Poured Over: Francesca May on Wild and Wicked Things

“They’re not all villains and all heroes, I think a lot of people are very morally gray…” The atmospheric and haunting Wild and Wicked Things is a beautifully written tale of queer love in an alternative post-WWI England that invokes the glittering world of Gatsby with a blend of blood magic and gothic mystique. Francesca May joins us on the show to talk about the appeal of The Great Gatsby, the power of community, the thin line between good and wicked, reinventing the ideals of class and privilege, spirit animals and so much more.

Featured in this episode:

Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Lighthouse by Fran Dorricott

Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes

For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

The Lord Of The Rings by J. R. R Tolkien

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

This episode of Poured Over was hosted and produced by Elani Wilson and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays).

Full transcript for this episode of Poured Over:

B&N: Hi, I’m Elani Wilson. I’m a bookseller at Barnes and Noble. Today I have the pleasure of talking with bookseller by day author by night, Francesca May. Under the name Fran Dorricott, she has written psychological thrillers and crime novels After the Eclipse, The Final Child and The Lighthouse, which also just came out in February of this year, and on March 29, her highly anticipated and dazzling Gothic fantasy debut under the name Francesca May, Wild and Wicked Things will hit the shelves. Francesca, thank you so much for talking with me today.

Francesca May: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I love this.

B&N: So, what made you decide to debut this book under a new pen name? And does it feel the same as the first time you debuted a novel?

FM: To be honest with you, I wanted to separate my two writing careers but only marginally. So, I think that people who like my crime books may well like my fantasy and vice versa. But to be honest, it was more about lifting them up and giving them a bit more space to breathe. Debuting this time around has been pretty spectacular. I love writing crime. But fantasy is where my heart is. I’m just so excited to get to debut with a book that feels very much like the book of my heart, is a book that I wrote as a passion project, and to have other people connect with that and be excited about it as a debut is spectacular. To be honest.

B&N: I love that. Can you tell us a little bit about what Wild and Wicked Things is about?

FM: Wild and Wicked Things tells the story of Annie Mason who comes to Crow Island, which is well known in the world for its rather lax regard for the rules of magic after the death of her father. She was estranged from her father, and it was his final request that she come to the island to sort through his belongings. And when she gets there, she realizes that her childhood friend, Bea, is on the island and has become connected with a rather strange, enigmatic neighbor of Annie’s who is rumored to be a witch. So, Annie gets embroiled very quickly in the relationship between Bea, her best friend and Emmeline prizes are very drawn to Emmeline and her witchy ways.

B&N: And a lot of the ways that this book is described are you know, like Great Gatsby, but add witches or The Great Gatsby meets Practical Magic. What is it about witch books and gothic fantasy novels that attracts you to them?

FM: Well, I think maybe it’s the same thing with me versus everybody else, to be honest. And I think we really like reading books about dangerous people and people who maybe live on sort of the outsides or the outskirts of society. And I think that witchcraft and witches have traditionally really demonstrated that, you know, they are generally outcasts, they’re judged quite harshly by the rest of society. And I think that there’s something really interesting for us, as readers to read about people who are actually just like us in a lot of ways. They have the same joys, the same sorrows. And I think seeing that through like a magical lens particularly just gives you that distance to go. Oh, hang on a minute. That’s a bit like me, actually. So yeah.

B&N: Yeah, definitely agree. So, you know, with The Great Gatsby being one of the books that just never seems to get old, and so many authors are often inspired by it, and always finding new ways to tell this story. What is it about The Great Gatsby that kind of led you to this concept and this play on the classic?

FM: So honestly, Gatsby is one of my favorite books anyway. And I always knew that if I was going to ever try and write a book that would riff off another book, then it would be Gatsby, because I think the themes particularly that interests me, are the themes of reinvention and this idea of class and privilege. And I think that that is a timeless theme in itself. You know, we’re still dealing with class issues today, we still deal with the same ideas privilege, although it does manifest differently sometimes. But I think the other thing that always sparkles about Gatsby is the absolutely ridiculous amount of wealth the characters throw around. And I think that most people are sort of drawn to shiny things, particularly shiny things that hide something darker underneath. And I think Gatsby does definitely do that.

B&N: And I think one of the things that’s kind of so enchanting about your story is the connection to Gatsby. And it’s so like, you’ve got these lavish parties and this fun and this excitement, but it’s such a, just dark.

