"Red Queen" Author Victoria Aveyard on "The Lord of the Rings" || Books That Changed My Life

This chapter is all bangers. Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment, for even the very wise cannot see all ends. If someone came back and told me at 12 years old, like, hey, you're going to be a fantasy author and you're going to be successful for wherever I am in the world of fantasy, and this is how you're going to support yourself, and you're going to be doing this as your full-time job, I'd be like, You shut the hell up right now. How dare you? I'm gonna go cry.

Okay, so the big question, how did The Lord of the Rings change your life?

The Lord of the Rings.

I'm Chris Collins and you're watching Books That Changed My Life. Calling all elves, dwarfs, dragons, orcs, and goblins. This week we're joined by all-star fantasy author Victoria Aveyard. Get ready, nerds. It's finally happening. She's here to talk about the book that changed her life. You may have heard of it, The Lord of the Rings. By J.R.R. Tolkien. You're going to hear a little bit about Victoria's next book, Tempest, towards the end of the episode. It's a pirate fantasy romance and it's great. It's gonna be a huge hit and we're giving away 50 signed copies for free. Here's how to get yours. Just drop a like and comment on the video, subscribe to the channel, and hit the link in the description below. Follow the instructions and we'll get your copy out to you ASAP. Now sit back and enjoy the conversation. What is your book situation like at home?

Oh boy, it's a mix of, as like a working author, you get sent a lot of books that are either, you know, books of your friends or books that they want you to blurb or books that someone just has your address and now they send you books. And then I have piles and piles and piles of my own books, which are shoved into pretty much every corner. So I'm kind of rotating the displays always wherever I have storage in my house. I don't have, like a full dedicated room, but I do have a shelf with all of my translations, which is really cool to see like all the different places that I've gotten books to go in all the different languages.

So you like having them around so you can look at them?

Kind of. It's a little bit— the translation shelf is actually slightly embarrassing, so it's not in a room that we're in that much because I don't know, looking at all of them while you're very proud, you're also like, oh, that's— I feel a little bit embarrassed by all of those books. But it is always— I have one shelf right next to the sort of main TV in the house where I have one copy of every book I've ever written, and every time I get a new one, putting it on that shelf feels really, really cool. Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

So are there books that you've had since, like, for example, this?

Yes.

Where are those displayed?

Those are in my office. Um, I have a shelf kind of over my computer, and now that I'm thinking about it structurally, I don't know if that's gonna be the best idea in the long run if it ever like falls down and crushes my computer. Um, but I have a ton of the books from when I was a kid, Versus, like, my other— I always think, you know, what are the books that I would grab if my house was on fire? And it's this one, the first edition of the first book I ever wrote, and then I have a signed edition of A Dance with Dragons from when that first came out. So, I went to a George R.R. Martin book signing, and he had his assembly line, and it was the most amazing book signing I've ever seen. But that would be the other one I'd grab, and I have that one up there too.

How does it feel now that you're the one signing the books?

It's very weird. It's very strange. But at the same time, I'm able to compartmentalize it a little bit because I think if you think about it too much, I would freeze up. And I think I would revert totally into that 13-year-old who's very, very awkward and very, very weird. But I'm also thinking at the same time, you know, what would meeting an author or having my book signed by them have meant to me at that age or whatever age the person in front of me is? So you just kind of, You become blank a little bit and it's all about that person across the table from you instead of giving them whatever you can give them in the 30, 40 seconds that you get to speak to them for and just be like, hey, we're all book nerds here. This is really, really cool. I can't believe I get to do this. I can't believe you get to do this. Like, thank you so much for coming.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's about them, right?

It is. It absolutely is. And while touring and going to events, there's always gonna be that element of like, oh, that is actually quite It's tiring and it takes a lot out of you. It's also one of the only times that we get to connect with our readers in person. You know, it's such a solitary job writing a book. You're just alone speaking to the people in your head. And a couple of times a year you get to speak to real people about them. So, you know, can't complain too much.

Are you shy?

