Blog Tour : The Faerie Tree by Jane Cable

I am delighted to welcome

Jane Cable

Author

of

February 2015
Matador

I asked Jane what inspired her to write The Faerie Tree.....

Inspiration is like an onion. Honestly – it is. Not that it makes you cry (although that’s possible) but that it’s multi-layered. Look at the skin and it’s pretty obvious what you’ve got, but start peeling the layers back and goodness only knows what you’ll find.

When Jaffa and Jo asked me to write about my inspiration for The Faerie Tree, the first answer was the tree. I visited it in 2010 and just knew it had to be part of a story; its beautiful setting, the people who visit it and the hidden hand who helps the faeries with their correspondence. Not to mention the sprinkling of ancient magic it brings to the woods.

So if the faerie tree on the banks of the River Hamble is the onion’s skin, what else do we find as we work through the layers? As with The Cheesemaker’s House, I think we find folklore – in its very broadest sense. With the faerie tree it is perhaps a little more obvious as special trees have been the focus of ancient rites for generations. So I thought – why not make some of my characters people who follow these beliefs now?

Ah yes, characters. For me they aren’t inspired by real people – but pieces of people I know must find their way into them. That the young Robin is a carer; that he’s far from honest about it; that he has to keep up a façade – yes, I know people like that. I also know that it’s almost inevitable they will break. But what I find more inspirational is that Robin found a way back from the darkness and became a much stronger person. It would be wonderful if Robin’s journey could give hope to people who are struggling right now.

Of course at the beginning of the book Robin’s situation doesn’t look great. When Izzie first sees him again after twenty years he is living on the streets of Winchester. That was the second real moment of inspiration for me, sitting in Caffe Nero opposite the Buttercross one freezing Sunday morning, watching the homeless men gather there and wondering about their stories. Had they known love at some stage in their lives? What would happen if the person who loved them saw them now?

At the beginning of a book I find inspiration comes easily, but I never really know where the story is going to go. It may sound crazy – and I know a lot of writers who plan their work in meticulous detail before putting pen to paper – but I love allowing the characters to carry me along. The problem with The Faerie Tree was that I found myself writing that Robin’s and Izzie’s memories of their affair in 1986 were different, without really having a clue why. They had found the hook to their own story, but it took me a great deal of research, indecision and anguish before coming to a conclusion on why it happened that way.

Naturally I’m not going to tell you what I discovered…

My thoughts about The Faerie Tree

When Izzie meets Robin again after a gap of several years, there is much about them that lays hidden. Shared memories are hidden deeply away, locked in a place where hurt can no longer find them. Both Izzie and Robin have known loss and heartbreak and both have found love but in the intervening years they have never found the passion they once felt for each other.

In The Faerie Tree, the author sensitively explores the layers of memory that bind us together and just how deeply we lock away those memories when they seek to confuse and baffle us. The Faerie Tree itself  hidden deep in the woodland, is the place where Izzy and Robin made their memories. It’s a magical place but firmly bound in the rites and rituals of the earth, people often leave their secrets there and hope that their wishes will, one day, come true.

I was drawn into the story of The Faerie Tree from the beginning. Izzie and Robin’s story is beautifully realistic to the point where you find yourself looking with new eyes at people in the street, and wonder what their lives are like. The story is easy to read and nicely divided so that we see what’s happening from both Izzie’s and Robin's point of view, and although their memories sometime coalesce, often they don’t and once you get used to the quirkiness of the storyline, the book becomes unputdownable. Both Izzie and Robin dominate the story, they are superbly flawed and filled with so much angst and heartbreak that at times the storyline becomes almost a battle to see who hurts the most, and yet, there is a lightness to the narrative, in the shape of Izzy’s daughter Claire who is the still small voice of calm in an often emotionally fraught situation.

To say more about the plot would be to give too much away. This is one of those rather special stories which is all the better for reading knowing nothing of what is to come.

However, by the end of the novel I was in awe of vagaries of fate and of the powerful and unshakeable bond of memories.

    

You can find Jane on her website 

Follow her on Facebook

Find her on Twitter @JaneCable
Buy the book on Amazon UK

Jane is very kindly offering one lucky UK a paperback copy of The Faerie Tree

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Huge thanks to Jane for inviting us to be part of her Blog Tour.

We wish The Faerie Tree much success.



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