FM: Absolutely. It’s so pretty, isn’t it? Like it is hard. It’s got a real black center. And I think this is the thing that that I really wanted to play on in Wild and Wicked Things is that the characters are awful people generally, but they’re not all villains and all heroes. I think a lot of people are very morally gray and a lot of people won’t admit to their failings. I do think it appeals in that way because most people have like a secret dark heart that they would not admit to having

B&N: You know, mentioning your characters, there’s much crossover with the characters that you highlight in your story and the characters in The Great Gatsby, where it’s like, you know, Annie Mason and Nick Caraway are kind of that same character. And you know, Emmeline and Jay Gatsby, and the characters are such strong personalities, we kind of focus on Emmeline and Annie kind of at the forefront. But there are so many great characters that you’ve developed with Nathan and Isabel and like, you know, the backstory of Cilla. And how did you get to the creation of these characters and even the names for some of the characters?

FM: I love the names. Naming characters is one of my favorite things. I started with Gatsby as my starting point, I knew I wanted to write my take on Gatsby. So, I would say it’s not so much a retelling as a reimagining, because I knew that in order for me to tell Gatsby it would be very, very different. There’s no way I can compare myself to Fitzgerald. I’m not even going to try but my take on Gatsby is very different anyway, because for starters, I am a woman I, am myself sapphic so I was like, right, okay, I want to write a sapphic Gatsby. You know, I’m into my witchy stuff anyway, so it seemed like a perfect meld. But I knew that I wanted to start with the basis of Gatsby and then let it evolve from there. So, it very much started with the Gatsby character archetypes. So, like you say, I, you know, I knew I wanted a Gatsby character. And I knew I wanted and Nick Caraway character. And frankly, I think there’s a lot of homoerotic subtexts in Gatsby anyways, was building on that. But in terms of their wider sort of web of characters, I think that Gatsby is quite isolated as a book, it doesn’t have that many supporting cast, except for the people that the parties and then you’ve got kind of the offshoot from Tom and Myrtle in New York. And I wanted to, I think, populate my book ever so slightly more than that, because Gatsby is a very lonely character. And I think if you were to see parts of the book, from his point of view, you might not view him so sympathetically, and I wanted my Gatsby, my Emmeline, to be a little bit more sympathetic. And so, I wanted to give her a family, albeit a very dysfunctional, very unusual one. And one of my favorite themes in books with queer characters is the found family trope. So that is where Emmeline’s adopted siblings Nathan and Isabel came from. And Emmeline’s name is one of my favorite points. I won’t go into it too much because it is explored in the book itself. But Emmeline was not always known by the name, she has now. And I wanted to twist the idea of the Gatsby reinventing himself trope to more about what would happen if the Gatsby character is reinvented sort of against their will. The, I think we can say, you know, it is biblical, it’s biblical for a lot of reasons. And I think that her transformation is a key part of her character development. Even before you meet Emmeline.

B&N: There’s so many things about these characters, and it’s really hard to be 100% behind them. Me personally, I feel like there’s one character that I’m supposed to kind of not like more than the others, but I feel like for me, it was Annie. You just bother me.

FM: I think there is something in that though. Annie thinks that she is very righteous, and she thinks that she is a good person. And I think that where she and Emmeline differ is Emmeline will fully admit that she is not a good person. And that in some way makes her far more honest. And I think it makes her more likable than Annie. But you know, who reached out to me? I don’t think Nick is a particularly likable character either.

B&N: Right? True. So, you know, this concept of all of these, you know, wicked things that these people are doing and just wicked people in general, do you feel like it’s possible to be wicked and good at the same time?

FM: Oh, absolutely. When I first drafted this book, I didn’t realize how much I was delving into the idea of morality. And it was only in subsequent edits that I went back and realized, you know, how complex it becomes because the whole point about this book, from Annie’s point of view, particularly and Emmeline is how can you be a good person if you’ve done bad things? And how can you say that you’re a bad person, if you didn’t mean to do bad things, how much of it is intentional? How much of it is accidental? And I think that that’s where the gray area really comes in, because Annie finds herself on a very slippery slope. And it’s quite an extreme transformation. In some ways. She wants to be brave, she wants to transform herself into an image that is more like Emmeline’s, and in doing so she does make some very, very bad decisions. Yes. But I don’t think she at any point, I think she could look back at the end and say, Oh, I made some bad decisions. But during the meat of it, during that moment of fear or panic, or whatever it is, there’s always a split second, where you make your decision, and then you kind of have to roll with it. And I think that a lot of people find themselves in situations like that on a regular basis barring actual genuine maliciousness. I don’t know that you could necessarily say I’m a bad person, because I made this terrible mistake that ended up with something bad happening down the line, if actually, the mistake itself is very small, right? I think that’s the tricky part. People can say multitudes.

