Katie is a writer living in Worcester, UK, and The Furies is her debut novel. She is currently working on her PhD in English literature, focusing on female rage in literary modernism and the #MeToo era. You will learn so much from this conversation, and maybe even get spooked out at one point. Nothing too scary I promise!

What was the moment when the idea of the book first came to be? What made you pursue it?

I was actually very lucky – I had the first chapter, almost fully formed, before I had anything else. It came out in one afternoon, and stayed pretty much the same as it is now. But at that point, I wasn’t really sure where I was going with it – only that I had a crime scene, and a murderer looking back without much remorse – so I put it aside for a month, while I was busy with work. But over that month, I started thinking about writing a book about four girls in a secret society – and all at once, it all clicked into place. Seven months later, I had a book! It was a once-in-a-lifetime perfectly lovely writing experience I’m sure I’ll never have again.

I absolutely love your style of writing. It is vivid and thoughtful, conjuring images in the mind. What are some works or writing exercises that helped you develop such imagery using words?

Ahhh – thank you so much! You know, I don’t have much in the way of writing exercises – but I do have a notebook I carry around with me at all times, and it’s full of random words and imagery that I’ve picked up here and there, like some kind of magpie. I’m also a compulsive rewriter – I think it’s so important not to worry about getting the perfect word or phrase when you’re drafting (I genuinely put [SOMETHING] when I can’t think of the right word, sometimes) but just get something on the page… And then once I have a structure to work with, I print it out with my notebook of better words beside me, and rewrite it line by line. It means I can shift out of the high gear required for plot, and focus on the language – because for me, personally, they’re very different kinds of writing.

George R R Martin is one of my favourite authors and he describes his writing process as one where he lets his characters tell him the story. Do you have a similar writing process for The Furies? Did Violet and Robin speak to you and tell their stories?

I absolutely think once you get to a point in a novel when you know your characters well enough, that’s true, for me, at least. It’s less a matter of them telling the story and more the sense that in the situations you put them in, they could only possibly react in certain ways, because that’s who they are – and at that point, it feels gorgeous and easy, because all you have to do is make those situations happen. I remember that happening with The Furies, when Robin and Violet go to the fair – that was the point at which I stopped having to think about what they’d say or do, and just let them go ahead and do it.

Of course, once you get to that point, you usually have to go back and rewrite the parts of the book you wrote when you didn’t know them quite so well – but for me, that’s the fun part. That’s when it feels like it works.

Annabel is an amazing teacher, challenging the girls’ ideas and thinking, and preparing them for the world. Did you have a teacher like her in your life?

There’s not one single teacher that I’d pinpoint as being her, exactly – but I did have a lot of really great teachers who made a point of drawing the connections between whatever we were studying, and “real life.” I always think it’s funny, now, that I’m so interested in politics and history, and even science – because my fifteen-year-old self would never have imagined that. The thing that’s made me interested in those things is not learning them in the abstract, but understanding why I should learn them, and how they’re connected to things that matter. So I wanted to write a teacher who did that – who helped the girls make those connections, for instance, between Artemesia Gentileschi, painting Judith Slaying Holofernes in 1610, and rape culture, now.

What research did you have to pursue to write this novel? Were there parts of the folklore that you found spooky?

The folklore was almost one of the last things to come, because when I first started the novel I thought I’d focus mostly on art and literature as the “source material” for the girls’ classes – but I kept stumbling upon references to witchcraft, poppet magic, and the like, and it seemed to weave its way in fairly organically.

There was definitely one part that was very spooky, though – which I’d forgotten about until your question reminded me! It’s a bit of a spoiler, so I won’t go into too much detail – but essentially, I wrote one key scene in the middle of the book, and shortly after, my flat started going a bit haywire. Doors open at random, things not where they were supposed to be, lights flickering off and on, bumps in the night. It was so unnerving I started tweeting about it – in no small part because I lived alone so I needed to prove I wasn’t losing my tether to reality.

But then, I stumbled upon an unsolved mystery, which was – almost to the letter – very much like the one I’d written in that scene. I looked it up, and it turned out to have happened not too far from my flat. Shudder. I’m sure it was a coincidence – but I have to admit I was definitely spooked at the time (and looking back at those tweets now… I realise I still am!)

Were you yourself part of a secret society at some point during your education, or knew of them?

Oh, I wish I had been… Unfortunately, if there were secret societies at any of the schools I went to, I wasn’t cool enough to hear about them. But I was a member of a few different groups of passionate, engaged, bookish kids who’d hang out and talk feminism and politics and music, usually over coffee or wine – which I think, when you’re that age, can be kind of formative. It’s certainly shaped who I’ve turned out to be, in my thirties – so while our little gatherings weren’t exactly official, I still look back on them with the same kind of fondness.

Did you bring some of your own life experiences in The Furies, through Violet, Robin and the other girls?

