Staging a story with Hannah Whitten

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Adam Sockel:

You are listening to Passions & Prologues, a literary podcast. For each week, I'll interview an author about a thing they love and how it inspires their work. I'm your host Adam Sockel, and if this is your first time listening in, thanks so much for being here. You've been here for a while now. Thanks for coming back.

Today's episode is with Hannah Whitten, who is the young adult fantasy author of the new book, The Foxglove King. This is the first book in a new series. You may recognize Hannah Whitten's name because she wrote the wildly popular For the Wolf which was kind of a reimagining retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, which I adored.

And I loved the Foxglove King as well. It is the beginning of a epic fantasy series, and it's all about this young woman named Lore who has the ability to kind of deal with and handle death. There's these drugs that connect people to death and make them feel like close to death without actually dying, and all these different things going on.

And it's just a very lush and incredible world that she's built out, and there is a heist involved and all sorts of great stuff going on. You're going to absolutely love the book.

Our discussion today is another one about musical theater. I think one of the things I've discovered while doing this podcast is that a lot of people are just like me, and they grew up loving musical theater.

We specifically talk about her attempts and ultimately failures to get into musical theater herself, as well as her lifelong love of various shows and the things that she's most excited to listen to today. I think you're really, really going to love it. I had a joy with this conversation. Anytime anyone wants to talk musical theater, I am on board.

Before we get to that, want to give you a book recommendation and then let you know how you can get ahold of me. I just finished A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney. It's a very quick read. Rob Delaney is a comedian and a comedic writer and actor, perhaps best known for the show Catastrophe.

His book is all about one of his young sons who unfortunately passed away from pediatric brain cancer, when I believe he was three-years-old.

So, it's very heartbreaking, but I just love the way that Rob handles it in the sense that he openly talks about his emotions, and it's not one of these books where he feels like he's at peace with it. And so, he wrote this story. He's still very angry about it, and I think that's something that, anytime anyone loses something important in their life, it can cause you to feel anger.

And you always read these books where people will say, “Well, I'm at peace,” or “It's cathartic,” or “I now understand that it's actually good for me.” He's not doing that in this book. He's just basically saying, “I'm pissed off. This sucks. I hate this.”

But he's also just very open and honest about all the things that he misses. And it's a beautiful story. So highly, highly recommend it. You will probably cry, but it's a very quick book and it's very impactful.

If you want to get ahold of me, you can always find me at [email protected]. There, you can email me any ratings or reviews you leave of this show, and I'll give you some customized book recommendations.

You can also always send me your passions, the things that you're super passionate about, and once a month I send out a random bookshop.org gift card to anyone who has done that. So, thank you for everyone who's been doing that. I really, really love reading those.

You can also find me on TikTok and Instagram, at Passions & Prologues, where I do book recommendations all the time.

So okay, that's enough housekeeping. I am so excited for you guys to check out this discussion with Hannah Whitten, author of the just released: The Foxglove King, on Passions & Prologues.

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Okay Hannah, what is the thing you are super passionate about that we're going to be discussing today?

Hannah Whitten:

I love musical theater.

Adam Sockel:

Yes, yes. You said this right before we started recording, and I literally said, “Stop, don't say anything else. I want it all to be authentic.”

So, let's get into it. First things first, when you say you love musical theater, do you mean like you love performing, you love watching, give me your-

Hannah Whitten:

All of it.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Hannah Whitten:

All of it. That was my first thing whenever I was a kid. And I was one of those kids that was privileged enough that my parents spent a lot of time and money trying to find what my thing was. They kept putting me in like a bunch of different sports, which never really panned out. Tried me like on a bunch of different instruments, and I just never found something that I really latched onto and was like, yes, this is it. This is what I want to do.

Until I was in third grade, and I had always been like a really dramatic kid. My mom was like, “I heard that they were doing auditions for Annie at like the community theater. Is that something you'd want to try?” And I was like, “Yes, absolutely.”

So, third grade me auditioned and I was almost Annie. I was in the smaller audition group that they were making sing tomorrow and all that jazz.

I didn't get Annie, but I was one of the orphans that had speaking roles and a solo and stuff. So, I thought that I was hot shit. After that, I auditioned for literally everything that came down the pike. That was just the most fun experience. And really, I just latched onto it really hard.

So, I did that, did theater from then until I was like 16. And the only reason that I stopped is because we moved away and the place that we moved to didn't really have like a theater program. So, I would've kept doing it if I could have.

