Today, Fable and the Verbivore are excited to share our June book club episode! This month we chose to dig into Leigh Bardugo’s enthralling fantasy heist duology, the Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom.

This series has a funny history on our podcast, as Fable read it over a year ago, loved it, and has mentioned it multiple times on our show - and it has been on the Verbivore’s TBR list for over two years. But we both feel that this conversation was well worth the wait.

The Six of Crows duology focuses on a motley crew of characters brought together in the grimy Barrel of Ketterdam - who have to overcome their differences and execute an impossible heist – all while facing possible death and betrayal at every turn. To us, this book combined the best that the found family story trope has to offer along with the engrossing twists and turns of a great thriller.

In this episode, we discuss how the author created larger-than-life characters that are none-the-less grounded in reality, how the opening chapter of Six of Crows play out the stakes of this story in miniature, and how the timing of POV switches right as a character is facing an important decision can create an internally driven cliffhanger.   

We also talk about how forcing characters into the perspectives of someone they are at odds with can help build tension and internal conflict around what they’ll chose to believe going forward and how that will impact their actions. 

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode, we sure enjoyed having this conversation! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore