About the Book:
Cicely is the black sheep daughter of the powerful Winter family, who made a deal with the devil in exchange for riches and ruthless magic. Soren is the boy her family banished to the underworld. Their fates intertwine when Cicely’s loathsome Uncle Dorian winds up dead at a masquerade ball.
Once overlooked for her lowly gift of discovering secrets, Cicely is now her family’s only chance at survival, tasked with finding the killer before he takes out every last Winter. With time running out, Cicely narrows her sights on Soren, who she suspects is back for vengeance.
Yet the more Cicely investigates Soren–and gets to know him–the more she begins to question how much family loyalty is worth. After all, when it comes to being a Winter, one can have love or power, but rarely both…
Find on Goodreads. Find on Bookshop.org UK (affiliate link).
About the Author:
Kathryn Foxfield writes dark books about strange things.
She blames her love of the creepy and weird on a childhood diet of Point Horror, Agatha Christie and Dr Who. She writes about characters who aren’t afraid to fight back, but wouldn’t last 5 minutes in one of her own stories.
Interview:
Pitch your book in 10 words!
Billionaire devil worshippers get their comeuppance thanks to undead hottie.
OUR WICKED GIFTS is your fantasy debut, with high stakes and a lot of murders. You’ve written a lot of brilliant thrillers but what drew you to the supernatural element this time?
I love that anything is possible in fantasy, and you can use the supernatural to push the stakes to the limit. A toxic family is bad enough, but then you throw in deals with the devil and dark magic, and everything gets that little bit worse. Basically, I like tormenting my characters and this felt like a good way to do it.
The Winters made a deal with the devil for wealth and influence which they achieve through their supernatural gifts the devil gives them. What gift would you like to have, were you unlucky enough to be a Winter?
Lucky enough? Ha ha. I wouldn’t want power over others, but I would like the ability to understand or learn anything, starting with the rules of English grammar.
Cecily’s gift of winkling out hidden secrets relies on following bugs, mostly flies or moths, to clues the ruin wants her to see. What made you choose insects as her conduit?
I think there’s something creepily beautiful about insects (except for crane flies), so aesthetics was a big part of my choice! But some insects, such as moths and dragonflies, have been associated with death and the afterlife in various mythologies. I wanted to play with that idea and put my own spin on it.
The magic system relies on the Winters’ ability to access and siphon from the Ruin, a liminal version of our world but decaying that changes the user in return but can also devour them whole if they’re not cautious. What inspired it and the huge role it plays in the story?
I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of secret places hidden just out of sight – a love that probably started when I read THE SECRET GARDEN and the Narnia books as a kid. Whenever I see this idea in books or films – such as the Upside-Down in Stranger Things, the underworld in Pan’s Labyrinth, the theme park in Spirited Away – I absolutely love it. So in OUR WICKED GIFTS, I played with the idea of a space between life and death that belongs to neither.
Soren and Cecily’s relationship is the pivot around the whole book swings around, a true star-crossed enemies to lovers arc. Soren in particular, has such a tragic arc – I loved his little weed garden. How important was it to give him those sparks of humanity?
When Soren first appears in the book, he’s a tropey ‘dangerous but hot shadow daddy’ character. But as the book progresses, it turns out that he’s one of the characters with the most humanity, despite being dead. His weed garden is one of the ways he tries to cling on to the things that mattered to him in life – it’s just one example of what the Winters stole from him.
There is no-one “good” in this book, everyone – including Cicely – has a selfish agenda. How much fun was that to write?
I find morally grey characters so much more interesting to write about because they are untethered by the rules that we all have to follow in real life. My favourites are always the people who think they’re the heroes of the story, such as Cicely. In a way, OUR WICKED GIFTS is a villain origin story and I want people reading it to be shouting at the characters as they slip further and further into those darker shades of grey.
Allegra, Cicely’s mum, has an iron grip on the family and her expectations of them, and abusively making them compete for her affections. Do you think she’s a true narcissist and how did her character influence how the story developed?
She most certainly has some strong narcissistic traits! But she’s also a bit of a pantomime baddie at times (because every book, in my opinion, needs someone for the reader to hate), so I wouldn’t want to give her a real world label. In the book, Allegra’s the driving force behind a lot of the bad things that happen, because she’s so completely fixated on herself. It was a lot of fun to write someone so incredibly selfish and lacking in redeeming features.
Please recommend a UKYA book you think readers will love.
TRAUMALAND* by Josh Silver is one of my favourite YAs. He writes flawed characters with such humanity and depth. Plus, the story’s really engaging.
Thank you!
*Affiliate link
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