Adam Sockel:

Okay, yeah. I love this so much. So, I went to a very small Catholic school. I was actually the last graduating class before it closed, which is-

Hannah Whitten:

Oh, wow.

Adam Sockel:

Hilarious. But I am the youngest of four kids, so it's one of those schools where as the youngest of four, all of the teachers knew who I was, they’d call me little Sockel. They didn't even call me Adam. They just like used Lil.

But because of that I was basically indoctrinated, is a hilarious word to talk about a Catholic school, but exactly, I got indoctrinated into just the really awesome community of this school.

And part of it was, despite being small, they had an incredible auditorium. And most years they had an amazing theater program because it was actually, they had a lot of very talented theater people.

So, when I was really, really little, I went and saw my sister's friends in Godspell and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, or I saw my brother in, I think he did Bye Bye Birdie. And when I got to high school, we did Cinderella, I got to play the Herald, so it was like a 17-year-old, I got to wear canary yellow tights-

Hannah Whitten:

The Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella?

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. I got to do like the first solo and again, not a great singer, but I could do it enough. But yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And then like since then, it's just been like watching theater and then being obsessed with it, so-

Hannah Whitten:

Oh, I know.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. So, what-

Hannah Whitten:

Anytime I see live theater, I cry just because I'm just like, “Everyone is so talented.” And it's just embarrassing for everyone who's like around me. But it's just like from the first overture, I’m just tearing up already. Everyone’s like, “Are you okay?” No, I'm not. I'm never okay.

Adam Sockel:

It’s like, “Did you hear that it's an oboe, oboes are so beautiful.” Yeah. So, what are some of the shows that you find the most joy in or that you enjoy the most?

Hannah Whitten:

So, the ones that I performed in, and I cannot stress enough that this was a very small community theater. So, we did a lot of shows that were kind of knockoff versions of Disney movies.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Hannah Whitten:

I don't remember what the name of the company was. I'm sure it's whatever was like the rights could be bought the cheapest, but we did Sleeping Beauty and I was like the Maleficent esque character who had like a different name and stuff.

And that was super, super fun. And that was my first … I think I was a freshman in high school, eighth grade freshman, somewhere around there. But that was my first leading role, and I had a really great time with it.

My last role that I did before we moved was, I was Belle in Beauty and the Beast over the summer, and that was the first time that we had done, shelled out to get the actual Broadway script. So, it was the real show.

So, we were all very excited that we were doing something with an actual orchestra and not canned music over the stereo.

So, I loved performing in those. But as far as ones that I've seen, I have a list of shows that … it's like my list of shows that make me very mad that I did not continue to pursue theater.

And it's like Heathers is number one, the music is just incredible. Hadestown is another one that we listen to in the car all the time because my husband never performed in musical theater, but he's always enjoyed it which is great. Because then I can listen to all the soundtracks in the car.

I was obsessed with Phantom of the Opera, as every 16-year-old who came out and was even vaguely adjacent — musical theater program was when the Gerard Butler movie came out. I was never a great soprano, but God did I try to sing along to that particular soundtrack.

But I love all of it and just yeah. The amount of people who you can act, and you can sing, and you can dance. That just seems unfair, but like, keep going so I can watch you.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. There was a previous episode of the podcast. It was a while back now, but Kalynn Bayron came on and we were talking about Phantom of the Opera specifically. She's phenomenal.

And I can't remember if I told this on that episode. So, if I did listeners, I'm sorry, I'll be brief. When I was four or five, I think might've been a little bit older, but my parents took all of my siblings and I to Toronto. We got to see Phantom of the Opera in Toronto with the I think, original cast and it was a very big deal.

And I at the time did not understand the concept of musicals. And so, after the second song, which again is like, the whole thing is songs. I leaned over to my mom-

Hannah Whitten:

Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

And to this day my mom remembers this. I leaned over and I was like, “When are they going to stop singing?” And she just-

Hannah Whitten:

In about two and a half hours.

Adam Sockel:

Exactly, yeah. I didn't understand the concept of any of it. And it's since come to be one of my favorite musicals. It’s like any person of a certain age, but that certain age can be like 28 to 50. I feel like they were interacting with Phantom.