Well, I didn’t do too much of the bad stuff – no murders, fortunately. But I did join a school mid-year when I was 14, so the experience of being a new girl is one I know well. And the clock tower, which is pretty central to the campus in the novel – that’s inspired by Old Joe at University of Birmingham, where I studied for my undergrad (and learned a lot of the history and theory that made its way into the book…!)

Do you have another novel in the works? Will it also be a spooky read?

I do! I’ve just submitted a new book to my lovely editors in the UK and US, which is due to be published in 2021. It’s about a widow whose husband’s murder becomes the subject of a true crime podcast, and it’s about trauma, memory… And ghosts. So it’s definitely going to be a spooky read!

What would you tell your younger self when it comes to writing?

Keep going! I have failed so, so many times – I wanted to do a PhD, but that didn’t work out, so I tried to write a non-fiction book, but that didn’t work out either, and then I wrote a (really bad) novel, and then I wrote The Furies. And now I’m back, at Birmingham, doing a PhD, having submitted another novel to boot. So I guess I’d say: failure’s only the end of the world if you don’t pick yourself up and move on – and every time you do fail, you’ll learn something that’ll make you a better writer, or a better person.

Will you be picking up The Furies? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Katie Lowe, Author of ‘The Furies’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Going in, I got distinct The Craft vibes, which is not a problem because as you may realise, I absolutely adore that movie. The further in I got, the more it was resembling it. From the meeting at the bus stop, to the attempted thieving of ritual candles and the summoning on random deities in a field, it’s all there as subtle (sometimes not so subtle) nods to one of my favourite movies of all time. Even the book cover looks distinctly like that powerful portrayal of teenage anger that graces the movie’s poster. Thankfully around the 65-70% mark, it changes direction, although honestly, I kind of wished it would remain all girl power and vengeance. Also, don’t get me wrong, I love a good fanfic – Carry On is a perfect example of things done right. Going through the reviews written by other people, however, no one else seems to have made this connection that I have found. Maybe I am drawing parallels that don’t exist, I wont know until someone else who is a great lover of 90’s girl power movies weighs in.

So, the narrative follows Violet, the new girl to her school and daughter to a fairly recently deceased parent. Her mother has gone off the rails due to the loss of her husband and youngest daughter and Violet has been left to continue on with her life despite the hardships she has endured in losing her father and sister. On starting at her new school, she meets the weird but intriguing Robin (I know, I saw that too) and her two friends, Grace and Alex, who collectively are the weird kids at school. But I mean, weird isn’t necessarily bad right? Together the four attend special classes with the school’s art teacher and learn about things that are a little more occult than your standard high school syllabus. Antics ensue and then things start happening that eventually get worse resulting in a rather surprising ending.

As a standalone coming-of-age crossed with witchy business novel, it fills all the briefs. There’s the drug addict and the rich snob, the pushy guy, and the overprotective teacher, but there’s also the mystery of a dead girl on the school grounds to throw a spanner in the works and people pointing fingers in every direction they can think of in order to find her killer. It’s all relatively fast-paced and punchy with the pace staying fairly steady throughout. I will warn you now though reader, if you don’t like the thought of underage girls getting drunk, taking drugs, and doing things that are completely illegal, this novel is not for you.

Each character has its place but overall most are pretty standard for a teenage thriller. There’s the mean girl, the preppy one, the outcast, and the new kid. Although no one really stood out as a favourite, the 4 way sisterhood has been tried, tested, and everyone knows it works, so I didn’t really expect to be choosing favourites. While it’s not the classic ‘everyone bonds for the common good’ type scenario, the friendships between the girls for the majority of the book are goal-worthy in a genre that usually pits teenagers against each other for the fun of it.

Here is where I will let you know, as mentioned before, there is illegal activity and underage drug and alcohol abuse. There is also a rape, it’s not a violent scene a la Bardugo’s Ninth House, but it does traumatise the character involved and there is deliberate ignoring of protests. There’s animal sacrifice as well as an inappropriate relationship with a minor. While most of these themes are relatively stock standard and not particularly impactful (for the most part), readers who are sensitive to these should go into the novel aware of their presence. There is also a scene involving a characters death and subsequent displaying of their body – while not graphic, it may be traumatising to some readers.

So, this is getting really long winded and should probably be wrapped up before you click the back button and head to greener pastures. Overall it is a well-balanced novel that is extremely reminiscent of The Craft for a long period. Its characters are well-rounded, each performing their role within the sisterhood in a relatively enjoyable fashion. While I can’t choose a favourite, most characters play well to their strengths. The pacing is punchy and flows fairly quickly, addressing themes that while sometimes disturbing are relatively norm in today’s young adult scene. I found it to scratch the itch I never realised I had and would recommend it to those who love witchy coming-of-age stories and ones which end with the ultimate karmic retribution.

The Furies is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.

Will you be picking up The Furies? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Review: The Furies by Katie Lowe appeared first on The Nerd Daily.