Bad Luck Girl Blog Tour: Author Interview with Sarah Zettel

Please welcome Sarah Zettel to GreenBeanTeenQueen! Her amazing historical 

fantasy series, The American Fairy Trilogy, concludes with book three, Bad

Luck Girl.

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About Bad Luck Girl: After rescuing her parents from the Seelie king at Hearst Castle, Callie 

is caught up in the war between the fairies of the Midnight Throne and the Sunlit Kingdoms. 

By accident, she discovers that fairies aren’t the only magical creatures in the world. There’s also 

Halfers, misfits that are half fairy and half other—half paper, half steel girder, half electric spark. 

As the war heats up, Callie’s world falls apart. And even though she’s the child of prophecy, she doubts she can save the 

Halfers, her people, her family, and Jack, let alone herself. Bad Luck Girl, they call Callie, and she’s starting to believe them.

The American Fairy Trilogy is historical fantasy. What about history inspires 

you to write?

That’s a big question.  I guess the first reason would be because history is full 

of people and people are endlessly fascinating and inspiring.  The actions of people 

who did big things, small things, good things, bad things, both, who survived, who failed to, are the raw stuff 

of stories.  Add to that a dramatic landscape, like, say, the Dust Bowl or Chicago in the age of Depression 

and jazz, and how could anybody fail to find inspiration?  Plus, I am very much interested in the way things 

work, and it’s only by studying history and trying to understand it that we find out how the present works, 

and how the future might work. One of the reasons I write is to learn, and writing about history is one 

heck of a way to learn about history.

What does it feel like to have your trilogy come to an end?

There’s a certain amount of relief.  It means I don’t have to work on it anymore.  For me, there comes

a point when, no matter how much I love a story, I just never want to see it again.  There’s a certain amount

of satisfaction as well, as there always is when you’ve finished a big job.  Of course, I’m a little sorry too. 

 I spent a lot of time with Callie, Jack and their world.  I had a lot of fun, a lot of frustration and I certainly

learned a lot with and from the process of writing these books, and it’s always hard to let that go.  

What are you working on next?

I always have more projects in the hopper than is good for me, or my long-suffering, hard-working 

agent. I’ve just finished the third book in my other YA historical trilogy: Palace of Spies.  Book #2 in that 

series, Dangerous Deceptions, is coming out this November.  I have a mid-grade book about a girl who 

finds unicorns and monsters living in the shopping mall her parents manage.  I’m working on another

historical YA set in Greenwich Village during the Red Scare.  Oh, and did I mention the thriller,

and the epic fantasy and…

What time period would you travel back in time to if you could?

Me, personally, I wouldn’t go back.  I like history, I enjoy the mental exercise of setting stories there.  

But when it comes down to it, the past is a messy, uncomfortable place where I wouldn’t have had 

many rights, not to mention conveniences like antibiotics and eyeglasses.  If I was going to time travel,

I’d go forward, maybe fifty years?  Maybe a hundred?  See what the future holds.  

Thanks to Green Bean Teen Queen for letting me stop by!

Sarah Zettel