Hannah Whitten:

It's so funny to me, the way, depending on what your first exposure to that show was, how you react to the stage version. Because I have a similar story where for my 16th birthday, I didn't want a big party or anything, so my mom took me to New York, and we saw Phantom of the Opera and it was just me and her for like two days. It was super nice.

But my exposure to the show at that point had been the movie where it's Gerard Butler being real sexy as the Phantom. And that's what I was expecting, and the stage show is not that, like the Phantom is real creepy. There's like not any … they do not try to make it hot at all. And I was like, “Okay, I'll roll with this interpretation, but I have some critiques.”

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. I feel like there was this series, there's this time period over the last, I don’t know, I think it was probably like 10, 15 years, but so Phantom came out and like Gerard Butler, I will give him his props for a actor who is not a professional singer, he's fine. Like he sings good enough.

Hannah Whitten:

Yeah, yeah. Now, I like look back at my reaction, I'm like, “Oh, that's embarrassing.”

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. But he's passable, it is good enough. And then there was Chicago, which I feel like everybody in Chicago is actually a pretty good singer, the movie version.

Speaker2:

Yeah, so great.

Adam Sockel:

And then I love Les Mis, both the movie and the musical.

Hannah Whitten:

Yeah. I'm a big Les Mis movie apologist. I know that people have-

Adam Sockel:

I have a friend who is my college roommate. And I hope he's listening to this. He and I, every once in a while, we will leave each other voicemails or messages in the Russell Crowe singing voice. Because there's a song Stars where it sounds like his nose is bugged. He's like …

But we will still to this day leave each other messages in that voice. But again, like you said, I love musical theater so much that I can get past it. I'm like, I'm just glad that they're doing one of the shows I love as a movie.

Hannah Whitten:

Exactly. I'm just happy to be here.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. So, you mentioned Heathers and Hadestown. Are there some other shows that — like you said you kind of didn't get to do anything else past 16, but like, are there some other shows that have stuck with you throughout kind of like the tests of time?

My dad's side of our family is Jewish, so I will always love Fiddler on the Roof. There's a few specific shows for me that like I'll just listen to the whole thing every once in a while. Are there shows like that for you that have just stuck with you?

Hannah Whitten:

Yes. I love The Sound of Music. And that was actually one of my very first experiences with the musical was whenever I was really young, I was six or seven, I first watched the Sound of Music because my grandmother really loved it.

And so, she sat us down and was like, “Here, we're going to watch the Sound of Music for five hours. We're all just going to sit here and pay very close attention,” with like the double VHS tape and everything.

And I never got to be in that show, but very soon after I moved, my old high school did it. So, a lot of my friends that I had done theater with for many years before I moved ended up being in the show. And one of my very best friends was Maria and another one was Mother Superior.

We were of that age where it was like, okay, it's your time to be the lead roles. So, I got to come back and watch them do it. And it was super fun. And I still watched that movie. It's like my sick day movie. If I know I'm not going to accomplish anything else that day, I could just sit down and watch The Sound of Music. So, that would've stuck with me for a very long time.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. So, I have a confession, I'm sure I'm going to get emails about this. Up until this past Christmas, I had never seen The Sound of Music.

Hannah Whitten:

Oh, no.

Adam Sockel:

I knew some of the music, but I had never seen it. And I'm a very nostalgic person, especially in the holidays. And I love watching Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life, but I just had never seen it. And so, it was on one day on ABC or whatever, and I was like, “Alright, I will watch this.”

And so, I watched it and I loved it and I couldn't believe I had never watched it before. But I watched it with fresh eyes in the sense that, I feel like there are things in both movies and musicals that if you see them when you're younger, you don't think anything of them. And it feels natural.

But watching them as adult, The Puppet Show, The Lonely Goatherd-

Hannah Whitten:

Oh, terrifying. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

Are you kidding me? I was like, “How are people okay with this?” And so, same thing, I think about when I saw Godspell as a kid, my sister remembers this story. One of her best friends played Jesus. And spoiler alert for Godspell and the Bible, I guess, Jesus gets crucified.

And I remember sobbing but also, I was like, “Oh, it’s just part of the thing.” And now looking back I'm like, “That would've been traumatizing as hell.”

