The Thorn Queen: A Guest Post by Sasha Peyton Smith

Old alliances stir, secrets are revealed, and the Thorn Queen’s legacy hangs in the balance in Sasha Peyton Smith’s enchanting romantasy sequel. Read on for an exclusive essay from Sasha on writing The Thorn Queen.

Wed to one brother.

In love with the other.

Bridgerton, The Selection, and The Cruel Prince collide in this Victorian-inspired romantasy; the sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller The Rose Bargain.

Any author will tell you writing sequels is hard. Writing The Thorn Queen, the sequel to The Rose Bargain was hard, sure, but it was also a little terrifying.

I might be a fantasy writer but I don’t consider myself a Fantasy writer. I love magic spells and fairy queens, but I’ve always approached my novels with one foot firmly in the real world. Scaffolding, I liked to call it. My debut series, The Witch Haven, takes place in the magical underworld of 1911 New York City. My most recent release, The Rose Bargain, takes place in 1848 London—with one crucial difference. The London of The Rose Bargain is ruled by a fairy queen. But with every twisted fairy bargain and magical consequence, I had something real to fall back on. Hey look! A carriage, a ballroom, the trappings of the London social season! All lovely, familiar scaffolding with which to craft a world that felt sparkly, but distinctly real. To me, Fantasy writers are architects with the ability to build worlds from the ground up.

The Thorn Queen forced me to leave my comfort zone (and my beloved scaffolding) behind and become an architect. I felt as if I was taking a step into the unknown right alongside Ivy. Hand-in-hand, we discovered the Otherworld together.

In The Thorn Queen, the reader is transported to a realm of fairies that has been cut off from humanity for four-hundred years. I thought a lot about what this fun-house-mirror version of our world might look like, and how these human-obsessed fairies might remember, and warp human culture from centuries before. It was a twisted little time capsule, full of cruel, bored, fairies. When the terror at being a fantasy world architect for the first time faded, I found I was having so much fun.

As Ivy journeys deeper into the Otherworld, she discovers what it means to trust herself. Beyond this magical world, she also must face the deeply universal, human feelings of love, loss, longing, and the question of what true power is.

It has meant the world to me to see readers’ reactions to The Rose Bargain. The book’s success has been both incredible and surreal to witness. It’s allowed me to travel across the United States and five different countries on tour. I’ve heard from people across the globe who see themselves in Ivy, Lydia and the other debutantes. To make a connection with people like that is the greatest gift of writing.

I’m so grateful for the trust these readers have put in me as we enter the second part of Ivy’s story. Together, we’re stepping into the unknown. It doesn’t get less terrifying, but I hope it feels as magical to you as it did to me.