The mark of a great fantasy novel is its ability to immerse you, the reader, into this brand new, imaginary world. For the duration of those pages, you’re no longer sitting in the comfort of your bedroom with a cup of tea. Oh, no. Instead, you’re riding through the clouds on the backs of dragons, talking to faeries and navigating the deep and complex worlds of goddesses. In recent years, the world of romantasy literature, in particular, has taken the world by storm – dominating bestseller lists, BookTok, and our bookshelves.
The sixth book in Sarah J Maas’ hit ACOTAR series, A Court Of Splintered Harmony, finally lands in bookshops on 27 October, and it got me wondering about how and where authors like her draw inspiration from when creating such vast and intricate worlds. For some writers, travel can be a huge source of research and inspiration, as we’ll find out more below.
A Court of Thorns & Roses by Sarah J Maas
In a 2016 interview with Waterstones on one of her book tours, Maas shared that some of the worldbuilding in her ACOTAR series was partially inspired by a trip she and her husband took around Scotland, spending a few days on Skye. She explained that this visit became the backdrop for the prison in A Court of Mist & Fury as she could imagine monsters imprisoned on Skye’s kind of landscape. “I love to travel and every place I see winds up inspiring my writing in some form or another,” she said in the interview. The author also draws inspiration from a range of mythologies, including English, Irish, and Hindu. “I didn’t want it to just be contained; why not draw inspiration from all over the globe! What’s the fun of being in just one place?” Maas said in 2015.