Hannah Whitten:

That’s a lot.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. Much like these puppets. I just remember watching it in real time and I was like, “So, everyone over the past 50 years has just been cool with these terrifying goat puppets.” Like I'm not-

Hannah Whitten:

These awful puppets.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Hannah Whitten:

We were willing to overlook it for young Christopher Plummer.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. So, are there other examples of that? You mentioned going to New York to see Phantom. I'm really lucky, and I know I've mentioned this a few times on the show, but Cleveland, outside of New York, we have the largest theater district in the country, which-

Hannah Whitten:

I did not know that.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. So, people-

Hannah Whitten:

That's really cool.

Adam Sockel:

People don't realize that. So, we get first run shows. So, when Hamilton finally left New York, I think it went to Chicago for like a year, but like then it came here and Hadestown was just here, Beetlejuice. I've seen everything in there. Les Mis being one. Yeah. Les Mis is definitely the one that anytime it's here I will see it. Are there shows that you actively try to go see as often as possible beyond Phantom?

Hannah Whitten:

Actually, Phantom I think is the only one that I've ever seen more than once. And it wasn't necessarily cause I was seeking it out, it's just because like it's what I had the opportunity to go see.

I recently saw Les Mis, I take that back. I've seen Les Mis more than once too, but one production was not really a community. It was a professional theater, but it wasn't a Broadway caliber.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah, a regional type of a thing?

Hannah Whitten:

Yeah, yeah. And it was really good. And so, I've seen that one twice.

We haven't had the opportunity to go very often. We're very close. We're in Nashville. And so, they often will have traveling shows come through and we try to go whenever we have the opportunity, but we also have small children and live far away from all sets of parents.

So, we don't have the opportunity as often here recently. But our daughter is just now getting to the age where I think she would be able to sit through it if we took her to see the Lion King or something, a Disney property she would probably be able to sit through. So, we're going to try and do that sometimes.

Adam Sockel:

There's a Frozen musical.

Hannah Whitten:

Yes. And she has expressed heavy interest.

Adam Sockel:

I bet she has.

Hannah Whitten:

Yes. I have less heavy interests, but I'm like, listen, if it'll get you into it, we'll go. And like the community theater around here is pretty good. And her school, they go see the shows in the fall that they do.

So, she's had exposure to it has already been like, “I would like to do that.” I'm like, “Alright, well good to go.”

Adam Sockel:

That's one of those things the small high school that I went to, that I'm really thankful, A, I still talk to a lot of people that I went to high school with, which is wild because I'm in my late 30s.

But because it was so small, I was captain of the baseball and football team, I was in student government and also I got to be roles.

Hannah Whitten:

Be all the things.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. And so, when I tell people that, it makes it sound like I'm very impressive. I'm not, it was a tiny school. I was a good athlete and I was willing to make a fool of myself so I could be in the theater program was really all it was.

But because of that, it was cool because even in as incoming freshman, if you had that interest, like you said, maybe you'd be in the chorus as a freshman for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or something.

And then within a year or two you would have an actual role that was engaging and you got to speak and things like that. And yeah, I will say it's still had an effect on me to this day, obviously the musical theater aspect, but the storytelling parts as well.

So, I'm curious for you, how has musical theater had an effect on your storytelling process?

Hannah Whitten:

I find myself, especially if I'm writing a conversation, I try really hard to have the motion beats in between a conversation. I see it very clearly in my head. And sometimes I will try and act out the facial expression that I feel like someone would be making to hearing this conversation.

So, I feel like it's a very similar process to what I would do whenever I was figuring out, learning my lines and how I was going to act these scenes. I use a very similar process whenever I'm blocking a scene with characters in a book. And it's weird actually how similar the two processes are.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. No honestly, I know what you mean because thinking about your new book, the Foxglove King, I'm thinking about, one of the first scenes in the movie, it’s basically on the outside of a — like these two people have a conversation. It's one of like the first things that happened actually, it's like on the outside of almost like a stoop.

And I know what you mean. It does feel very blocked in a way. Now hearing you talk about this; I definitely know what you mean. And about the way that they converse back and forth almost feels kind of lyrical.

Hannah Whitten:

There's a beast and, yeah. It’s weird how similar it feels to me. Like sitting down and trying to figure that out versus like going to a blocking rehearsal and figuring out how you're going to move around the stage. Because it's essentially the same thing, just you're writing it instead of performing it.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. Do you try to make your stories kind of — because I think one of the things I love about musical theater especially, and even plays, there can't be really any wasted or throwaway scenes. It's almost like a middle grade book in the sense like it has to be moving the plot forward at all times because people are watching it. There's no time to like-

Hannah Whitten:

Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

It's not like a movie where like you could stand up and like go grab a glass of water and there are sometimes in books where you're like, “Okay, what is the point of this scene?”

