Fantasy author with Stratford ties returns to Festival City

Caitlyn Paxson sits down with fellow fantasy author C.S.E. Cooney at Fanfare Books on April 10. Paxson’s debut novel A Widow’s Charm is out now.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

At a very young age Caitlyn Paxson was thrust into Shakespeare – and into fantasy. When she was only three years old, she played a fairy in a production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

That experience proved to be formative. Years later, Paxson is still a lifelong lover of Shakespeare, theatre and fantasy, a love that has crystallized in her debut novel A Widow’s Charm.

A Widow’s Charm is a historical fantasy story set in a distinctive world with allusions to regency-era stories, stories like the works of Jane Austen, for instance. It follows Lady Hildegarde “Hilde” Croft, a maidservant who recently married Lord Thorgoode Croft. Hilde has big plans for the estate and its people, before Lord Croft unexpectedly died, leaving her plans dashed and her position unstable. Hilde’s salvation arrives in the form of Lord Elmwood, a neighbouring necromancer that can resurrect her dead husband – with a little blackmailing, of course.

Paxson was in Stratford as part of a regional tour promoting her book. As she told guests at Fanfare Books on April 10, she holds the Festival City in a special place of her heart.

"I actually went to school here many, many years ago,” Paxson laughed. “I was a student at Nancy Campbell Collegiate (Academy) and I came here to attend that school specifically because in my teenage years I really wanted to be a Shakespearean actress, that was my career aspiration. And I loved the idea of attending all the plays.

“... It was a really important year for me because I actually met my husband and we’re actually about to celebrate our 20th anniversary.”

Although the book’s allusions to the regency era are self-evident, Paxson shared that Shakespearean comedies were also inspirations. The story is split into three acts and the characters and plot are reminiscent of the bard’s madcap comedies A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Much To Do About Nothing, for instance.

Paxson also spoke with the Times about the subgenre she is writing in. Romantasy is a genre exploding in North America at the moment, a blend of the romance and fantasy genres, with Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses and Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing being prominent examples. While Romantasy is a popular subgenre, and her book is a fantasy romance, Paxson was hesitant to describe it as such – instead calling it a fantasy rom-com.

“Romantasy is really a marketing category and it's often, I think, applied to any book that is both fantasy and romance, so technically my book is a Romantasy,” Paxson said. “... I tend to call it a romantic fantasy rather than Romantasy when I talk about it because I feel like the tentpole books of that genre have certain plot expectations and arcs that are not necessarily what I’m delivering with this book. This book ... is as much a comedy as it is a fantasy.”

A Widow’s Charm is not her first written novel, rather her fifth. It was picked up by her literary agent Christabel McKinley and subsequently sold to her publisher Doubleday Canada, a fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

For her readers, Paxson hopes they have a good time.

“It’s a book that is intended to make people feel good,” Paxson said. “I hope that they think it’s funny, that they enjoy the humour. I hope that they find the romance very earnest. What I love about romance as a genre is that it’s really about people and about how we work, how our insides work ... So I hope that they take something away from the journeys the characters go on emotionally.”