Welcome back to the world of Sourdough.
The Path of Thorns was inspired by a combination of things: seeing a piece of artwork by the amazing Ruth Sanderson at World Fantasy in 2014, and then thinking about the question ‘What would happen if Jane Eyre met Frankenstein?’ (That’s Dr Frankenstein, not his monster.) That set me off on a rollercoaster ride of weird family dynamics, manipulation and lies, false faces, lost families and found, terrible acts and the potential for redemption. So, the usual really.
As always, the Sourdough world isn’t the real world. It’s not an historical world. It’s the place that lives inside my head, a mix of fairytales and different time periods (mainly Victorian, Renaissance and Medieval). The religion looks a bit like a Judeo-Christian mash-up – which is precisely what it is. But it’s not anywhere that’s ever existed, so looking for historical accuracy will make your brain explode, and we don’t want that.
And once again, I’ve taken the opportunity to pepper this story with something old and something new. The story excerpt Asher reads to Leonora from Murcianus’ Books of Curses originally appeared in Sourdough and Other Stories (Tartarus Press, 2010) as ‘The Bones Remember Everything’. The story Asher tells Jessamine is a version of ‘Gallowberries’, also from Sourdough and Other Stories. The version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ that Leonora tells Asher was originally published as ‘Red Skein’ in Walking Bones Magazine (Fall 2006). Deor’s Art of War is a book mentioned in The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings. ‘The Wolf’s Wife’, ‘The Mother Wolf’, ‘The Wolf’s Children’ and ‘The Seven Swans’ are new to this novel.