Author Interview: Spells to Forget Us by Aislinn Brophy

Sapphic witches? Must be spooky season here at BookCrushin! We checked in with Aislinn Brophy on her sophomore story where two girls are spelled to stay away from each other but just can’t manage it (relatable). Check out our interview below and pick up Spells to Forget Us, out now!

Spells to Forget Us

by Aislinn Brophy
Published by: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
on September 17, 2024
Genres: LGBTQIA+, Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult
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A witch and a non-magical girl get stuck in a cycle of meet-cutes and breakups in this dazzling, romantic young adult fantasy.

Fate brought them together. Magic made them strangers.

Luna is a powerful witch. Known for her skills and feared for her temper, she’s set to preserve her family’s legacy by becoming the head of Boston’s Witch Council—a job she does not want.

Aoife is a non-magical girl. Raised under the lens of her influencer family, she’s grown up in the public eye. Now she yearns for privacy—but knows her parents won’t oblige.

Just when they are at their lowest, Aoife and Luna find each other and start dating. As decreed by magic law, Luna casts a spell that will erase Aoife’s memories of their history together if they ever break up. But when Aoife and Luna end things, it’s both of them who forget . . . that is, until they meet again, fall for each other, and recover all the memories of their last attempt at dating.

So begins the story of two star-crossed lovers who keep finding their way into each other’s orbits, even as the universe pulls them apart. When they set out to break the cycle, will they be strangers forever or together at last?

Interview with Aislinn Brophy

Both of your books have 🔥 covers. What was your initial reactions in seeing them?

If I’m being honest, I cried both times. For my first book, it was just this huge milestone that I couldn’t believe was happening. Seeing my characters rendered by an artist made it real for me that my story was being published! For Spells to Forget Us, I was floored that I had had this tremendous stroke of luck in getting yet another fabulous cover. The cover sketch was emailed me, and it was jawdroppingly good. It didn’t even look like a sketch! It was already so fully realized at that point. Shoutout to Zoë van Dijk, who did the art for Spells to Forget Us; Kelley Brady, who did the cover design for Spells to Forget Us; Alex Cabal, who did the art for How to Succeed in Witchcraft; and Danielle Ceccolini, who did the cover design for How to Succeed in Witchcraft.  

How did you create the system of magic in Spells to Forget Us?

I started designing the magic system while I was really obsessed with Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series. I loved that the main character in those books was extraordinarily powerful, but that the darkness of her magic and the consequences of using it were limiting factors to her actually utilizing the full extent of her powers. I wanted to play around with something similar, so I came up with the idea of having magic that was powered by sacrifice for my main character. 

After that, I worked on figuring out what kind of magic system sacrifice magic would work within. Ultimately, the world of Spells to Forget Us is one that contains lots of different types of magic, because it’s a world where most of the folklore and myths people have about magical people and creatures are true. I ended up needing to create some broad ideas for what different types of magic existed, and then I got more specific with the magical things that my characters are frequently interacting with in this story. 

What inspired you to include the family blogging aspect in this story? 

I knew that one of the themes I wanted to explore was about the way that being fetishized for being mixed-race can have a negative impact on your own self-perception and how you interact with people in romantic relationships. The way that people talk about mixed-race children online has always particularly creeped me out, because people are often really blatantly fetishizing their appearance. I thought that having a character who was a mixed-race child influencer would be a powerful way to explore that particular theme. Also, I generally find family blogging ethically dubious, and I think YA is the perfect age category for exploring its impact on children and teens. I think there should be more YA books about family blogging!