BOOKS


Author Interview Leigh Bardugo


Leigh Bardugo‘s latest adult fantasy novel, set during the Spanish Inquisition, is a slice of history with a fantastical twist


Katie Fraser @katiefr3 L


eigh Bardugo has reigned in the fantasy genre since the publication of her début novel Shadow and Bone in 2018, the first in a YA fantasy trilogy. The world


and its characters grew beyond the trilogy into the Six of Crows duology and the King of Scars duology, short-story collections The Lives of Saints and The Language of Thorns and the “Shadow and Bone” Netflix series. The darker Alex Stern series followed with Ninth House and Hell Bent, Bardugo’s first adult fantasy novels set at Yale Universit, where the author herself studied. The Familiar is Bardugo’s third adult fantasy novel and, like the Alex Stern series, is set in the real world with a fantastical twist. “I don’t think I could have writen this book if I hadn’t writen Ninth House and Hell Bent first”, explains Bardugo over video call from her home in Los Angeles. “I think they prepared me for this, but [The Familiar] is the first book where I’ve hired a research assistant, and I also had two professors read the manuscript, which was quite humbling.” Set in 16th-century Madrid during the reign of King Philip II, The Familiar follows Lucia, a servant with enchanting and powerful magical abilities, who must conceal her Jewish heritage from the Inquisition. The


18 2nd February 2024


The backdrop to Lucia’s story is that of a society where intolerance is rife and non-conformity is quashed


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