Here are some little tidbits about the Sweep series that you may (or may not) know.

1. Ann Branshers, author the The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, came up with the original idea of Sweep. 17th Street (now Alloy Entertainment) hired Cate Tiernan to write the series. More on that here.

2. Cate Tiernan's "word limit" for each Sweep book was about 50,000 words, give or take. However, with Night's Child, Cate Tiernan's limit was about 75,000 words.

3. Cate likes the cover for the first Sweep book--Book of Shadows--but never liked its successors. She hates the pink and the font the publishers used. (She had no opinion of the Wicca covers.)

4. Cates thoughts about the reissues covers in USA/Canada: "I love, love, love the new editions of Sweep. Those are the covers it always should have had. I knew the designer who designed the covers, and he was a nice guy, but so limited in his scope. I hated the hot pink and the typeface. Anyway. I’m thrilled about the new covers and the extra push they’re giving it." - Cate Tiernan

5. Cal Blaire's death was originally an editorial decision. If she had a choice, Cate would have let Cal live longer.

6. Cal Blaire and Selene Belltower were originally written as "tawny, golden, like a leopard". But the editors changed it (without telling Cate about it!) so Cal could match the model on the covers.

7. Alisa Soto prominent appearance within the series was another editorial decision. Cate Tiernan would have preferred to stick with Morgan and the others. Tiernan thinks the editors wanted an Alisa spin-off series with younger characters. (Or just make the series "younger".)

8. The editors and Cate tried to add Alisa into Night's Child, but it just did not fit. So, Alisa was never added in the final draft.

9. One of the the earlier brainstorms for the US cover edition of Night's Child was for the cover to be embossed (those shiny, metallic-looking covers) and for the cover to have a "key-hole" leading to a stepback art once the "front" cover was opened.

10. If you talk to Cate about a particular Sweep book, it's best to state the book number instead of the book title. Reason? She doesn't title the books. The editors do.

11. Cate wanted Justine Courceau from Seeker to be Morgan's new nemesis, but the idea was shot down because the series was ending and the editors wanted somebody from the Ciaran's Dynasty. One upon a time, a lot of online bookstore databases had book 14's old summary that mentions a "new enemy". This new ememy was Justine.

12. Full Circle's original outline was thrown out (see number 8) because the series was cancelled. They re-worked it to what is now book 14.

13. The Calling was originally titled The Seeker. Seeker was originally titled Origins and Legacy; Origins was originally titled Legacy. (I hope I got that right!)

14. To promote the final book, Night's Child, Penguin Putnam featured a quiz on their Sweep site for fans to guess the answers to certain occurences that will happen in the book. However, when the publisher's released their Razorbill Magazine, which featured the "Sweep Quiz", some of the original answers and choices were deleted and/or changed. Strangely, a lot of the answers in the second string of questions were not even in the final book. If you really want to be frank, the quiz was pretty pointless.

15. About David Redstone: Cate Tiernan did like his character, but the editors wanted a character to go "bad" to go along with the Stuart Afton plot (which was their idea), and Tiernan refused for Alyce to be the one. So, David was picked. David has pretty much followed Ciaran's fate. Tiernan finds his actions in book 5 "out of character".

16. Remember those mysterious BOS entries in book 8, Changeling? Did Nuala Roirdan sleep with Sinestus Tor? Yes. Cate says there was much more to the story, but it got cut down--a lot. Cate Tiernan states, "Nuala forced herself on him so she could have a baby without being married." Cate Tiernan loves the story, and believes it would have been a great book.

17. There are many loose ends within the series because Cate and the editors plotted around 2 books at a time (because contract renewal was ongoing, depending on sales). When Sweep first started, four books were outlined, but after that, two books were done at a time. Sometimes they wrote themselves in "corner", and it was difficult to get out of it--which could be one main reason why there is breakage (at times) in the series' total plot line and plot arc.

18. In the UK's version of Sweep, called Wicca, there are some "edited" scenes in books 10 and 14 dealing with "sexually explicit" subjects. In Seeker there are edits to the makeout scene between Hunter and Morgan in Chapter 3 - Goodbye. In Full Circle, there are three known edits: Chapter 3 - Morgan, where Morgan worries that she is the last virgin in Circle Kithic; Chapter 4 - Hunter, where Morgan and Hunter make out after Robbie and Bree leave; Chapter 15 - Morgan, where Morgan describes her first sexual encounter with Hunter during Baletane. The edits are pretty minor, and (in my opinion), UK readers will not miss very much. If you want to read the edits in either PDF format or Rich Text format.

19. According to Publisher's Weekly, the Sweep series (in total) sold almost a half million copies during its first release. Alloy Entertainment states that the foreign rights to Sweep have been sold to UK, Italy, France, and Russia.

Last Modified: Wednesday, 10/15/08

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