B&N: Yes, definitely. I’m sure you’re familiar with the quote from Toni Morrison, you know, like, “if there’s a book out there that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” And when I think of you as a writer, and your catalog and this book, I feel like that definitely probably had to resonate with you. I’m really curious just kind of like with it being kind of like a sapphic witchy story and not necessarily a story that you’ve heard before. It’s a reimagining, but it’s a new story. What were your influences, if any, in writing the story, and like, how did you get here?

FM: How did I get here? That’s a very good question. You know, what’s interesting about this book is I sat down to write this as a fun project. And I emphatically told myself at no point would I ever attempt to get this book published, I needed something that would be really self-fulfilling for me, I wanted to write the kind of book that I had always wanted to read. And I have always really liked books with very lyrical prose. I never really been brave enough to try it. And I think that you have to be very careful and crime fiction about using lyrical prose, depending on the market that you’re aiming for. And so, I knew that and I knew the style that I wanted to try wouldn’t really work for my crime books. But it’s something that I really self-indulgently wanted to do. And I sat down to write the book, because like you say, I hadn’t really read a witch book in a while that had resonated with me as strongly as I wanted it to the witchy books were only just starting to come back really into fashion. And a lot of them were sort of young adult, quite contemporary set, they were more kind of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, which, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love I love those books. But I am a big fan of really dark gothic books. Like Rebecca, I wanted to really kind of tap into those influences when I was working on it. And then while I was drafting the book, one of my bookseller colleagues passed away. And I think it became a way to critically examine my own grief, through the medium of storytelling, which is something I’ve always done, but it just became this very precious book to me. And I’ve always been a big fan of writing fantasy and reading fantasy. So, it just seemed like a natural thing, even though I said I wouldn’t do it. After I finished it, I was like, No, I believe in this book too much, I have to do something with it.

B&N: In a lot of queer stories, there are those, you know, the found family home situation, and you know, where, where they’re not necessarily their blood family, but they have developed these close relationships with people over time. And I feel like the majority of your characters are kind of there in that, you know, the LGBTQIA community. And there’s something like about heterosexual relationships, we just don’t have to come out, we just, we just are. And I feel like your characters don’t have to come out. And she comes into her own in her coming-of-age story. And she has that aha moment where she kind of like, you know, like, this is what I was missing. But there’s no coming out moment. And I’m wondering why you didn’t feel the need to kind of play into that?

FM: No, it’s a really good question. Because I think a lot of coming-of-age stories that deal with queer characters and have queer characters at their center, they do focus on the element of coming out and discovering your identity. And growing up, I always wanted to see myself in other books, but I didn’t want those books to be limited purely to that moment of the coming out, then what do you do when you’re past that? Or what do you do if you’re not ready to come out, but you want to just experience seeing people enjoy these relationships. And for me, it was very much when I started writing, even before writing my fantasy, I do the same thing with my crime. I very much like to depict characters who just so happen to be gay, it is part of their identity, but it is not their only defining factor. And that was really important to me, even though I knew I wanted to write, essentially a coming-of-age story for Annie. I didn’t want it to focus only on that one element of her sexuality. I wanted that to be part of something much larger.

B&N: Yeah, definitely. No, I think that’s great with the different types of witchy stories, and there’s so many specific mentions, you know, there’s the conjure cards. There’s the Kazam. So like, what was kind of your research that went into it? Honestly, it might not have been research, it might be stuff that you know, what kind of went into bringing all of these elements to life in a way that these are real witches.

