Lord of the Rings movies, and met her true love in high school choir. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in creative writing and currently lives in Colorado with her wife and two spoiled house cats.
When she's not reading or writing, you can find her watching anime and sci-fi shows, walking in the woods and pretending they're enchanted forests, or playing old video games. She always collects all the Skulltulas in Zelda and all the Dalmation puppies in Kingdom Hearts.
Vedder applied the Page 69 Test to The Severed Thread, the sequel to The Bone Spindle, and reported the following:
Page 69 drops into one of the perspective chapters from Briar Rose, the now-awakened sleeping prince, contemplating his magic and his connection to the ultimate villainess, the Spindle Witch.Visit Leslie Vedder's website.The Paper Witch sighed, the bell in his hair tinkling as he released Briar’s shoulder. “Small wishes, Briar Rose—remember? For now, try to get some sleep,” he urged. Then he moved off, retiring to his blanket beside the fire. A cold pit sank in Briar’s stomach. He clenched his fist, sending a twinge of pain up his wounded arm. What was the point of having powerful magic if he could never use it to save anyone? What was the point of being a part of some great destiny if all it meant was that his life was never his own?Page 69 of The Severed Thread does a good job of capturing the darkness that’s been eating away at the now-awakened sleeping prince. The Severed Thread is, at its heart, a fairytale retelling, and small wishes is a refrain that repeats throughout the book—sort of the witches’ version of be careful what you wish for.
As long as Briar could remember, every Witch he’d ever known had urged him to tread carefully, to use just a drop from that great well of power inside him. He could still remember crouching next to his sister Camellia, her hands over Briar’s as she helped him trace the Divine Rose script, teaching him the mysterious language and all the secrets it held.
He had mastered the spells so quickly. Magic came to him effortlessly and obeyed his every whim, even complex illusions manifesting with just a twist of his fingers. But no matter how much he excelled, there were certain pages in the spell books that she would never show him, pages she had stitched closed with little roses in crimson thread.
Small wishes, she had told him over and over.
What the Page 69 Test doesn’t capture so well is the action! The moment itself comes just after the MCs have escaped a collapsing ruin and a life-or-death battle, a moment for everyone to catch their breath before we head into more danger! The Severed Thread is a madcap adventure with a ride-or-die friendship between the two girl treasure hunters, Fi and Shane. Prince Briar Rose of the Sleeping Beauty story—while sweet and fun—is ultimately the love interest, while the girls take center stage.
Q&A with Leslie Vedder.
--Marshal Zeringue
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