Uprooted by Naomi Novik; Every Hidden Thing by Kenneth Oppel; Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson; The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab;The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth; Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel