Postcard For Reader

Interview: Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked)

Swinging by today is Jessica Spotswood, author of the debut novel Born Wicked!

Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they're witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave.

Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word . . . especially after she finds her mother's diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family's destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra.

If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren't safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other.

Doesn't it sound destructively dangerous? I'm excited to read it!

Nicole: Welcome to WORD, Jessica! What was the hardest or your least favorite part (if you have one!) about writing Born Wicked?
Jessica Spotswood: I think the hardest part was not losing faith in myself. My previous manuscript secured me an awesome agent but didn’t sell. I felt in my heart of hearts that Born Wicked was better, that it was the very best I could do at the time, and I loved it. But you never know. I was a little melodramatic sometimes. “If this book isn’t good enough either, what will I doooo? I will probably diiiiie.” (Note: Actually, I would have eaten a lot of cookies and then written another one. That’s what writers do. But the Doubt Monsters are hard. They don’t go away after a book deal, either.)

N: What do you think of the cover?
JS: I love it! I think the girl on the cover looks very like Maura, the middle Cahill sister, with her bright-red hair and brilliant blue eyes.

N: Did any of the characters end up doing something that shocked you as you wrote it?
JS: Not in Born Wicked. In book two, Maura says several things that just poured out of her mouth, that are in line with how she’s feeling but are rather cruel. Also, the girls’ godmother Zara asks something of Cate that wasn’t in the outline, which was very much a surprise to both Cate and me.

N: Do you remember the moment you came up with the idea for Born Wicked?
JS: Yes! I had a dream about three sisters who were fighting over a magical locket from their mother. There’s no magical locket in BW, but the idea of writing about the complicated relationships between three sisters stuck.

N: If you could be transported into any Disney movie, which one would it be?
JS: Beauty & the Beast! I love the Beast’s library.