FM: It’s a combination of everything. It’s a combination of passions I’ve had since I was a teenager, you know, I grew up on the steadiest diet of Charmed, that anybody possibly could, I was obsessed with that TV show growing up. And because of that, I read a lot of books as a teenager that were in that kind of vein, you know, I read the wicker or sweet books and things like that. And I think that formed a very core part of my personality and who I am, between years, I have had much less interest in the occult and kind of witchyness it’s never really gone away. I have multiple sets of tarot cards, and I do use them, I often use it for plotting, actually. And I have books on herbal medicine and ready and I really like to connect with my customers in the mind body spirit section and kind of chat with them about the things that they’re interested in. So, it’s very much a personal interest of mine. But I also knew that to create a magic system based on kind of paganism, I would need to be really careful because I don’t want to villainize anything to do with that, because the magic that exists in my book is very dark. And it’s not even remotely like real wicker or, or pagan. I knew I needed something else. And so, this is where the prohibition on the magic comes in. And it’s where the herbal remedies just take that step. One step further, as it were, in the way that Emmeline particularly uses her blood to create more potent magic.

B&N: Okay, so it’s kind of just like, natural, you know, enough about it to kind of go from there. But then the deeper.

FM: I wanted to add that undercurrent of kind of its genuine fantasy. It takes it that that one step further, by me doing it wrong, I had to do a lot of research about different herbs and things because my knowledge is not complete by any means.

B&N: With this story taking place post World War l and you know, during the magical prohibition and going back to the exam, and people knowing that there is witchcraft happening on Crow Island, and they’re going into these parties and kind of knowing what they’re getting themselves into, can you explain a little about what kazam does?

FM: So, because it is essentially an altering substance, so usually it is herbs mixed with alcohol, the herbs themselves are not supremely potent, but when mixed by a professional, which in the right doses and the right combinations, it can create a very potent mix, and it’s just essentially, alcohol plus.

B&N: Okay, so fantasy being one of your favorite genres, and it’s also your favorite genre to read, or do you have other genres that you’re kind of drawn to more?

FM: I think fantasy is probably my favorite. I think it’s something that I’ve always read as an undercurrent, even when I’m focusing on other things, I do read a lot of crime as well. I love crime. And there’s a reason I write it as well. But in my crime, I am drawn to the same things I think I’m drawn to, in my fantasy I like quite dark. Yeah, absolutely. All of the murder, to be honest, the darker the better, as long as it doesn’t stray into territory that is violent for the sake of violence, or anything like that, you know, dark themes. I’m finding myself fascinated by them. And I think what I like about crime is the same as what I like about fantasy in that you can explore people at their worst as well as at their best.

B&N:So, you have been writing for a long time, I think you started writing and NaNoWriMo 2004-2005. A long time ago, 17 years of experience, and how would you say that that community has supported you as you’ve written your novels? And what advice do you have for aspiring authors who want to get into a career of writing or become published, even though you say you never wanted to do it? You’re here now.

FM: I did. And I didn’t always, you know, in my deepest heart. And I think that when I look back to when I was sort of 14, or 15, and writing my first books, the community that was part of the NaNoWriMo, particularly, there was a local group that I used to go to in Nottingham and we used to meet up every week during November. We would talk online all the time. And I think that support when you are starting out. And even when you’re not to be honest, the idea that someone actually cares what you’re producing, it can be really heartening, particularly if you’re not very confident. So, my advice genuinely for people getting started is to find other people who love books, and who will talk about books till the cows come home, and particularly other writers who most writers are so supportive as well, in my experience, particularly, I spend a lot of time on Twitter, probably more than I should. But I think people talk about Twitter being quite negative in times, but the book community and the writing community can also be so supportive. There are really great mentor programs and NaNoWriMo the community is still there every November and it’s so nice. To find other like-minded people who enjoy the same things that you do and can offer tips and advice as well for free, which is great.

B&N: Talking about, like the negativity of social media and possibly even reviews, I think, do you read your own reviews for your book? How do you kind of navigate you know, the positive reviews and the negative?

FM: I know a lot of writers don’t read their reviews. But I do because I want to know what people think. And I won’t necessarily agree with a review. And I think I go in with that knowledge in mind where I have to take a step back and say, Look, you know, the reviews aren’t for me, they’re for readers. But sometimes you can use them to pick up on common themes that people really enjoyed about your books and think, oh, yeah, you know, people love this, I’m going to try and include that, again, in a future book, or here are some things that aren’t working for people. And you can sit back and say, I wonder why that might be? Is it personal taste? Or is it something in my craft that I can improve for the future? So, I definitely do read my reviews. But I also think some of that is from a creative writing degree. And I did a creative writing MA. So, I’m very used to that kind of collaborative feedback process. So, reviews don’t scare me, I think and they don’t, don’t put a damper on my spirit in the same way that I think maybe some people, if they’ve not had that experience might find it more difficult to read them. Okay.

