Adrienne Young’s home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina informs Jasper, the setting of The Unmaking of June Farrow and a fictionalized version of farming communities in Western North Carolina. Young began her career with young adult fiction. She is the author of the Sky and Sea duology, The Sky in the Deep (2018) and The Girl the Sea Gave Back (2019), which explores a fantastical Viking-inspired world in which young women are warriors. She also authored the Fable series, which takes place in the world of the Narrows, a fictional setting marked by the dangers of the sea. The series includes Fable (2020), Namesake (2021), The Last Legacy (2021), and Saint (2023).

Young’s first novel for adults, Spells for Forgetting (2022), takes place in a small island community. The protagonist’s life is changed when someone she loved, who was accused of murder, returns and reveals the past. Like Young’s previous young adult works, it features communities centered around water. It explores themes of truth, memory, and murder that recur in The Unmaking of June Farrow.

Small-town settings are significant in both Spells for Forgetting and The Unmaking of June Farrow. Characters are required to contend with others’ perceptions: August with the circumstances of Lily Morgan’s death and June with her father and the townspeople’s views of the curse that affects the Farrow women.