Hannah Whitten:

Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

But for you, do you think about like in addition to like the blocking aspects and the conversation, do you think of stories in that same way? Or am I just like totally projecting onto you?

Hannah Whitten:

No, I definitely do. I try not to have any filler. And especially since the books that I've published up to this point have all been part of a series. There are sometimes things that are in one book that don't have a payoff within that book.

So, there'll be things I'm sure that might feel like filler, but I promise it's not. I try to make sure that everything that I include is pointing towards something. And giving you a clue either round out either the world or the character or the plot.

And just make it so that whenever you arrive at the big moments and the climaxes, that you can kind of trace your way back and see all the things that were leading you up to that point.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Hannah Whitten:

Which is very similar to a play or a musical. Just because what you were saying, you don't have time to sit and just add stuff for the sake of adding stuff. It's all there to serve a purpose.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. And so, actually I'm glad you mentioned your previous books and we're going to get to the Foxglove King in just a minute.

But I was joking, I told you one of the … your publicist Ellen, who I've known for a very long time, she kept sending me like, you need to read this book, you need to read this book. And I don't know, there was something that like sparked in my brain. I was like, “Wait, Hannah Whitten, I know that name.” And then I was like, “Oh, my God, true, For the Wolf. I was like, “Oh, my God.” I'm like, “That's her.”

So, I want to ask because one of the things you mentioned, to thinking about musical theater and different shows, even an example like Into the Woods is somewhat adjacent-ish in the sense that it's a fairytale-

Hannah Whitten:

Yes.

Adam Sockel:

Story. So, for you, like what made you want to — because I've talked to a lot of people who have done like fairytale reimaginings, retelling and I always think they're incredible types of stories. So, for those first few books, what made you want to pick Little Red Riding Hood as sort of a jumping off point?

Hannah Whitten:

Yeah. So, there's so much about that book that changed from the original idea to what it eventually became, but it was always going to be something Little Red Riding Hood adjacent.

And that was mostly because I was thinking of Little Red Riding Hood in it's places like a morality tale. It's one of those very old fairy tales that you can very easily kind of trace what it's trying to teach you in its original form, which is a lot about purity and sexuality and staying on the path, not straying from where you were told to go.

There's a lot of stuff, people a lot smarter than me have done studies on how the woods in general is like a transformative space in fairy tales. How the beast archetype is impurity and worldliness, coming after your sweet little innocent protagonist.

And I knew that I wanted to take all those elements and fuck with them. And make something that was about choice and bodily autonomy and discovery of yourself within romance and sexuality and things of that nature. Kind of the ingenue becoming the beast situation. So, it was mostly the themes of that fairytale that made me want to play with it.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. And I will say for anyone who hasn't read those books For the Wolf and For the Throne, buckle the hell up and do not expect it to be fair. Don't expect like, “Oh, I know the story of the Little Red Riding Hood”, but just get ready. I love those books so much. And then for the Foxglove King like-

Hannah Whitten:

Thank you so much.

Adam Sockel:

You're welcome. For the Foxglove King obviously, it's a departure — maybe, I don't know, but that's not like pulled from other stories. Is it, or am I misreading?

Hannah Whitten:

No, it's its own thing. And that was very much by design. I think every author kind of, you always have that fear after you've done your first book, your first series. Like what if this is the only thing I could do.

So, I wanted to purposefully do everything different. So, in the Wilderwood duology, they were very limited cast, very kind of self-contained settings.

So, for this one I was like, “Okay, I'm going to make a big world. It's going to have a map. We're going to be in like a castle, there's going to be a bazillion people all over the place.” And then I was like, “What have I done?”

So, it was certainly a learning experience to kind of make that 180 and decide I was going to do something that felt completely different. But it's been good so far. It's been good to see myself.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. Well, I was fortunate enough, like I told you, I got a copy of it before it's come out. We're recording this in February. The book comes out in March and when people hear this, the book will be out.

But it's so good and I love how it … you're welcome. I love how it plays with death and kind of commoditizing death in this really intricate and creepy way. And you're right, I do love that it is very sprawling and it is very — you have built a whole world.

So, for you, how did that feel like you said, coming from a story that … well not contained within a fairytale, there were things that you knew you needed to kind of have in place, like the woods in these different aspects. So, taking that and then being like, oh, I'm going to build a whole universe. Like what was that experience like for you?