B&N: So I feel like you’ve been busy to have had a book come out just last month, and have a new one coming out this month. Do you often write different books simultaneously? Or like how long did it take to write Wild and Wicked Things?

FM: The interesting thing about having two books come out really close together was I actually didn’t write them close together. I wrote The Lighthouse, which came out in February, I wrote that actually, very recently, I wrote it back in November of 2020. So, I was actually in lockdown. And that really did give me the time to actually take a break from out you know, I wasn’t bookselling in person I had a month and I already started writing the book. So that one actually only took me about six weeks, because I didn’t do anything. So, I just wrote the book. And the turnaround time for publishing was quite quick on that one. Whereas while there might be things just be a little bit longer, because I was working, I think it took me about three months to write, I think I took a bit of a break in the middle as well, because of you know, my colleague passing. And it was a different experience, it felt very much like a humbling, I think I sat down every day and apart from the break in the middle, and then just kind of tried to see where it would go. And there was no expectation, there was no point of oh, this is going to be my next book, it was just a project that was for me. So, I was allowed to kind of let it meander a little bit and then pull it back and figure out what story I wanted to tell.

B&N: So was that a conscious decision on your part to kind of delay the release of The Lighthouse just with the pandemic and not really being able to kind of probably promote it in the way that you wanted to?

FM: No, it actually ended up being just fortune, to be honest, my second book was delayed slightly because of the pandemic. And it was delayed slightly before that, actually. And it ended up being quite a while between my first and my second book. By the time Wild and Wicked Things comes out, and I’ll have had three books out within six months, which feels wild. I’m like, Oh, my goodness. Having one book out in 2019. By 2020, this will be my fault. See, rather, yeah, it’s been a long time coming, I think. But it’s kind of just built up over time.

B&N: When you’re not writing, you’re a bookseller. What are you currently reading? What books are you really trying to push to your customers right now?

FM: So, I’m actually currently reading something completely outside of my normal wheelhouse. You know, as booksellers, we know that sometimes you read things that aren’t really your cup of tea so that you can talk to customers about them. So I’m actually reading Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes at the moment. I don’t read women’s fiction very much, but because it’s such a sensation, and because of the new book that she’s written coming out, sort of 25 years later as a sequel that seemed to me like a big deal. So, I’m reading that and I’m really enjoying it. It’s so different from what I normally read, but the books that I’m pushing at the moment, there’s a couple that I’m really well, there’s probably about three or four that I’m really excited about. Okay, so one of my go-to recommendations is always For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten, which I know you guys love. I love Hannah’s books. We actually met while I think she was querying For the Wolf and I was drafting Wild and Wicked Things so I got to read a very early draft of that and I still love it so much. I’m really excited for the next one. I’m currently selling Plain Bad Heroines a lot. I love that book. It’s sort of very languorous and slow and creepy and it checks all of my boxes, very sapphic as well. And Daughter of the Moon Goddess, as well as the third one that definitely is on my radar because it’s absolutely gorgeous. And it’s a really nice story as well.

B&N: I’m definitely picking up on a trend. Kind of in the same vein, I feel like with the past two years, I think there’s been a big increase in books trending and reading and what we’re all talking about, but then at the same time, you know what we’re watching and what everyone’s talking about. What have you watched recently?

FM: I’m really far behind on pretty much all of my watch list. So, I only just back in August managed to finally get around to watching Queen’s Gambit. Which was amazing. So mad that I waited to watch it. So good. I’m currently watching Ted Lasso though, which is just phenomenal. It’s so good. I love it. Yeah. You know, it’s funny, the things I watched versus the things I read, I do watch kind of dark spooky shows as well. I really enjoyed Midnight Mass. That was brilliant. But I tend to gravitate towards very cheerful films, and I don’t necessarily watch a lot of comedies. But I do like to have kind of that uplifting note.

B&N: Yeah, with my books and my show sometimes just light and airy to just kind of escape.

FM: Sometimes you just need a break from your life don’t you?

B&N: Along the same vein is music. And when we think of The Great Gatsby, specifically the 2013, I think it was I think it was 2013. You know, that soundtrack was probably one of my favorite soundtracks. I just I loved it so much. And I feel like Wild and Wicked Things lends itself to a soundtrack. Are there some songs that you think fit the vibe of this book?

