My love of fantasy comes directly from my love of fairytales. My Dad bought me the Readers’ Digest series of original fairytales, two huge volumes, which I’ve still got and which have had to be kept together with gaffer tape! I spent many a happy hour reading these. The books contain the tales of Perrault, Anderson and Grimm. There are also wonderful illustrations.
I think the reason I love fairytales so much is they are honest stories dealing with what comes up in the battle between good and evil (and I adore the fact the villains nearly always get their comeuppance, something Roald Dahl tapped into with such brilliance with his works). I’ve got a great deal of sympathy with Cinderella.
I’ve set up the government in the fairy world to be loosely based on the Council system Elizabeth Tudor had and L’Evallier is roughly the equivalent of William, Lord Burghley. I’ve also set things up that the Palace staff (and the fairy world in general) will use machines when they can so they save magical energy. Use too much magic and it will punish the body of the user for it by leaving them fatigued, weak, unable to defend themselves magically for a while and so on. Use too much magic on land and that land becomes barren. My Fairy Kingdom has major regions like this, which are monuments to past magical battles. (It could be argued nobody really won them given these areas of land are now uninhabitable).
The Queen is a hobby gardener and has her own special patch she retreats to when she wants to escape her responsibilities well. I also wanted L’Evallier to be a decent soul who is eventually forced to sort himself out with regard to his wife and to increasingly stand up to a monarch who, out of blind panic, becomes prepared to overlook the rules to get her own way. L’Evallier is not prepared to overlook the rules, ever.