Hannah Whitten:

Daunting. Very daunting. It kind of was going back to the books that I read whenever I was younger, because I read Lord of Rings obviously, but Wheel of Time and these gigantic series of Gigantic Worlds. And for a long time, I thought that's what fantasy was, especially adult fantasy.

And I think there's still people that think that. But so, whenever I was writing Wolf and Throne particularly, I knew that I wasn't doing that and felt a little bit self-conscious about the fact that I wasn't doing that and about the fact that it was so kind of self-contained.

So, I wanted to just give it a shot and see if I could do it. And I remember I had started the book a while ago, actually. It was the book that I was writing when Wolf sold. So, I had written the first half of it and then ended up putting it to the side because I had to work on Wolf.

And then ended up coming back to it and be like, I think that this is the thing I want to pursue after this series is over. So, I had Avarin and Dellaire and then I was like, and I know there is stuff outside of that I'm going to have to address eventually.

So, I sat down, and I drew a map for the first time. And I remember like staring at the piece of paper and being like, “How does one do this?” And just kind of like drew some squiggly stuff. I was like, there's a country, but that kind is emblematic of how the entire process went, was really just stabbing in the dark and seeing what stuck.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. No, I love that. I've seen people like on TikTok do, where they're like splash coffee off of a like paint brush. And then they'll just draw circles and like-

Hannah Whitten:

I’ve seen people like pour rice and do like that. I'm like, that's way smarter than what I did, which was draw some squiggly lines.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah, absolutely. So, like I said, I love everything about the book, but I love that it has like said — I feel like I don't read a ton of fantasy anymore, but the ones that I do seek out, I want it to be something where it's unique and I do love again, the idea of there being like commoditizing death and I love that part so much. I never want to give away too much.

So, I will let you kind of like pitch the book now that we've talked around it for like 20 minutes, for people who are unfamiliar with the Foxglove King, what would be kind of your pitch for them about what the actual story is?

Hannah Whitten:

So, the Foxglove King is about Lore. She is a poison runner in the city of Dellaire. Dellaire has a dead goddess problem. So, about 500 years ago there was something called the Godsfall where all of the gods died except for Apuleius who is our main like God of life. He has just disappeared, and nobody really knows where he is.

But we know where Nyxara, the God of death is. And she is underneath the city and the catacombs, and her body is leaking power. They call it Mortem and it's the power of death and you can only use it if you have had a near death experience or if you're Lore who was born able to use it, a fact that she keeps very close to the chest.

But she is a poison runner like I said. So, because people will use poison to try and either get close enough to death to be able to use Mortem or you can also use it to extend your life because you kind of balance your organs. Often that precipice of death and life and it's not a nice life that you get in exchange, but it is longer than it would be otherwise.

So, Lore is doing pretty okay for herself living under the radar because being able to use Mortem unless you are one of the people who is appointed as able to use it, is illegal until she accidentally raises a horse from the dead. As one does-

Adam Sockel:

As one does.

Hannah Whitten:

Whomst among us has not accidentally raised a horse from the dead? And then she gets captured, she gets brought before the king. She fully expects to get sent to prison or to be executed, but he's like, “Hey actually I need your help. There is, as you know, an empire on our border that is a breath away from invading.

There are mysterious deaths happening all over the edges of the country. We need you to be able to raise a body and ask it's what's happening. We also need you to keep an eye on my son because I'm pretty sure he's a spy for the enemy.”

So, Lore finds herself within the court of the Citadel with Gabe, who is a surly, one-eyed monk that is also a Duke. And they're trying to keep an eye on Bastian, who is a really cool, pansexual playboy prince who doesn't care about anything except actually he cares about everything very, very much and chaos and sus.

Adam Sockel:

Chaos and sus is the right way to end that. The way that you've built out this story there, like you said, there's a sprawling kind of like inter kingdom potential things going on.

Theres, you've built out literally hundreds of years of history. There's a magic system, there's a massive cast of characters. When tackling a project like this, did the story originate with an idea of the magic, an idea of the character, an idea of the setting? Like there's so much that could be an entry point for this one. For you, what was it?

Hannah Whitten:

I have a very specific entry point for it and it's a weird one. So, the idea for the story came about from me getting extremely angry at The Rise of Skywalker. I'll explain how this happened.

