A Chance to Break Free: A Guest Post by A.B. Poranek
Two girls, one kingdom, one count of regicide and a haunting mystery swirling around it all. This dark fantasy is ripe with magic, grounded in world-building and propelled by a curse that changed everything. Read on for an exclusive essay from author A.B. Poranek on writing A Treachery of Swans.
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A Treachery of Swans (B&N Exclusive Edition)
A Treachery of Swans (B&N Exclusive Edition)
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Hardcover
$16.99
$19.99
From the New York Times bestselling author of Where the Dark Stands Still comes an atmospheric fantasy based on Swan Lake, following Odile as her plan to restore magic to her kingdom gets disrupted by a murder—forcing her to beg for help from the young woman whose identity she stole.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Where the Dark Stands Still comes an atmospheric fantasy based on Swan Lake, following Odile as her plan to restore magic to her kingdom gets disrupted by a murder—forcing her to beg for help from the young woman whose identity she stole.
When I first pitched a sapphic Swan Lake retelling, I knew very little about it, other than that I wanted to tell it from the perspective of the black swan. Not long after, I moved for a time to Versailles, France. It was there, sitting in an old church, that an image came to me: golden paint streaked along a floor of black and white tiles. Except somehow, in my heart, I knew it wasn’t paint – it was blood. And somewhere out of frame, down a length of dark hallway, waited a beast.
From that moment, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with A Treachery of Swans. I wanted a decadent, haunting Gothic set in a world inspired by mid-to-late 17th century France, full of decaying magic and scheming nobility, with a setting that would pay homage to the ballet I love so dearly. At the same time, I strove to replicate the feeling I got when watching Phantom of the Opera for the first time—that I was following a shadowed figure through the mysterious tunnels of a theatre house, accompanied by candlelight and a sense of both whimsy and dread.
Except this time, we are following Odile—the scheming, stubborn, flamboyant daughter of a sorcerer, stealing the identity of a beautiful princess and infiltrating a palace in the goal of bringing magic back to her kingdom.
The Black Swan herself has fascinated me since I was first introduced to Swan Lake in my childhood. She appears once in the entire ballet, seductive and fierce yet voiceless. Usually played by the same dancer as the white swan, she doesn’t even have a face of her own, but wears that of Odette. She’s not a character so much as a pawn—some even say she’s not the daughter of Rothbart, but his creation.
That’s never been enough for me. I wanted to know more about her. About who she was and why she was willing to go along with her father’s plans. I wanted to give her a voice, a chance to break free. The original Swan Lake tells a classic tale of evil vs. good, dark vs. light, black swan vs. white. My goal with this book was to explore and unravel that trope through Odile and her childhood best friend, Marie d’Odette, the white swan. Where Odile is mistrusting, taught she has to be a villain to survive, Marie is gentle, forcing herself to fit the mold of a perfect princess, trapped in the gilded cage of duty. Yet both girls are trapped by the narrative, struggling with feelings of mistrust.
The tense, yearning romance between them was a natural result of that dynamic—there’s a push and pull between them, as they reluctantly realize they need one another to survive. To survive, and to live.
I truly loved building this world with all its quirks and mysteries. Odile, with her frustrating complexities, has become one of my favorite characters I’ve ever written, and I am so excited to introduce her—along with the rest of the colorful cast of characters—to readers!