Happy Monday and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for NOT GOOD FOR MAIDENS! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Tori Bovalino to share with you! This book is truly amazing and I’m so excited to for you to find out more about it!
Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino Published on June 21, 2022 by Page Street Kids
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Queer, Retellings, YA
Pages: 352
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram
Lou never believed in superstitions or magic--until her teenage aunt Neela is kidnapped to the goblin market.
The market is a place Lou has only read about--twisted streets, offerings of sweet fruits and incredible jewels. Everything--from the food and wares, to the goblins themselves--is a haunting temptation for any human who manages to find their way in.
Determined to save Neela, Lou learns songs and spells and tricks that will help her navigate this dangerous world and slip past a goblin's defenses--but she only has three days to find Neela before the market disappears and her aunt becomes one of them forever.
If she isn't careful, the market might just end up claiming her too.
What would you do if you spent the day with Lou? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?
I think Lou would just like a bit of sightseeing, to be honest! I think, if she was a real person, she’d be more like a niece to me than anything else so we’d probably go on a mini road trip around Yorkshire and check out some of the sights. A stately home, the moors, Robin Hood’s Bay, etc. Lou has spent most of her life in the Boston area, so just generally getting out and poking about in a new area would be fun for her.
If Lou were to hang out with other fictional characters, who would they be and why?
Lou would probably get along with characters who are more assertive than she is, since she needs someone to break her out of her shell. I think she’d probably look up to someone like Jude Duarte from The Cruel Prince, since Jude just does what she has to and Lou needs to figure out that line of thinking. She’d probably also get along with Iris Hollow from House of Hollow for similar reasons! Also, shared trauma. They all have that in common.
If there was one fictional place you could travel to for a day, where would it be and why?
Ooh, a tough one! I think it would be fun to go for a bit into the world of The Atlas Six to experience the magical elements and the… utter deconstruction of physical concepts, lol. It’s close enough to our real world to be familiar, yet a bit uncanny with all of the magical differences. Plus, wouldn’t it be cool to just take a super-fast transport to a different city?
If you buried a time capsule with three items inside, what three items would you choose and why?
I would definitely bury a fountain pen/ink combo because I love pens and it would be fun to see what I was using. I kind of do this with letters to myself, but I would write a letter updating my future self on my feelings at the time: what I like, what I dislike, what my goals are, and any other lofty aspirations. And finally, I’d bury like $100, because then when I or someone else found it, we would be $100 richer.
What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?
I had a whole sequence talking about the Strid, which is a river in Yorkshire that basically runs sideways. It looks like a creek, but under the surface, it’s a massive and deep rushing river with jagged rocks. They say one of the heirs to the Scottish throne died in that river hundreds of years ago. But yeah, there was a lot of research and a full scene discussing “jumping the Strid.”
What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from Not Good for Maidens?
Oddly, I find that scenes I add in during the big edit stick out as favorites. It was the same with Devil, too, but I think I get to this point where I really know the characters and how they feel and think, and if there’s the need for one little addition or scene, it’s much easier and fits better than anything I could’ve come up with in the beginning. There’s one particular May/Eitra scene that I like in that way, because it’s basically an accidental recreation of one of the Twilight lunch scenes and I just think it’s funny. And probably, my favorite Lou quote:
“I don’t want to know what it looks like or what it smells like. I want to know what the goblins are like. I want to know how they’ll try to trick me, to hurt me, to use me. I want to know, before it’s too late, how the goblins will try to kill me.”
About Tori Bovalino
Tori Bovalino grew up near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and never knew she wanted to live abroad until she was already in London. She’s awful at picking favorites, but her consistent go-to books are Pride and Prejudice, Fire, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. She’s enamored with books that make her cry.
Tori holds a BA in English fiction writing and anthropology and a minor in German from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. She is currently on the Creative and practice-based PhD course at RHUL, researching the relationship between Russian folklore and YA fantasy novels. In her free time, Tori enjoys reading (duh), embroidering, and traveling.
She is represented by Dr. Uwe Stender and Amelia Appel at TriadaUS Literary Agency. She writes short stories, poetry, and novels.
What do you think about Not Good for Maidens? Have you added it to your tbr yet? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!
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