HALF SICK OF SHADOWS Book Club Kit

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Dear Reader,

I want to thank you for choosing Half Sick of Shadows for your book club. Authors aren’t supposed to pick favorites when it comes to their own books, but between us, this book is mine. As the expression goes, it’s the book of my heart.

I was seventeen when I first started to try and tell Elaine’s story, and it took me another thirteen years to do it justice. In many ways, Elaine and I have grown up together. I’m so excited for you to meet her as well as her friends, Arthur, Guinevere, Morgana, and Lancelot. While their names and stories might be familiar to you, I’ve tried to make them my own. I hope you love them all as much as I do.

This book was born of a dual love of and frustration with Arthurian myth– ology. I’ve always loved the sheer epicness of the stories of Arthur and his knights and their myriad of quests, but there are aspects that have always bothered me. Specifically, the treatment of its female characters. Women are either seductresses and manipulators, bent on destroying Arthur and Albion, or they’re helpless props for Arthur and his knights to rescue, only existing when they’re convenient. Either way, their stories always revolve around the men. They lack agency and complexity.

In writing Half Sick of Shadows, I wanted to give Elaine, Guinevere, and Morgana a chance to reclaim their narratives. None of them are paragons of virtue, nor are they evil incarnate. Instead, like most of us, they exist somewhere in between.

Flawed and messy, but trying their best to better the cruel world they live in.

I hope you enjoy Elaine’s story of magic, romance, friendship, and adventure.

Laura Sebastian

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Questions for Discussion 1. At the center of the book is the friendship between Elaine, Morgana, and Guinevere— three very different women. Were there any aspects of their relationship that you identified with?

2. Nimue refers to Elaine and Morgana as “two sides of the same coin.” What does she mean by this? Do you agree?

3. One of the larger themes of the book is fate. How much of a role do you think fate played in Elaine’s story versus her own choices? Do you believe in fate?

4. Lancelot and Guinevere’s affair is one of the best-known aspects of Arthurian mythology, though it only exists on the periphery here. Why do you think that is?

Can you still see their affair taking place?

5. Elaine’s relationship with her mother is unequivocally abusive, but Elaine still struggles with guilt over leaving her, even though her own safety was at risk.

Because her mother dies before Elaine can see her again, Elaine never gets closure.

What do you think she would say to her mother if given the chance?

6. Nimue channels prophecies through the scrying mirror, while Elaine uses the loom and her mother’s prophecies come out in verse. How would you like to see the future?

7. Elaine returns to Camelot a very different person than she was when she left. How does this affect the way she sees the city, its inhabitants, and herself?

Can you think of a time when you felt the same way?

8. Lancelot and Elaine go through many ups and downs from their first meeting to their last. Do you think Elaine’s visions were their biggest obstacle? If she hadn’t Seen every way they broke each other’s hearts, do you think they could have been happy, or were they doomed from the start?

9. Over the course of the book, Morgana and Elaine say and do things to each other that seem unforgivable. Though they make up in the end, how do you imagine their friendship might change going forward on Avalon, especially in their new roles with the power dynamic between them so changed?

10. The ending is left somewhat open. Do you believe Elaine’s final vision of her, Gwen, and Morgana returning Arthur to Avalon will come to pass? What do you think will happen afterward?