PHOTO: Ruth Frances Long, an acclaimed author known for her dazzling worlds where historical details meet the extraordinary.
Historical Fantasy And Magical Realism Woven Into Spellbinding Narratives
Ruth Frances Long explores history through the lens of magic, delving into the Renaissance, folklore, and legendary places to craft entrancing fantasy worlds teeming with emotion and adventure.
Ruth Frances Long is a storyteller who crafts portals into mesmerising worlds, where history and magic entwine effortlessly. From the bustling streets of sixteenth-century Antwerp to the misted hills of mythical Ys, her settings are as rich and alive as the characters that traverse them. With a deep appreciation for folklore, history, and the fantastical, Long’s writing resonates with a sense of discovery—of not just new places, but the truths nestled within their stories. Always searching for the “liminal places” where reality and imagination meet, she guides her readers into landscapes at once familiar and thrillingly strange.
A rare books librarian by trade, Long’s work draws not only on painstaking research but also on a rare ability to see the narrative threads woven through humanity’s past. Her passion for arcane texts and bygone eras has shaped a signature style that delicately balances historical authenticity with imaginative licence. From defying medieval conventions to conjuring ancient deities, she stirs historical detail into narrative alchemy, forging tales that are as thought-provoking as they are magical.
In a world where history is often compartmentalised and rarely questioned, Long reminds us of its inherent strangeness and mutability. Her stories call us not only to dream but to rethink—to consider what might have been lost in translation from past to present. Her words enchant and challenge, offering passageways into the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary—and coaxing readers to linger in the realm of the possible just a little longer.
How did your experience as a rare books librarian and your fascination with the Plantin Bible influence the historical details and magical realism in The Book of Gold?
I have always been fascinated with books, ever since I was little. That love led me into my career as a librarian as much as my writing career. While researching the Plantin Bible for my library, I came across the roller-coaster story of its production, and began to explore the wild-west of Antwerp in the sixteenth century. I was completely hooked. It has everything from riots, bankruptcy, sedition, shipwrecks (more than one) and the Spanish Inquisition. I visited the Plantin-Moretus museum, where this magnificent work was produced, and everything started to come alive for me. But I didn’t know how to slot all these wonderful stories from history into the type of story I love to tell and I am not a historian. I spoke about this at Octocon, the Irish National Science Fiction convention, and the following morning woke up with the realisation that it had to be a heist. Someone had to lead that heist. And so, the indomitable Lyta Cornellis was born.
The Book of Gold blends a heist narrative with Renaissance inspired world building—what challenges did you face balancing historical authenticity with magical invention?
The world of the past is a strange and wonderful place, and human beings have always been human beings. Writing fantasy gives a lot of leeway. I tend to refer to it, as a joke, as breaking history. I use gods as magical beings in these books, some based on historically worshipped deities, and some my own invention. This changed the way religion works in this world. It’s not so much a case of needing to have faith, as to people trusting in the gods they know exist. Some are worthy of that trust and others are not. Sometimes I change things deliberately, for the sake of the stories, and sometimes it’s just a fortuitous mistake. But there is often a gap between what people believe they know about the past and what might actually have happened. And, as history is written by the victors, sometimes we simply do not know the truth. History is far stranger than fiction.
As the first entry in The Feral Gods series, how did you develop Lyta’s character and her relationship with her brother against the backdrop of sedition and magical power?
I am the type of author where the characters are very much alive in my head before I can start writing. Lyta leaped out onto the page fully formed. I still don’t really know how that happened. Most of the time I’m just writing the incident report.
In your Jessica Thorne persona, The Lost Queen trilogy introduces witches and shadow magic—what were your key influences when creating that world?
The Lost Queen is based partly on the story of Rapunzel but I also drew on a rich heritage of fantasy romance adventures. I love chivalric romances, Arthurian legends and the chansons de geste, but often wondered what happened if, like Lanval, one of these knights errant needed rescuing. Hedge witches and folk healers also fascinate me, more than the wicked witch of popular culture. I wanted to explore ideas of being born good or evil and to instead present the shades of grey in between.
Your stand alone novel, The Water Witch, features richly researched Breton settings—could you describe a particular research moment when setting felt “utterly magical”?
Brittany, particularly the far western coast, is a magical place which I have deeply loved for years. The Water Witch takes place on the Cap Sizun peninsula, setting of the legend of the lost city of Ys. While researching, I went to the Pointe de Castelmeur. There is a local legend that you can, at times, hear the echoes of the gates of Ys slamming shut across the bay. And yes, you definitely can…
Your dual identity as Ruth Frances Long and Jessica Thorne spans YA fantasy, historical fantasy and adult romantasy—how do you adapt your craft across these readerships?
I always focus on the story I want to tell first and foremost. I don’t tend to differentiate between the two. I tell stories about love and the magical in everyday life, whether today or long ago and always try to stay true to that.
Folklore and history inform much of your writing—from Dubh Linn to The Bookbinder’s Daughter—how do you decide which legends or historical moments to weave into your narratives?
Again, it is very much in service to the story and the characters. However, those stories tend to come from legends or historical events or places so really those elements create the story rather than the other way around.
What single piece of advice would you offer aspiring authors hoping to write across genres and under multiple pen names, as you have so successfully done?
Follow the story and worry about the market later. The story is everything. Stay true to that.
