BACKGROUND
The idea for Cursed eventually came to me after I'd finished reading the Iron Fey Series, by Julie Kagawa. I liked the whole concept of the faery world hidden from those in the human world, and that the fae are everywhere; always watching us. Like in A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Shakespeare, the Iron Fey Series had two courts within the faery world - the Seelie (Summer) and the Unseelie (Winter), as well as the Iron Court. Like Julie, I wanted to create my own type of fae, so I thought, why are there only Summer and Winter fae? Why not Autumn and Spring too? And then the Season Fae Series was born.
I've always viewed the Unseelie court, ruled by Queen Mab, as the "evil" or "dark" fae - but the Autumn and Spring courts are a whole other story. They are the dark fae and they use dark magic; not the glamour the Seelie and Unseelie courts use. So I built upon the idea of the Autumn and Spring courts being the "forgotten" ones, because they were once destroyed by the original courts.
I didn't want my story to be too similar to the Iron Fey Series, but I still wanted a teenage, female protagonist who found out that she was somewhat linked to the faery world, and had been left ignorant to it all her life. Meghan - the Iron Fey protagonist, ended up entering the faery world because her brother was kidnapped - everything was planned. And from this came about the idea that maybe my protagonist, Aria, didn't want to enter the faery world; she ended up there by force, because she was cursed.
The idea for Cursed eventually came to me after I'd finished reading the Iron Fey Series, by Julie Kagawa. I liked the whole concept of the faery world hidden from those in the human world, and that the fae are everywhere; always watching us. Like in A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Shakespeare, the Iron Fey Series had two courts within the faery world - the Seelie (Summer) and the Unseelie (Winter), as well as the Iron Court. Like Julie, I wanted to create my own type of fae, so I thought, why are there only Summer and Winter fae? Why not Autumn and Spring too? And then the Season Fae Series was born.
I've always viewed the Unseelie court, ruled by Queen Mab, as the "evil" or "dark" fae - but the Autumn and Spring courts are a whole other story. They are the dark fae and they use dark magic; not the glamour the Seelie and Unseelie courts use. So I built upon the idea of the Autumn and Spring courts being the "forgotten" ones, because they were once destroyed by the original courts.
I didn't want my story to be too similar to the Iron Fey Series, but I still wanted a teenage, female protagonist who found out that she was somewhat linked to the faery world, and had been left ignorant to it all her life. Meghan - the Iron Fey protagonist, ended up entering the faery world because her brother was kidnapped - everything was planned. And from this came about the idea that maybe my protagonist, Aria, didn't want to enter the faery world; she ended up there by force, because she was cursed.