Curious to know what books inspired A Study of Shattered Spells? Stories don’t come in a vacuum, and writing my debut novel involved a fair bit of research. So today, I thought I’d share which books I used to craft this novel. And if any of these topics intrigue you…well, don’t blame me for your #TBR getting larger!
Nonfiction Research
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman Dixon. A large part of the story had to do with training a prophesied hero for war, which involved researching what kind of errors and pitfalls tend to affect military leaders. This book was instrumental in that regard.
What Is a Girl Worth? by Rachel Denhollander. One of the prominent themes of the book has to do with sexual harassment and abuse in religious circles, and this memoir helped shape my approach to this topic.
Something’s Not Right by Wade Mullen. This short book about identifying and responding to abuse was helpful for how I depicted certain characters and their actions.
Gallipoli by Peter Hart. This book about one of the greatest failures of World War I was helpful for depicting a failing army and some of the psychological reasons behind Rizade’s military struggles.
Boys and Sex by Peggy Orenstein. This analysis of how teenage boys today treat and talk about sex helped me when writing several of the school sequences.
Death of an Army: The Siege of Kut by Ronald Miller. This was the final book I relied on for understanding why certain military strategies historically failed. A couple of the military failures depicted in this account inspired aspects of Rizade’s military strategies.
Fiction Inspirations
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. We’ll begin by getting the obvious one out of the way. 🙂 As the series that popularized and shaped the genre, this certainly played a role in the tropes I played and dialogued with in A Study of Shattered Spells.
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Much of what I’ve learned about themes and unpacking various character worldviews over the course of a story was taken from this book.
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Or, really, any of Sanderson’s works as they’ve inspired the way I approach magic systems in my stories.
Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle. I didn’t read this book until the novel was practically finished, but the dark academia vibes of this novel were delicious and helped me be in the right headspace while revising certain scenes.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. I drew on this novel while exploring how the protagonist would view aspects of her time on the battlefield.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare. One of my favorite plays for the ways it depicts the challenges of a protagonist caught in indecision because they don’t know the right path to take. This general approach to theme influenced how I shaped Kalina’s arc.
Lightbringer by Brent Weeks. I really admire the way Weeks regularly throws his characters in difficult moral dilemmas, and wanted to craft a story that did something similar for readers.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. For the aspects of the story that delve into the themes of guilt and repentance, I took certain inspirations from this novel.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. One of the other dark academia books that drew me into the genre.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. While perhaps not the most common entry for a fantasy novelist’s list, my stories tend to focus on the relational aspects of the story, and much of that (alongside the Victorian tension of real vs. fake morality) I learned from Austen.
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