General
Favorite Books?
The Lumatere Chronicles by Melina Marchetta; MEM by Bethany Morrow; Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie Dao; Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake; The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix; Plain Kate by Erin Bow; All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin; An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson; The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden; A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle; The Collected Letters of CS Lewis (no, really!)
Writing Music?
YES, always! I listen to a lot of movie scores (The Village, Jane Eyre, The Duchess, Song of the Sea, Kingdom of Heaven, Whale Rider) and a lot of female vocalists (Ingrid Michaelson, AURORA, Birdy, Regina Spektor, Florence + the Machine)
Favorite Movies/TV?
Ever After. Any Jane Austen adaptation ever. Wives and Daughters. North and South. The first season of Poldark. Downton Abbey. Star Trek (all the Star Trek). The Great British Bake Off. Escape to the Country. Water. The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions.
Hobbies?
Gardening, whenever possible. Knitting and baking, though my food and knitwears are almost always ugly. Playing piano, badly. Moisturizing intermittently. Concocting and consuming delicious soups. Looking after my zoo of animal friends and jungle of houseplants.
I am a librarian/bookseller/book blogger and would like a review copy of one of your books! Where can I get one?
Digital review copies of forthcoming novels will be available via Edelweiss. Physical copies are limited, but if you get in touch with me via the contact form on this website, I’ll forward your information to my publicist!
Where can I find content warnings for your books?
I have content warnings available for all my published titles here on the website. Visit the individual page for the book you’re interested in, and you’ll find a section specifically for this purpose. I try to think of everything in advance, but if you feel there is a scene, subject, or reference that should be flagged and that I’ve overlooked, don’t hesitate to reach out via the contact form and I will add another warning to the list. Any free fiction that I make available here on site includes content warnings at the beginning of the post, as well.
Are signed copies of your forthcoming titles available for preorder from an independent bookseller?
They certainly are! You can always find information on signed preorder availability on the landing page for whichever of my books is releasing next!
I’m a reader who can’t afford copies of your books but would love to read them. Is it okay if I access them via a free internet download?
There are a lot of reasons readers may not be able to purchase their own copies of my books, which is something I totally understand! As a child and a teen, new books were often wildly outside of my price range. If you have access to a public library system at all, my first choice is always for readers who can’t make a purchase to acquire my books via library request. You can often make requests online, or if not, you can talk to your friendly local librarian! Libraries are a wonderful invention and were a lifeline for me as a young person.
That being said, I also realize that libraries, like new books, aren’t accessible to all readers. Whether you’re overseas, in a rural location, or just plain unable to get to the library–whatever your situation–if you want to read my work, I want you to be able to. But I also don’t want to lend support to sites that illegally provide creative work for free. So! If you’re a reader who can’t get my books via purchase or through a library system, all you have to do is send a message using the contact form here on my website. Let me know that you’re interested in reading my work but can’t get it through conventional means. You don’t have to go into detail regarding your circumstances–I trust my readers. Just say something to the effect of “I can’t purchase or library request your book and was hoping to read *INSERT TITLE*.” If you send that message, I’ll personally provide you with an e-copy of the book you’re interested in.
Social Media?
Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram
The Light Between Worlds
What actually happened to Evelyn at the end of The Light Between Worlds?
I’ve spent several years being coy about this question, but I thought I’d tell you my preferred interpretation of the ending of The Light Between Worlds, which is not to say that it’s the best or only or true interpretation of the ending. I specifically left the conclusion of the book–and Evelyn’s fate–open to the reader. Books are an act of partnership between reader and writer, and what you bring to the table has as much impact on Evelyn’s ending as the story I wrote. That being said, here is what I bring to The Light Between Worlds as a reader, rather than a writer.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
From where I sit, you can read the ending of The Light Between Worlds in many ways, depending on your interpretation of two key events: Evelyn’s disappearance, and Philippa’s encounter with her.