I am, and I fake it immensely. I definitely feel shy, and I've learned in this job, strangely, that doesn't fly, which is strange because it's a job that, introverts naturally gravitate towards, but you have to kind of be extroverted to do it, at least to market, to sell now that social media has become such a thing for authors. And then getting to go up on a stage and talk about your books as a writer, it's not a skill we naturally have. So it's quite strange to find out it's a skill you need. So over the course of my career, having to develop This is for your job. You need to suck it up. You need to do this. But when you get home, you're still gonna have a hard time picking up the phone and ordering a pizza. That's so funny.

Yeah, that's funny. And so like, how long have you been approaching it that way? Like, how did you, how did you make that turn?

Kind of.

And are you on TikTok? Like, yeah, doing TikTok dance and all?

Oh, good God. Not, not the dances. If the dances are happening, something's going Very, very wrong. Um, I will—

You're selling a ton of books.

Or I'm not selling enough and someone's like, can you do a dance? Um, no. So TikTok is interesting in that I think sort of the heyday of TikTok for authors at least has kind of passed, or the algorithm has changed so much that I don't understand it anymore. It's less about like the, the views and the reach. It's more about the engagement with your readers who are already following you and already care about what you're doing. And that's where I'm finding more success now on social media is deep engagement versus broad. So when you talk about, I can, you know, post a 3 or 4 minute video talking about, here I, here's where I am in the process of writing my book right now. I'm working on this edit. This is what I'm struggling with. This is what I know I need to fix. And this is how I'm getting through the day with this. You're not gonna get, you know, a lot of views, but you're gonna get a lot of comments from people who are excited for that book. And so it's about maintaining those sort of deeper relationships with your readers who are already with you versus— trying to expand, but we're always trying to expand at the same time. It's just a very, again, another strange skill that wasn't required and now suddenly is. And I know a lot of authors chafe with that idea that social media has become so important for us.

How much time do you spend a week on social media?

Oh, good God. Um, filming, I try and batch. So if I'm doing something like this where I have to put on a face of makeup, like I will, if I have the time, try and film like a couple of, you know, 6 or 7-second, more trend videos. And then also talking to the camera or talking about, you know, like, hey guys, this, I'm going on tour, here's the links, like getting that kind of content. And that's okay if you condense it, if you do it when you're ready for it. It's not that much time, maybe an hour or 2 a week. But in terms of monitoring comments, DMs, I don't really interact with the DMs anymore. Comments are more the thing. Keeping up with trends, keeping up with what's going on. That's, you don't really want to look at your screen time on your phone sometimes, but sometimes that notification comes up and is like, here's how many hours you spent on the phone this week. And you're just like, shit, that's no good. I should practice going into the cocoon more when it's time to actually get into the deep drafting. But I'm in the edit phase of my next book right now, so it's a little more lax.

This one?

So the second one. So that one comes out in September. So I'm—

I'm guessing there's a second one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So something interesting about this book, I wrote both of them at the same time. I accidentally wrote a 300,000-word draft. I set out to write a standalone novel.

And then you cut it?

And my editor said, we cannot publish this as one book. And it wasn't so much an editorial thought, although once we realized we have to split it, the editorial, we figured out this is the right choice for the story. But the first conversation was actually about We can't spray the edges on a book this big. And to have the production conversation so early after the first draft and know that from a production standpoint, we are going to have to shift how we're approaching this book is again so strange. But that's what publishing is like. We are at these, this intersection of art and commerce and like art and reality.

Mm-hmm.

And so books of that length, they also worry about The pages being too thin and the glue of the spine holding up. There's some metric about so many books need to be able to be stacked outwards on a shelf, and if they can't stack 3 back to back like that, then you can't print them that big. And that's in the United States. It's totally different in the UK. In the UK, they were like, we can print books that long all day long. We don't care. But in the US, they couldn't do it.

Have you seen Power Broker?

I haven't, no.

I would send your publisher Power Broker. Can you grab it?

Yes.

So I found out one thing about Power Broker is that they cut, I think, 300 pages or something. And it's partially a story about a female that challenged him or whatever. And that part got cut, which would be so fascinating if anybody ever put that out.

