THORN JACK book jackets

The harcover jackets for THORN JACK have arrived and they are beautiful!

Front:

Back:

More THORN JACK characters next time.

The Characters of Thorn Jack: Christie Hart

(No spoilers)
Christie/Christopher Hart, eighteen, befriends Finn when she first moves to Fair Hollow, almost next door. His last name, 'Hart,' means a stag, which suits his personality. He's the seventh son among six brothers--Liam, Nick, Donovan, Kiernan, Conal, and Aidan--who continue to hang around their rambling, Victorian house. Charisma Danegeld, his mother, is a teacher, and his father, Patrick Hart, is a manager at the Ogun metalworking plant. Christie's hobbies, chief of which among them is young women, are fencing, basketball, and poetry. Attending HallowHeart, he's a liberal arts major with an emphasis on Romantic poetry and in the midst of wanting to be a writer or switching to something practical. His friends are Sylvie Whitethorn, the privileged Aubrey Drake, Hester Kierney, and Nick and Victoria Tudor, as well as the loner, Micah Govannon. Christie's soon drawn to the alluring Phouka Fata, Reiko Fata's lieutenant.
Flirtatious and charismatic, Christie learns his destiny is much more complicated and weirder than he expected.

The Characters of Thorn Jack: Sylvie Whitethorn

(Vague Spoiler)
Sylvie Whitethorn, 17-18, befriends Finn shortly after Finn and her dad move to Fair Hollow, New York, where Sylvie lives with her father, Samuel Whitethorn and her stepmom, Kim. Her father, who is Finnish, owns a salvage/antique shop called Whiskey and Pearls. Her blond stepmom is a Pilates instructor.
Sylvie's mom, Hikaru Miko, a Japanese actress who divorced Sylvie's dad, gave Sylvie the middle name of Sakura, which means 'cherry blossom.' Her father named her Sylvia, which means 'girl of the forest.'
Attending HallowHeart College as a performing arts major, Sylvie aspires to be an actress. Her hobbies are archery, collecting pretty weapons at Renaissance fairs, and making steampunk jewelry. Her friends are the fashionable and economically fortunate Hester Kierney and Aubrey Drake, as well as Christie Hart, whom she's known since childhood.
Sylvie's grandmother was a yama bushi, who spoke to spirits, and her Japanese mother, whom she doesn't speak to, is Shinto.
And Sylvie was once targeted to be stolen by the Fatas when she was an infant . . .

The Characters of Thorn Jack: Finn Sullivan

(Slight spoiler alert!)
A liberal arts major at HallowHeart College, with an interest in photography, Finn Sullivan, 17-18 years old, was named Serafina by her biologist/artist mother, Daisy Sullivan, after the seraphim, the angels of love, light, and fire. In Jewish tradition, the seraphim act as guardians between the world of man and the world of spirits. 'Seraph' means 'to burn.'
Finn's father, Sean Sullivan, an Irish professor of world mythology and folklore, nicknamed Finn after Finn mac Cumhaill, a mythical hero and the leader of a band of warriors who guarded the king of Ireland. As a child, Finn mac Cumhaill was accidentally gifted with wisdom by a magical fish.
Finn's sister Lily Rose, whose suicide Finn witnessed, was a wild child and a ballerina. Lily Rose is the true object of Finn's quest.
Two of Finn's ancestors have also encountered the Fatas: Ambrose Cassandro, during the Renaissance, became a Jack (an immortal assassin for the Fatas), and Rose Govannon Sullivan, aka Jill Scarlet/Red Riding Hood, in the 1700s, in the Basque province near France, came from a family who hunted the more monstrous Fatas. She was made into a Jill (a female Jack).

Answering Some THORN JACK Mail

Okay, this was supposed to be a post about the heroine of THORN JACK, but I wanted to answer some emails I've received from readers/potential readers. So, I'll be naming you, (you know who you are) and giving each of you a reply, because this is much more fun than sending individual emails.

CATE: Thank you and THORN JACK will be a series. Only three books for now and BRIAR QUEEN is in the works, with NETTLE KING following.

DAWN: Thank you and one of my favorite Faery books takes place in Minneapolis, MN, WAR FOR THE OAKS by Emma Bull. I attended art college in Minneapolis and it was a thrill to walk the streets of that book. (My Fatas are a little darker and have more to do with Celtic Faery beliefs.)

REAGAN: Thank you and I can't give anything away! But there are clues in the first book about what will happen to Finn, Jack, and Christie. I'm finishing up the second book and I'm writing the third. (See CATE's reply). There are many surprises, many twists and turns. Hopefully, the second book will be out in June 2015.

I hope this helped! Here's the sign-up address for a future newsletter if anyone is interested: www.katherineharbour.com/contact.php and here's my website: www.katherineharbour.com.

If you have any questions, keep asking. I'll do my best to reply!

The Characters of Thorn Jack: Jack Hawthorn

     Jack was born in Victorian era Ireland, his Hungarian father a coachman (and an exorcist), his mother Irish Romany and a talented violinist. They taught Jack all of these things. When he was seventeen, he left his father after his mother died and came to the attention of an aristocratic family led by the lupine and elegant Seth Lot, and Reiko Fata, the alluring young woman who lures Jack into the terrifying and liminal world of spirits, abandoned places,and monsters.
     Jack becomes a monster himself, one who serves the Fatas, an immortal killer and seducer, a Jack, his heart removed, his body stitched up with an alchemy of magical roses to keep it alive. And the only way for him to be free of the Fatas is to fall in love and grow a heart.
     When he first meets Finn, he is the Elf Knight, a soulless and heartless creature that seduces for the thrill of it; their encounter is all artifice and glamor. Finn breaks free of his spell. It isn't until their second conversation, in her kitchen, when Jack is himself, that Finn begins to see Jack as a kindred spirit. Soon, he becomes her guide through the world of the Fatas,the faery folk, the ancient dead . . .