There are three possible explanations for what has happened to Evelyn. First is that she finally succumbed to her own struggles and trauma and loneliness and took her own life intentionally. Second is that she met with a fatal accident the night of her disappearance. Third is that she did indeed finally walk between worlds and return to the Woodlands. Similarly, there are two possible explanations for Philippa’s meeting with Evelyn in the book’s final chapter. First is that Phil’s grief has led her to imagine the entire thing out of her internal need for closure. Second is that she has actually seen Evelyn in the Woodlands, whether as the product of a vision or of physically walking between the worlds.
So let’s talk about combinations of possibilities.
You can choose to read the ending of The Light Between Worlds as meaning Evelyn has either taken her own life or died accidentally and Philippa is imagining seeing her at peace out of an overwhelming need for closure. I, a person who believes in the supernatural, magical, and extraordinary, find this particular reading devoid of both joy and wonder. It leaves little room for the fact that the text is quite clear that the Woodlands are real–they’re not some figment of Evelyn’s imagination, but a realm outside our world that all three of the Hapwell children experienced together. If the extraordinary has happened to the Hapwell children once, why can’t it have happened again?
You can also choose to read the ending as indicating that Evelyn has died and been returned to the Woodlands in death, and that Philippa has either walked between worlds or been granted a vision of her sister at peace. This reading is important to me for one big reason–for years, I’ve known people within my faith community who staunchly uphold that anyone who takes their own life will be damned. I reject this belief entirely and thoroughly–to me, as a reader, if Evelyn has died, however she died, she has reached her version of paradise.
Lastly, you can choose to read the ending of The Light Between Worlds very literally–Philippa crosses between worlds in the final chapter and sees Evelyn in the Woodlands because Evelyn herself, while living, was able to do the same. This is my preferred reading of the text. Just as Philippa can’t remain in the Woodlands with Ev because our world still has a hold on her, I think Evelyn’s devotion to Philippa has, for years, served as a tether binding her to our world. It was only after Philippa’s departure for America and the separation between the girls that the final threads holding Evelyn in our world frayed and eventually broke, allowing her to return, unencumbered, to the place she always viewed as home. I don’t think her existence in the Woodlands will prove perfect or devoid of sadness by any means–in fact, I think she’ll always miss her family and struggle with the depression she battled in our world. But I think Evelyn’s support system in the Woodlands is far more extensive than the one she possessed in our world, and that there will be an understanding of her struggles that she’d never have found elsewhere.
What happens to Tom Harper after The Light Between Worlds?
Tom is a fan favorite and I never expected to spend so much time fielding questions about whether he ends up alright, and what happens to him at the end of Evelyn and Philippa’s story. If you have finished the book and don’t mind my particular interpretation of its ending (as explained in the question above) I have a tie-in short fiction which will hopefully make you feel a little better about poor Tom. You can find it here.
Why doesn’t Jamie have a point of view?
The short answer is: because there are already many stories about male characters dealing with the traumatic aftermath of war, and far fewer about female characters doing the same.
The long answer is this: Jamie, by virtue of being older than his sisters and a boy, undoubtedly had many people in his peer group working through the trauma of experiencing war in a combat capacity. While he’d never be able to share the full story of the Woodlands, there’d be a great deal of common ground and collective understanding, and the opportunity to observe and copy the coping mechanisms of others. His return to our world, surrounded by other young men who’d just returned from the hellish realm of the frontlines, would have felt far less unique and isolating than Evelyn and Philippa’s. As younger children and as girls, Ev and Phil returned from an experience of death, violence and combat to a peer group who’d been kept apart from those aspects of war at all costs. While Evelyn and Philippa’s experiences and trauma responses differ in some regards, there’s a great deal of overlap between them. Jamie, on the other hand, functions as a secondary character in their lives after their return to our world because his return is so fundamentally different that he’s unable to fully grasp the alienation and struggles his sisters face.