A Sorceress Comes to Call

"I love T. Kingfisher’s writing – both as Kingfisher, and when she writes as Ursula Vernon. There’s something so matter of fact and grounded about her tone; she could invent absolutely anything and I’d find her believable. And she imagines some wonderfully peculiar things. Here, the main magic we are acquainted with is ‘being made obedient .’ Cordelia’s mother can make her obedient, which means to control her body like a puppet, making it walk and talk as directed. For brow-beaten Cordelia, this is just part of her mother’s general reign of terror, and she is a little hazy on the distinctions between what is cruel, and what is cruel-and-unusual. She certainly doesn’t initially associate it with sorcery, a kind of magic generally accepted to be low-key and something of a joke. The extent of her mother’s evil is slowly revealed, and obedience is used in ever-more shocking ways, so that there’s a really satisfying ratcheting up of the horror. Yes. There are often influences like this for Kingfisher/Vernon. She told us in our interview that “The Princess and the Pea” was a jumping off point for Hugo-winning Nettle and Bone , and the Hugo- and Locus-winning Thornhedge is a re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty… Her familiarity with strange old fairy tales really shows in her writing, which has the resonant, deep feel of an old tale."