FM:Yes. So, I think there are quite a few, I came up with a little playlist for it. A few of the ones that kind of feature regularly are things like I often have Florence + the Machine on my playlist, because her songs particularly some of the, I would say the witchy ones like, “Which Witch”, you know, those are very haunting. And there was a song that she did for Peculiar Children, the song that she did for that “Wish That You Were Here” that one is a key song on the playlist. And there was another one as well, which I think of as Annie’s song, which is “Sinners” by Lauren Aquilina. It’s not one that a lot of people have heard of, but I don’t know why. It just speaks to Annie and in a way that I definitely feel in my bones.

B&N: Okay, what projects are you currently working on? Do you have any plans maybe to step into another genre at some point?

FM: Oh, I don’t know about that. I think I might be taking on too much. I have two books lined up for next year, I will have another crime book which is in the same kind of vein as The Lighthouse. So, it’s a gothic suspense, I would say. And then I do have another witchy book coming out with Orbit. I can’t talk too much about that one. But I can say that it is small town. It’s got a very Stepford Wives vibes to it. It’s got that kind of culty elements where you have a character who comes in from the outside, and everything seems far too perfect. And she has to sort of explore the reasons why that might be but again, sapphic and witchy and a little bit Gothic as well.

B&N: Do you ever see yourself kind of doing like a series?

FM: I would love to write a series. I haven’t written one for a while I went, you know, as a teen I was a big fan of trilogies. So, I never say never. But a lot of my ideas recently have been standalone ideas. I think it’s because it gives me the freedom to kind of play with different characters in different settings. But definitely never say never, because I would love, I’ve got a high fantasy trilogy, that I loved writing as a teen that I would love to try and revamp someday, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to do that. I’ve leveled up enough in my skill.

B&N: What were some of your favorite stories growing up?

FM: I loved so many. I mean, I grew up reading things like Tolkien, so Lord of the Rings, so I read a lot of classic fantasy, although, you know, they don’t really have the representation in them that I’m looking for, I still do think of quite fondly. Philip Pullman was another author. Garth Nix is savory all series. I absolutely devoured those books. But particularly, I mean, there’s authors like Libba Bray, she wrote a YA series set in the 1920s, which is kind of witchy and supernatural, which I really loved as well. So, I had such diverse tastes within fantasy growing up, but definitely skewed towards the witchy. And like I said, the Katyn and Sweet books, I still have them on my shelf.

B&N: For us, on social media, we’ve recently been asking readers what kind of romance tropes are your favorites? I know Wild and Wicked Things is not necessarily a romance story, but there definitely is the one bed element.

FM: That’s one of my favorites. I love that trope so much and I just had to and it’s my own take on it, you know? It’s not I would say a traditional only one bed, but there is only one bed.

B&N: So, would you say is that your favorite kind of trope to include in your stories, or is it just kind of your favorite to read?

FM: I think it’s a bit of both. I love it. In all capacities. I love reading enemies-to-lovers as well. That’s one of my all-time favorites to read. I don’t tend to write it as much. I do have a couple of ideas that have got enemies-to-lovers high hopes, but I, for some reason, always seem to gravitate towards either this kind of first love vibe, or childhood sweethearts to enemies-to-lovers or something like that, some complication.

B&N: Yeah, yes, I agree. I didn’t want to bring it up and embarrass you. But houseplants. I am and I see some behind you that seem to be intact and I heard and I have read that. That’s also something that while you’re writing at night, you’re also killing your plants.

FM: I struggled so much keeping plants alive. I try so hard. This one, you can’t really see it, but it’s as ZZ or Zed Zed, whatever you call them, and it’s on its last legs. Oh, I was told that they were easy and they are not. I have got a couple in the other room that I have managed to keep alive. I have a really nice hanging plant. But the other problem I have encountered since actually, I wrote that author bio is I have two new cats. I have two main coons now, one of them, Atlas, is a big fan of chewing on plants they shouldn’t chew on I think some of them may be destined for not living very long, purely because he’s gonna do himself some damage if he keeps eating them.

B&N: So, Atlas and what’s the other one’s name?

FM: Atlas and Athena. I have far too many pets because I’ve also got two dogs. I lost one recently, unfortunately. But we did have Zeus, Xena. And you know, we know what Zeus and Juno and then I have another cat, Jet, who was part of an original pair shadow and jet.

B&N: Okay, so what was kind of the inspiration behind those names?

