Updates & more Q&A (Wicked Lovely world questions)
melissa-writing.livejournal.com

Q: “What will be Ani’s iconic image for the Radiant Shadows cover?”

This one takes some context for those who haven’t been to a booksigning w me : )

For each book cover, my Art Goddess Alison & my editor Anne allow me to give them 3 things: 1) model choice, 2) vine, & 3) iconic image. For each book, here’s what we had:

WL: model Taylor (as Ash), ivy vine, & frozen flower (from the scene where Beira crushes the flower Keenan is teasing out of the frozen earth)
INK: model Laura(as Leslie) & tattoo/wings (the vine was not my idea on this one)
FE: model Cameron (as Sorcha), Night Blooming Jasmine vine, & butterfly (both from a scene in Faerie)
SHADOWS: model Olga (as Ani), vine of thorns (from a scene in Faerie), & iconic image of wolves

Q: “Hi I saw on wickedlovely.com that there are going to be two deaths in Radiant Shadows 🙁 I was just wondering if this was a surprise to you, if you saw it coming or if you just had to cry about it after writing?”

I did actually cry over one of the deaths. I’m fond of most of my characters, and this one is one I’m very fond of. . . so yeah, I did get blue. I tried to come up with a way that this death could be avoided, but it’s the right thing for the book & the series and that matters more than my emotions. I didn’t know it was going to happen back at WL, but by FE I knew these deaths were coming. I had a “hit list” of probable deaths, and one character hopped back & forth on it. My daughter read the first draft of the book, & she was decidely DISpleased by this death. I was sent to my office to “fix it.”

Q: “I’m new to the world of Faeries and found your books.Wicked Lovely was Keenan/Don Ash/Seth’s story… Ink Exchange was Leslie’s story…& Fragile Eternity is the continuation of Ash and Seth’s story? So my question is, should I read these books according to how they came out? And is Seth and Ash’s story over? Or will there be more? Your newest book that will be coming out- Radiant Shadows? Is that another character that is being introduced into the world? I’ve only read Wicked Lovely and want to continue the rest.”

I didn’t set out to tell the story of one chick or one couple. I DO get the appeal in that, but . . . this is a series abt a group of faery courts (which was what I wanted the series name to be “The Faery Courts series” but we never really picked a series name, so they are usually called “The Wicked Lovely series”***).

So, yeah, we’ll see Ash & Seth again. Seth is in SHADOWS (he’s been in every book), so are Niall, Irial, Sorcha, Rabbit, et al. When we are intertwined, our stories are too. These are characters whose courts are connected; their lives are connected. So, the books have a variety of threads of stories.

Complete Q&A here

I really appreciate that Melissa Marr takes the time to answer fan questions.

I’m worried about who will die in Radiant Shadows, any ideas?

I read the series in order, did you skip around or read it in order?