Right. We need the omnibus.

But yeah, I don't know.

Yeah. So that one we split in half. Did it affect your creative It affected it, but once we start— this was what was really interesting and what really helped me know that the decision to split the book in half was the right decision, is beyond those production questions, both my editors, my US and my UK editor, came back with the same notes of, we actually wanted more time in this world, and we wanted more time with these characters in these situations. We wanted more breathing space.

Mm-hmm.

And so, Knowing that in a book that was already— Oh, yeah. So this is a weapon.

This is a brick. But I guess that's the biggest they can go.

Yes. This is probably—

Not one more page and it blows up.

Not one more page. And I also think they're thinking, 'cause I got a lot of comments about this, of people being like, well, I didn't wanna hold a book that big. It becomes a bit of an exercise to hold a book that big on the wrist. Which I understand. But yeah, the notes were about expanding the story, and I knew that was not something I could ever do if I kept it as a standalone. So, we started thinking about a duology, and then the question becomes, well, where do we split it in half? And so, because this book is told in dual timeline, there was a lot of, how do we make sure the moments are braided properly and that each beat echoes with the beat after it? And how do we make this feel like the first book still has a completed arc, but it is part of a bigger arc that's going to be completed in the second one? So, that's what I'm working on now. I'm in the— I've turned in the second draft of the second book and I'm waiting for notes.

What is your creative process? How much time a day do you spend writing? What's your space like?

Yeah. So for my last like 4 or 5 books, I have an office in my house. And before that it was like writing in the bedroom or writing at a coffee table. But having an office, having a space where I can shut the door and my brain kind of knows like, going to be going to work now is very, very helpful to me.

What color is it?

Ooh, it's, I actually have like floral wallpaper. I went, I went quite, I, I went all in on my office in a way that I enjoyed. I had a decorator come in and help me. And I have, and I've learned this, my desk is too big. I have a desk that wraps halfway around the whole room. And so there's 2 spaces to sit and it's too much surface space. And so I've started like putting stuff on it and not getting rid of it. And now it's too cluttered because It's just too much space. And I almost think if I had a smaller desk, I'd be more deliberate in what I'm doing and what's on the desk with me. So I have to be better at that. But again—

Are you on a desktop or a laptop when you're—

I'm on a desktop.

Desktop.

And I have, you know, the riser thing so I can stand up.

What program are you writing in?

I'm writing in— so if I'm drafting, I'm writing in Scrivener. And I love Scrivener, especially if you're a fantasy author, because you can keep all of your world-building, your research, all of it all same like document file. And if you're— you've got multiple perspectives or multiple POVs in the book, you can move those around very easily. And then once we go to edits, I go kicking and screaming into Microsoft Word. And I've learned, you know, past— I think it's 170,000 words, spell check stops working on like a track changes document, especially a fantasy novel where half the words are all invented. It really doesn't like it. You save Every single page until that pinwheel comes up. We all think about it.

Okay, so what time of day do you start writing?

Okay, so I like to say I keep store hours. So I work unless I'm hard on a deadline. I'm a Monday to Friday worker. I do not work on the weekends. And I find that that really helps cut down on like Sunday scaries, essentially. A lot of people are like, oh, I don't want to go to work tomorrow. And I've I want to, I'm excited to get back into it and get back into my space.

So that time off creates that pull?

Yes. So on my ideal day would be I get everything done that I need to get done, you know, work out, walk the dog, whatever else needs to happen before 10:00 AM. And 10:00 AM to 4:30 is around when I usually walk the dog again and then give her her dinner. That really helps me break up my day. And it's not gonna be, you know, pure drafting for that amount of time. I have a lunch break, but there's gonna be, All of the admin, the emails, the content, the— someone needs you to fill out this interview right now while you're also drafting. But if I'm really in it on a deadline, I ignore all those things. And it's just—

So you turn off the phone?

I wish I should. Oh, you don't? I put on do not disturb. I think that helps.

But you'll check it every once in a while?

