Check out our interview with Claire Legrand, the author of "A Rose of Blood and Binding."
Your latest novel brings the Middlemist trilogy to its conclusion. When you began this world with "A Crown of Ivy and Glass," did you always envision this emotional and thematic endpoint, or did the story evolve alongside your characters?
Typically I plan out my books and series start to finish before I write that first draft. I find it helpful to have a road map in place so I can begin writing with a bird's eye view of where I'm going and what I'm aiming for. But even with that map guiding me, I still allow myself the flexibility to take detours and enjoy side quests as I get to know the story more intimately while drafting. The Middlemist trilogy was no exception to this process; I began the series with a detailed plan for what each sister's story would be and how they would dovetail with the larger series plot. And that plan remained largely the same as I wrote. But the Ashbourne sisters and the other characters of this world did end up surprising me in various ways, and in those moments of discovery I modified my road map accordingly.
Your work often blends sweeping fantasy with deeply personal emotional stakes. In this newest installment, how did you balance epic world-building with the intimate journeys your protagonists are navigating?
The genesis of this series came from my love of epic fantasy and my passion for speaking openly about mental health. All three Ashbourne sisters struggle with anxiety, depression, and unresolved childhood trauma and grief. Sometimes they experience suicidal ideations as well. These are struggles I know intimately, and that many of my loved ones do too. With this series I wanted to not only showcase the high stakes and fantastical adventures of the fantasy genre I love, but also discussions of what it’s like to live with mental illness. How to manage that, how to heal from it. I wanted that all in one story, which I don’t see very often. It was important to me to show that anxious and depressed heroines can fall in love and save the day; they can have — and they deserve — their happy endings. Keeping those two elements in focus as I wrote helped me balance the epic stakes with the intimate, personal ones.
Many readers have connected with the way your recent books explore power — especially feminine power — through both vulnerability and rage. How did that theme shape the arc of this final chapter?
In "A Rose of Blood and Binding," the third book in the Middlemist trilogy, the story focuses on Mara, the middle Ashbourne sister. Her power is disciplined, her rage contained. She suffered incredible trauma as a child and has never healed from it. In fact, she has actually ignored those wounds for years in order to survive the harsh life of an Order of the Rose shieldmaiden. And when the book begins, she’s starting to crumble from that effort, because ignoring one’s anger and grief in favor of taking care of others and focusing only on survival is a recipe for disaster. All the Ashbourne sisters experience shades of this same struggle, but perhaps Mara most of all. Through her story I wanted to explore that danger — and the great catharsis that can come from acknowledging and exploring injustices inflicted upon you, even if that process is painful and difficult. There is great strength and potential for healing in that kind of vulnerability, which Mara slowly realizes with the help of her love interest, Gareth.
Across the trilogy, the tension between destiny and agency plays a central role. What were you most interested in saying about choice by the time you reached this final book?
Sometimes when you’re mired in the consequences of other people’s actions, it’s easy to feel like you have no agency, no freedom of choice. That your fate has been decided for you. And climbing out of the despair of that realization is a long and messy process, but it is possible. That’s what I wanted to explore through the story of the Ashbourne sisters: that by asking for and receiving the support of those around you, by having the courage to demand something better for yourself, and by choosing to acknowledge the deepest, scariest fears and pains of your heart—and not run from them, not even confront them, really, but instead accept them—you can rewrite what previously felt like destiny you had no say in to instead make it something of your own choosing.
As this series closes, how has writing it changed you, either creatively or personally, compared to where you were when you began?
This series made me look hard at myself and my own story, perhaps more so than any other books I’ve written. The Ashbourne sisters aren’t me, not in the slightest; but they do live with challenges similar to mine, and therefore going with them on their journeys felt like going on my own. I feel like I understand myself better now, after having finished the trilogy, than I did when I began planning it. And I feel much stronger creatively, too. It’s like each book I write chips away at the raw marble that is my artistic vision, revealing the true shape waiting within the stone. And this series chipped away a lot, revealed a lot. There’s still a long way to go, of course, when it comes to finding that true form, but writing the Middlemist trilogy helped me forge a greater appreciation for that journey, that process of artistic exploration. And what a joy that process is. What a blessing. I hope it never ends.
