Adrienne Tooley: On Giving Time for Lightbulb Moments in Fiction
Adrienne Tooley is the author of Sweet & Bitter Magic as well as the Indie Next List selection Sofi and the Bone Song. The Third Daughter is, fittingly, her third novel. In addition to writing books, she is a singer-songwriter and has released several EPs which are available on Spotify & other streaming sites.
Adrienne, her wife, and their dog live in Brooklyn. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Adrienne Tooley
Sylvie Rosokoff
In this post, Adrienne discusses what inspired her latest novel, what she was doing when she had her lightbulb moment, and more.
Name: Adrienne Tooley
Literary agent: Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret
Book title: The Third Daughter
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books/Little, Brown for Young Readers
Release date: July 18, 2023
Genre/category: YA Fantasy
Previous titles: Sweet & Bitter Magic, Sofi and the Bone Song
Elevator pitch for the book: When Elodie Warnou purchases a potion from an apothecary on the evening of her youngest sister’s coronation, she only intends to put the new queen to sleep for a short spell. But Sabine, the apothecary who sells her sadness, accidentally sends Elodie away with a vial of tears, which sends Velle’s newest queen—the prophesied reincarnation of their deity the New Maiden—into an unawakenable slumber. With the crown vulnerable and a corrupt church claiming unchecked power, Sabine and Elodie must hurry to wake the Third Daughter as the fates of their families and country hang in the balance.
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What prompted you to write this book?
The first germ of this idea came to me toward the end of 2020, smack dab in the middle of the pandemic. In the midst of such a tumultuous and emotional time, I was desperate for escapism, but I also wanted to leech out some of my own tumultuous emotions. As a teenager, I remember wishing that I could feel less, that if I could simply bottle up my emotions I could better navigate the world. So then I began to wonder: What would happen if you could literally bottle up your feelings?
That was how the character of Sabine came to be. This girl from a run-down harbor town felt so deeply that her tears are magic. When she bites back her emotions, lets them stew and brew inside of herself, her sadness is so powerful that a single tear improves the efficacy of her mother’s medicinal brews tenfold. But anything when monetized takes on a different slant, and so this power becomes twisted, births a darkness in her head that echoes her own worst thoughts and feelings. Her emotions might be magic, but she’s still a teenager, and how she feels is one of the most difficult things in her life to navigate.
As a teenager—and even now, as an adult—we are warned that emotional women are irrational, untrustworthy, dramatic, unbelievable. I wanted to write this book to prove the opposite: an emotional woman is a powerful one.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
While I created the character of Sabine in 2020, Elodie, the princess of Velle and Sabine’s anti-heroine foil, didn’t come to me until the next year. I had been holding onto this concept of a prophesied “third daughter of a third daughter” for years, and had toyed around with a few different plotlines, but it didn’t truly come alive until I started to wonder: If the third daughter is the one with all the power, what happens to the first daughter? How might she feel watching her sibling get something she thought was promised to her?
Still, for a few months I thought I was working on two very separate ideas, and it wasn’t until one night when I was brushing my teeth (I get a lot of my lightbulb moments when I’m specifically thinking about something else) that I realized the stories of these two girls—Elodie, the slighted princess, and Sabine, the emotional apothecary—were impossibly intertwined.
From there, the pieces all began to fall into place. The Third Daughter went on submission in September 2021, and we accepted an offer in November of that same year. I spent 2022 revising with my editor and drafting the sequel.
So while the publishing piece (submission, editing, publishing) all moved fairly quickly, I owe a lot of the integral pieces of this book to ideas that had been stewing for years, ready and waiting for the right time to come to life.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The entire publishing process for The Third Daughter was very quick. While most people wouldn’t think selling a book in 2021 for 2023 publication is fast, internally, there was a lot of momentum, and in fact, the book has been entirely finished since the end of 2022. This was surprising, but such a gift, because it allowed me to draft the sequel in a bit of a bubble—no one had read the first book, so I wasn’t being influenced by any expectations or doubts, I could simply shut out the world and write.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Originally, I had envisioned The Third Daughter as a standalone novel. When we pitched it, I thought the story wrapped itself up neatly at the end of one book. But during the submission process, my now-editor reached out and asked my agent if I envisioned a second book in this world, and if so, what would happen?
My two previous novels were both standalones, so I didn’t have much experience with duologies, and in fact, I had never given myself permission to imagine this story outside the constraints of a single volume. But the moment my editor asked the question, I knew she was right: There was more.
With that newfound permission, I started to expand the plot, the characters, the world, and spread a wider web. The ability to expand, to spend more time with Elodie and Sabine, was such a gift, and one that ensured I was able to give them both the personal journeys they were both warranted and deserved.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
This book is for anyone who has felt the crushing weight of expectations or emotions, who might worry they’re too much, or not enough. For anyone like Elodie, who struggles to find their place in a world that seems to hold no room for them. For anyone like Sabine who is afraid of their own feelings, of the way their emotions consume and control every aspect of their life. I hope that they see themselves reflected in these characters and their journeys, that they are left with the understanding that they are more than enough.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Let your ideas ruminate. So many pieces of this book were ideas and concepts I couldn’t fit into my work at the time, but if I hadn’t saved them, if I had discarded them or forgot to document them, this book might never have come to be. As writers it can feel like we need to utilize every idea that comes to us immediately, but one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that timing is everything. Save your ideas, let them bloom and grow so that when the time is right, they’re ready and waiting for you.
While there’s no shortage of writing advice, it’s often scattered around—a piece of advice here, words of wisdom there. And in the moments when you most need writing advice, what you find might not resonate with you or speak to the issue you’re dealing with. In A Year of Writing Advice, the editors of Writer’s Digest have gathered thoughts, musings, and yes, advice from 365 authors in dozens of genres to help you on your writing journey.