J Elle Builds a Fantasy World in 'House of Marionne'

Former educator and New York Times bestselling author of young adult fiction and multiple other books, J. Elle, chats with us to discuss the first book in her fantasy romance trilogy, House of Marionne. As Elle describes it, “House of Marionne is like Game of Thrones meets Succession with tiaras and pretty dresses. It follows Quell, who’s seventeen years-old who’s been on the run from a secret society because of the forbidden dark magic that she has, but when she’s almost caught by an assassin hunting her, she runs to one of the training schools for proper magic. She intends to master this proper form of magic in order to bury her dark magic forever, only her dark magic is determined to not be snuffed out and to make matters worse, she’s falling in love with an assassin in training from a rival house.” While it’s rare for YA novels to have adults as main characters, Quell’s mom is a key part of this story. “Her mother is a very central figure in the series… she’s her driving motivator because with Quell being on the run with her mom, it inadvertently puts her mother in danger as well and that begins to really weigh on Quell. She starts to feel really guilty about the fact that there’s these assassins hunting both of them because they’re trying to get to her…”

In early reviews of House of Marionne, there were many comparisons of Elle’s book to the Harry Potter series. As in Harry Potter, the characters in House of Marionne also attend a modern-day magical boarding school that includes a house system complete with house sigils, colors, and allegiances. Additionally, there’s also a genuine camaraderie within the houses. Elle explains, “There is a similar dynamic here, the difference is that in Harry Potter this is a world in Europe that… all of the schools are in different places and in different countries… in House of Marionne, the houses function more like lords, back as things were years and years ago, and so what you have is the the countries sectioned into territories and each territory has a house that serves that territory, so it’s all here.” House of Marionne also includes themes of power and conformity. “Part of the reason I’m exploring power is I want the people who don’t have power and what happens when a group of people aren’t given the freedom over their own lives… what happens when a person can’t have freedom, when it breeds revenge and who do we blame? … That’s part of what I was trying to create, which is why in this world you have such a very clear picture of an oppressive, powerful system where there are people within it who are clamoring to hold on to their power… “