Sarah Zettel is the contributor for this week’s Take Five, a regular series where we ask authors and editors to share five facts about their latest books. White is the author of Dust Girl, available now from your favorite book retailer.
This new trilogy will capture the hearts of readers who adore Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle series. Callie LeRoux lives in Slow Run, Kansas, helping her mother run their small hotel and trying not to think about the father she’s never met. Lately all of her energy is spent battling the constant storms plaguing the Dust Bowl and their effects on her health. Callie is left alone, when her mother goes missing in a dust storm. Her only hope comes from a mysterious man offering a few clues about her destiny and the path she must take to find her parents in “the golden hills of the west” (California). Along the way she meets Jack a young hobo boy who is happy to keep her company—there are dangerous, desperate people at every turn. And there’s also an otherworldly threat to Callie. Warring fae factions, attached to the creative communities of American society, are very aware of the role this half-mortal, half-fae teenage girl plays in their fate. pancake surfaces to prove it.
Sarah Zettel:
1. Kansas is flatter than a pancake. Some wise guys did an analysis of enlarged pancake surfaces to prove it.
2. There really was a Fairyland amusement park in Kansas City, and it really was a top venue for jazz musicians, including Count Basie. Swear. I did not make that part up. I did rewrite the entire last third of the book because of it though.
3. When I was about 5, I used to dance around the living room while listening to Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl ballads. Writers are strange from a very young age.
4. I had no idea who Shake really was when he showed up at that juke joint.
5. I didn’t think anybody else would be interested in this book. I figured it would be just too darned weird, but I wrote it anyway because the idea wouldn’t go away. Never, ever, give up.
Dust Fairy is a magical book. Zettel makes you feel the past, it’s a visceral experience — reading this book. Fabulous attention to fact and historical relevance. I do love Libba Bray and the comparison or at least the reference to her books is quite appropriate. Both women are fantastic writers. Congratulations on a stellar writing performance, I can’t wait for the next books in the trilogy.
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