Mary E. Pearson chats her adult debut, The Courting of Bristol Keats

Mary E. Pearson penned the Remnant Chronicles, which we love reading and love chatting with Mary about. She’s now back with The Courting of Bristol Keats, which follows Bristol Keats as she receives letters from an “aunt” who promises financial help and discovers that everything she thought she knew about her family is a lie. Bristol journeys to a land of gods and fae and monsters and makes a deadly bargain with the fae king, Tyghan, even though he’s the one that drove her parents to a life on the run.

Congratulations on your adult debut! What makes The Courting of Bristol Keats an adult story?

Thank you! The most obvious answer is the characters. The two main characters, Bristol and Tyghan are twenty-two and twenty-six years old and they have adult issues and challenges they are working through: Bristol keeping a roof over her family’s heads, and Tyghan managing a realm on the brink of disaster.  The supporting characters are adults too, with varying amounts of baggage, ranging in age from their twenties to their sixties, and because this is a fantasy story, some are even in their hundreds. I touched on all parts of their life experiences, including the intimacies of their love lives—which is on the page—no fading to black. Another aspect of the story that I think makes it adult, is the way it is written. It varies from omniscient to close third person viewpoint. I am very much a visual writer, and I loved being able to zoom in and out in a cinematic way, so that multiple characters, and even the setting and creatures, could add insights that the main characters couldn’t.

Please tell us the most enjoyable and the most challenging parts in making the transition from YA to adult.

I didn’t really think of it as a transition, as much as it was just a different story—one that presented its own challenges as all stories do! One thing that was unique about the writing of this was that I wrote it without a contract, deadline, or expectation of what it should be. I had the freedom to go wherever the characters took me, which included intimate moments. I enjoyed being able to put all aspects of the characters and their relationships fully on the page.

The Courting of Bristol Keats features faeries, which readers are generally familiar with, but also gods from Celtic literature. How would you describe the inspiration behind the book then?

The Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of Invasions) compiled in the 11^th century traces the history of the Celtic gods, including the Tuatha Dé Danaan who were defeated by the Milesions in battle and then sentenced to live beneath the ground in the sídhe, or mounds. In folklore, the Aos sí, “the people of fairy mounds,” are believed to be descended from the Tuatha Dé Danaan.

The Celtic story tradition was an oral one passed on through Druids, and for the most part, the myths weren’t written down until Christian monks arrived, and the histories took on a decidedly Christian bent. Over time the pagan gods were reduced to a defeated race banished to live in holes and disappearing from the landscape, in essence, becoming the fairies of folklore.

That was the point of my inspiration, combining myth and folklore, and imagining a history written by Celtic gods instead of monks, and one that would include the whole Celtic pantheon, their magic and their creatures, and how it might play out—still-powerful gods controlling their realm, and instead, tricking the mortals into an alternate world.

Let’s talk about the romance in the book. Was it difficult to decide whether The Courting of Bristol Keats should be a fantasy book with a dash of romance, a romance set in a fantasy world, or a full romantasy book?

To be honest, I just wrote a story about characters and a world that I fell in love with, and I didn’t think about how it would fit a certain description. I love love stories, and love is always pivotal in my books. (And love was certainly in the forefront in countless Celtic myths!) I think The Courting of Bristol Keats could be called a romantic fantasy, or a romantasy!

And with fantasy, let’s also talk about age-gap relationships. How would you encourage readers who are iffy about age-gap relationships to give Tyghan and Bristol a try?

I would tell them, there is no age gap! (Unless you consider four years a gap?) Perhaps this confusion lies in that a very different character in the story passed through a portal and aged significantly. As I mentioned earlier, Bristol is twenty-two, and Tyghan is twenty-six, their very true ages, with corresponding life experiences.

Finally, is this a duology or a series? What should readers expect next?

It is a duology, and in the next installment readers can expect lots of twists and turns, betrayals, magic, secrets, love, kissing, and tears—not necessarily in that order!