Okay. So, I remember after seeing it, I was explaining to my poor husband who was not as into the sequel trilogy as I was, but he was along for the ride, you know?

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Hannah Whitten:

So, we go see it. I am just upset. And he is like, “Okay, talk me through it. What’s your problems here?” I was like, “Alright, we'll start with the basic was the Rey/Palpatine thing.” Spoiler for The Rise of Skywalker, I guess, if you haven't seen it, I wouldn't recommend it, but spoiler alert, anyway.

So, I was like, okay, Rey/Palpatine could have been a cool idea, could have been something that worked if you had built up to it throughout the course of the trilogy, which is really just the downfall of the sequel trilogy in general. We could have had that conversation actually, that could have been something that we talked about. Was just me and my lifelong beef with J.J. Abrams.

Okay. So, Rey/Palpatine. And I remember explaining it to him and my brain was going a million miles an hour and I was like I think that this could have worked as the middle installment of a trilogy, but it doesn't work as the last one, because if you had done it as a middle installment and had Rey actually turn and give in to her dark side and had that be a thing, then it could have worked.

But there's just too much packed into this last movie that didn't make enough sense because it wasn't established earlier.

So, it got me thinking about, okay, so if you took a Rey light character who is a nobody who is just doing whatever she can to survive, who actually turns out to be this heir to a dark horrible power that people have been working against for centuries to keep contained, how would that look?

So, that was the entry point into this trilogy, and everything else. I just kind of stuck tropes that I liked into it. I was like, “I haven't done like a court intrigue book yet. That might be fun. And I haven't done a love triangle. That would be fun to stick in there too.”

So, I'm extremely self-indulgent and it's just anything that seems shiny, I'm going to try and stick in there.

Hannah Whitten:

Well, no. I'll say again, having read it, it all works. It all fits together and just, it all works. I love that. Asking people what their like … much like how I love asking people what they're passionate about is so much fun for me. Asking people what their entry point to a story is, is great because it's never what I expect.

Hannah Whitten:

No, it's generally something just wild.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. Oh, that's so fantastic. Okay. So, I always end each show by asking the author who is on for a recommendation of some kind. It can be a book; my first guest recommended a protein powder about power lifting. I had somebody recommend just going for a walk. I had people recommend specific TV shows. Anything you want to recommend. Yeah.

Anything you want to recommend. Again, it can be a book, but any recommendation you would like to give.

Hannah Whitten:

Okay. I am going to recommend a podcast.

Adam Sockel:

Yes.

Hannah Whitten:

And it's called Mabel. And I do not recall like what network it is with or the name of the creator because wow, I am woefully ill equipped, but if you search podcast Mabel, it should come up and it is an audio drama that is about horror fairies, which is something I feel like should be explored more.

And it's suffix and the pros is really, really beautiful. I think there's like three seasons out right now, but I love it and I listen to it over and over again. So, highly recommend. It's very, very good.

Adam Sockel:

Is it by Becca De La Rosa?

Hannah Whitten:

Yes, yes.

Adam Sockel:

And Mabel Martin?

Hannah Whitten:

Yes. It is so creepy.

Adam Sockel:

I have rarely so quickly looked up something that a guest has recommended. Oh, my. It says a podcast about ghosts, family secrets, strange houses and misconnections. Oh, my God.

Hannah Whitten:

Yep. So, the premise is like this girl is a home health nurse and she's a live-in home health nurse with this elderly woman that lives in this huge sprawling manor and she is talking about her granddaughter named Mabel and like how she wants to reconnect.

And so, it's told through a series of voice memos essentially, where she keeps calling Mabel and like leaving messages like, “Hey, your grandmother gave me this number. She is not doing well. She would really like to speak to you.”

But she can never actually get ahold of Mabel. And things just start getting weirder and weirder and weirder and as she discovers, something is not correct here. It’s so good.

Adam Sockel:

I am on board. That sounds fantastic.

Oh Hannah, your new book, the Foxglove King is so, so freaking good. This was so much fun. Thank you for joining me today.

[Music Playing]

Hannah Whitten:

Thank you for having me. I had a great time.

Adam Sockel:

Passions & Prologues is proud to be an Evergreen podcast and was created by Adam Sockel and was produced by Adam Sockel and Sean Rule-Hoffman. And if you are interested in this podcast and any other Evergreen podcast, you can go to evergreenpodcasts.com to discover all the different stories we have to tell.