Anna Fiteni on the Welsh fae origins behind The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire

In The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire, debut author Anna Fiteni blends rich Welsh mythology with the haunting legacy of coal mining to craft a dark, twisty fantasy about truth, grief, and power. The story follows Sabrina as she journeys into the fae world to rescue her beloved sister Ceridwen. With chilling bargains, and a yearning romance, The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire is one of our top favourite reads this year. To celebrate the release, we chatted with Anna about writing Welsh stories, weaving history into fantasy, and why Sabrina’s wickedness made her the perfect heroine.

Congratulations on your debut! Did you always know the first book you write is going to be one inspired by Welsh mythology? 

Honestly no! I’ve been writing books since I was in high school and none of them had been about Wales until The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire. When I was living in England for uni, I got really homesick, so that’s where this book came from. Though it wasn’t my plan to be a Welsh Author writing about Welsh Things, I’m glad it’s turned out that way.

Not many people actually know that fairies are a Welsh myth. Why do you think fairy books don’t always credit Welsh mythology? 

Loads of cultures have their own versions of fairy myths, but a lot of what we see in western books draws often from Wales, partly because a lot of fantasy authors are heavily influenced by Tolkein, who was really interested in Wales. It’s natural that, in following in Tolkein’s footsteps, a bit of Wales would seep into the popular consciousness of fairy and elf mythology, but not all authors give the Welsh influence the same credit Tolkein does. It’s basically become a game of telephone. Wales often gets treated like we’re nothing more than a part of England – just look at what’s going on at the moment with HS2 and the Oxford-Cambridge rail routes being deemed as England and Wales projects, despite both having nothing to do with Wales.

The book also draws from Welsh mining history, which is brilliant. Why did you decide to blend it with the fantasy plot?

The legacy of mining puts Wales in a strange position as one of England’s first colonial possessions, who’s people were put in danger to exploit our natural resources, but also then became a contributor to the British Empire’s expansion around the world, fuelled by our coal and collaboration. So many communities in Wales to this day are impacted by the mines; communities that were broken up by closures, that have higher rates of respiratory illnesses, that still haven’t recovered from the loss of jobs. When the mines were closing, Wales was on the frontlines of the fight for workers’ rights, which is something I think we should be very proud of as a country. I also have a really distinct memory of learning about the Aberfan disaster as a child, and I was shocked when I moved to England and found out that so few people knew about Aberfan. It was important to me to reflect how much the legacy of the mines is still a living, evolving thing in Wales.

What was the research like for this book? Can you tell us something you researched but couldn’t include in The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire?

I really have to restrict myself because I would spend my whole life researching and forgetting to write. One thing I wish I could’ve gotten in was some of my research about funerals in Victorian era Wales, and death omens. I learnt about Sin-Eaters, which was a man who would eat a ritual meal beside a corpse to absorb his sins, allegedly practised in Wales and on the borders well into the nineteenth-century.

The characters are super complex and layered. Why did you decide to cast a morally grey character as the protagonist, especially when fairies are already portrayed as cunning and tricksy beings? 

In traditional stories, fairies can’t lie, so that’s the one advantage a human would have over them. The protagonist had to be a liar out of necessity and then I had to figure out why exactly Sabrina would be such a good liar, which naturally made her a little morally dubious – and very fun to write.

Even though Ceridwen disappears for most of the plot, her personality shines through the pages. How did you make it work? 

My editors take the credit! They pointed out that even if Sabrina thinks her sister is perfect, she probably isn’t. Ceridwen exists through a lot of the book just in Sabrina’s memories and her jealous ranting, which made Ceridwen larger than life in a way. I just hope when she finally makes it onto the page later in the book, it’s worth the wait.

Lastly, The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire reads well as a standalone but any plans for a sequel? 

My original plan was for there to be a companion novel, but the team at my publisher ended up wanting to see more of Sabrina and based on early reviews, I think readers do too. I’m writing a direct sequel now!