FM: Jet is actually named after one of the aunts in Practical Magic. There are two aunts, Franny and Jet. So, I decided to name her after her. But I liked the fact that it was a play on the color black. Yeah, black and they both black cats. So it was a nice pair, but also a nod that kind of witchy inspiration. And obviously Zeus and Juno and Xena were all mythology related. And we did the same thing with Atlas and Athena. And I’m really glad I called Atlas, Atlas because my mum wasn’t originally keen on the name. She was like, Oh, I don’t know how I feel about it. We should call him Gatsby. And I was like, maybe, but also that feels a bit on the nose. With Atlas and he is the world’s biggest himbo you know, he’s dumb as a sack of rocks, like I love. But he is not smart. He went outside for the third time the other day, and he got stuck in the neighbor’s garden. And I had to go round in my pajamas. Yeah, and fetch him.

B&N: I’m going to tie this back to Wild and Wicked Things, because I feel like cats are the most common connection that we see to witches. But in Wild and Wicked Things we’re talking about crows and the connection to the crows and the legend saying that there’s witches that live in the bodies of these crows. Like if you had to choose one animal, what do you think that you connect the most with?

FM: If I had to choose any kind of animal that might represent me, unfortunately, I think they’d be a golden retriever. I love them like, right, we used to have golden retrievers, which I think is why I do identify with them a little bit, but they’re a bit dippy and very kind of excitable and just ah, I’m great to be along for the ride. And that’s like my whole body.

B&N: What kind of dog do you have? Now?

FM: We have two Newfoundlands now.

B&N: Well, is there anything else that you want readers to know about your newest book?

FM: If I could sum it up, I would say if you like your books to be dark, or Gothic or in any way bloody, then Wild and Wicked Things is for you. But it’s not just about that kind of darkness. There is I think a real heart and a humanity in it with a healthy dose of magic. So, I think it will appeal across the board. But to go in knowing that it’s a book about horrible people.

B&N: This may have just been me picking up on it. But I have noticed that a good portion of the deaths were men.

FM: Yes. You know, I think it was largely accidental because the book itself does not have that many male characters. It is actually very female heavy. One of those deaths I want to say which one is very upsetting. And it’s one of those things where his gender and has nothing to do with it. He’s a lovely character. And I feel like I wanted to keep things across the board really and have a good smattering of death. But I also wanted to sort of twist the Gatsby story on its head in some way. Or you know, I won’t spoil anything in terms of that, but it’s somewhat intentional. Let’s put it that way. I think a lot of these characters a lot of the female characters particularly have been very affected by the men in their lives and by the patriarchy, in general, though, it’s sometimes nice to see that reflected, I think, in the outcomes, but also, the male characters in Wild and Wicked Things are, I like to think as complex as the female characters, I think that they all have shades of grey, and they all have some darkness in them and some lightness in them. And I don’t think any of the deaths are justified, because the whole point about the book is that things spiral and very quickly get out of control.

B&N: Definitely, I think, thinking about, you know, the men coming back from the war, lending itself to the women being on their own and handling business on their own and not necessarily needing the men to take care of them.

FM: Yeah. That, you know, the men who came back from the war came back changed, irreparably,  irreversibly changed in some cases. And I think it would be unfair to say that every man that came back came back bad, right, because of the experiences they had. But I’m sure a lot of them had a very extreme reaction to those circumstances, because they didn’t necessarily have the dialogue or the ability to communicate how they were feeling or the experiences that they’d had. I think in that way, the 1920s. And the time period makes for a very complex setting, because you have a lot of people who cannot talk about the experiences they’ve had or the traumas that they’ve had. And that leads to a lack of communication and that there’s that lack of open flow, which is why Emmeline’s magic, I think is so important to people because there is the faux magic on the island that they can use that they are allowed to use by law. But all that is is just unscrupulous mediums, trying to pretend that they can connect them to the people that they’ve lost the war. And it won’t just be women using their services. You know, it’ll be everybody using the services. And I think for a lot of the residents of crow Island, Emmeline’s ability to conduct real magic gives them hope that there is room to grow, and there is the ability to overcome the trauma, even if they can’t necessarily verbalize it. It’s very complex. I think gender plays a very complex role in the book itself as well.

B&N: Definitely. Well, I love that. Francesca May. Thank you so much for talking with me today. This was a great conversation, and I hope that everyone runs out and gets Wild and Wicked Things.

FM: Oh, thank you so much. And thank you so much for having me. It’s been great fun. I love to chat with other booksellers. It’s brilliant.