In Honeysuckle, Bar Fridman-Tell draws on the Welsh myth of Blodeuwedd to craft a haunting, emotionally complex story about love, power, and agency. The novel follows Rory and Daye, a companion made from flora, as their relationship evolves from care into something far more complicated. Blending folklore with unsettling intimacy, Honeysuckle explores the quiet tensions within relationships built on imbalance, asking whether love can exist without autonomy. To celebrate the release, we spoke to Bar Fridman-Tell about reimagining myth, writing morally complex dynamics, and the emotional questions at the heart of the novel.
Honeysuckle is a loose reimagining of the Welsh myth of Blodeuwedd, a woman crafted from flowers. What drew you to this particular myth, and what did its Welsh folklore roots allow you to explore in the story?
I grew up on Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain, so Welsh mythology has always been very close to my heart. When I grew old enough to search for the original myths—and first encountered the Mabinogion—I fell absolutely in love, especially with the story of Blodeuwedd. But it never sat well with me that she was framed as the villain, when she had so few choices—not even agency over her own body. Honeysuckle was my way of exploring this aspect of the myth, asking what happens in a relationship shaped by such a deep power imbalance, and whether it could have ended in any way other than a tragedy, even with the best intentions.
At the heart of the novel is the relationship between Rory and Daye, a companion made from flora. What interested you in exploring a creator-and-creation dynamic, and how did you approach tracing the shift from love and care into dependency and control over time?
I approached the creator-and-creation dynamic a bit sideways—focusing less on the ethics of creation itself (which I sidestepped by making Rory’s sister, rather than Rory, Daye’s initial creator), and more on what it means for Rory to be the one who must repeatedly choose to recreate Daye or watch her fall apart, and for Daye to be created for someone and dependent on him for her very existence. I was interested in the quiet, almost invisible ripples this might send through their relationship, and the toll it might take on both of them over time.
Daye’s awareness and sense of agency develop gradually throughout the book. How did you decide what level of consciousness and choice she would have at different stages of the story?
In many ways, the shifts in Daye’s awareness are tied to her evolving relationship with Rory, and to his lengthening absences, which force her—for the first time—to define herself separately from him. By focusing on small, intimate moments, I tried to let that growth unfold as organically as possible, and to mirror it in the gradual lengthening of her POV chapters.
Rory’s sister plays a key role in Daye’s creation, while Rory’s friends offer outside perspectives on his relationship with her. What role did these secondary characters play in shaping the emotional and moral tensions of the novel?
Much of Honeysuckle exists within the closed space of Rory and Daye’s relationship—filtered through their perspectives, and shaped by the isolated bubble in which this relationship takes place. The secondary characters—Rory’s sister and friends—offer a vantage point from outside that bubble. While they each have their own roles in the story, they also allow for a sudden shift in perspective—an opportunity for both the reader and the narrative to step back and see the relationship from a different angle.
The book is filled with vivid botanical imagery and an atmosphere that feels both beautiful and unsettling. What was on your mood board while you were writing Honeysuckle?
I’m actually not much of a mood board creator—my inspirations tend to take the form of ever-multiplying, chapter-specific playlists. But at the time I was writing Honeysuckle, I was living just next to a wooded area (the Institute Woods in New Jersey), and I walked there every day—passing deer and rabbits and birds, watching fireflies in the summer and leaves turn in autumn. In a way, it felt like I was living inside a Honeysuckle mood board.
Many readers find Honeysuckle emotionally challenging in the best way. What conversations or questions do you hope readers carry with them after finishing the book?
I hope that Honeysuckle will make readers think about the role power dynamics play in every relationship, and the delicate, often invisible interplay between love, power, agency, and consent. But more than anything, I love how personal reading is—how a book is created in the space between the words on the page and the person encountering them. Every experience is different. If Honeysuckle lingers—if it makes someone feel or reflect or see something differently—that’s already more than I could hope for.
