Hannah J Boddy

Okay, so, Rowan is my favourite character that I have ever created for the pure and simple reason that I have put this poor woman through hell.

When she first appears, as the narrator of HFHS, she has already had a pretty awful series of events happen to her. She is in exile, she is wounded and she is drowning in her guilt – it’s no wonder that she is deeply grouchy and fed up with the world. Originally, she was meant to be this world-weary mentor figure, guiding Lily through her journey, but as I wrote, I realised that actually the plot I had centred around Rowan far too much for her just to be the mentor. She needed to grapple with the guilt that she felt, needed to learn that forgiveness wasn’t a weakness, needed to come face to face with the things that haunted her, in order for this story to work. Lily was the archetypal YA heroine, but Rowan was the hero of this story. It was her past that brought things to the human realms, and her power that sustained life in the Grove. Sidelining her felt wrong.

And then I discovered, having rewritten the novel to centre around Rowan, not Lily, that actually she needed to voice it too. So now, not only is Rowan the central focus, but you have to endure her hating that she is the central focus.

And read her snide comments about Vernal’s incompetence. For someone as strong as Rowan, she is INCREDIBLY petty. I love her so much.