COMING 3.4.25
Dear Readers,
Have you ever wanted to pick a fight with a song?
This book – like rivers, and roots – had a long, meandering path through the world, but its source and seed was a seventeenth century folk ballad that I loved and wanted to fix. “The Cruel Sister” – and its many variants – is a ballad type where an older sister murders her younger sister for the love of a man.
As an eldest child who loves her younger sister more than anything, I had opinions about this! Not least of which: I couldn’t countenance the idea that a man could court two sisters at the same time and not be the villain of the story.
The River Has Roots is a love letter to ballads and the sisters who sing them together; to harp music and riddle songs; and to the landscape and history of Dartmoor, with its Stannary Towns and mysterious stone outcroppings that, whatever else they are, seem to mark a path into other worlds.
When This Is How You Lose the Time War came out in 2019, I couldn’t have been happier with its reception. I used to work in a bookstore, and felt so privileged to see This Is How You Lose the Time War on the receiving end of the kinds of passionate shelf-talkers and hand-selling that I used to do with Holly Black’s Tithe, Terri Windling’s The Wood Wife, and Hope Mirlees’ Lud-in-the-Mist. But seeing booksellers embrace the wild, madcap wonder of Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood last summer and be such kind stewards of that renewed enthusiasm was its own tremendous gift. Bookstores and booksellers have repeatedly changed my life for the better, and I’m so thrilled and excited to commit The River Has Roots – my solo debut! – into your hands. If this twisty little book finds its audience, I know it will be because of your generous work.
Wishing you all the very best,
Amal El-Mohtar
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