Every once in a while. And I do sometimes, if I really need the help, I have a I have a little clock on my desk and I do Pomodoro. So you set the, it's like an egg timer and you set 30 minutes, go for 30 minutes, you set 5 minutes, you get 5 minutes to dick around, do whatever the hell you wanna do, and then you're back in it. I find that helps me quite a lot.

Who, who else is in the house?

No one. So my husband does not work from home. It's just me and it's the dog. My, I call her the furry intern.

So you, you create your own? Yeah.

Yes. Essentially, it is really nice during the day and everyone's like, oh, you know, you're so, you seem so extroverted. I'm like, it's because I get 8 to 9 hours of alone time every single day. And if I don't get that, then you'll start to see why I, I need that. Yeah.

So do you, uh, do you have any tricks for when you get stuck?

Okay. So for me, writer's block means It's one of two things. The first one, which is the easy one, is just you're burnt out. You need, you need to freshen up your eyes somehow. You have to step away from the page and sort of let yourself reset. And it could be a day, it could be a week. Come back, look at it again with fresh eyes and refreshed, you know, everything. You're gonna—

If you have a day or week, are you just not thinking about it?

No way. Yes. And, um, I actually find that don't think about it A really vital part of my process in between edits. So when I turn in a draft, I do not look at it again up until right before my editor gets me notes again. I want to forget the book. I want to be able to read it like a reader would. And I find that so, so helpful in sort of feeling out where the issues are, where someone might be confused, because as the creator, as the writer, you obviously are carrying so much more knowledge than any normal reader would. And You want that to fall away a little bit when you're in it so that you can feel, well, this actually doesn't make sense, and I'm not carrying that thing that I know makes it make sense, but I— the other person wouldn't have that with them. So forgetting what you're working on, I think, is really valuable. The other side of writer's block, when something's not working, it's because it's not working. And I hate that, but you have to sort of cut the dead flesh.

Kill your baby.

Yeah. And, and work backwards to that crossroads that you clearly took and go the other direction. And that sucks, but it is what it is. It does help me that this is my full-time job and I actually work really, really well with deadlines. Like, I love having deadlines 'cause if I don't have a deadline, I won't be able to structure myself properly. I need that pressure and I accelerate as I get closer to that deadline.

And the creativity accelerates with it.

Yeah, a little bit. Um, I would say so. I kind of, my hyperfocus kicks in and you have those moments Where you just like the last 2 weeks on a draft, especially if I'm quite behind, I call it seeing the Matrix code where suddenly I'm so in it, I understand it so well. It's almost like I'm seeing the code of the Matrix in front of me. And I know this needs to go here. This needs one more beat. This needs to be planted one more time. We need one more scene between these 2 people to really hammer this moment home. And it's really weird. And I, I almost wish it would stop happening because it has taught me a very bad lesson, which is I can leave things to the last minute. But I was always that student who like left the paper to the night before and then got an A. And you think, what's the lesson here? You can just figure it out.

What does your husband say about those 2 weeks?

He's very, very nice about it. He usually takes over like cooking and cleaning up, and that's very kind of him. And he's like, go back to the couch. And he, he'll see me with my blue light glasses on and my headphones on, just like, suspended on pillows in the most ergonomic way I can. And usually in those last 2 weeks, I've shifted totally to a laptop because I move around, and I have like a moving standing desk, and I almost kind of roll around the house.

Yeah, you should tell me more about those weird quirks. Like, you don't go for a walk? You don't have any—

Oh, I walk. I walk and choreograph to music in my head for everything I've ever written. And for Tempest, actually, the whole story unfolded in my head listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack as I went for a walk. And I listened to that soundtrack, and I just sort of saw The whole thing. And I was working on something else entirely when that happened. And I emailed my agent after that walk and I was like, I just wrote a one-sheet for something entirely different. Can you tell me which one do you think actually is where I should be going next? And her and her assistant emailed back right away saying, you have to do the pirate book. And I was like, okay. But yeah, music is so vital to my writing process. Especially because I just, I see it in my head like a film. Like, my background is in film and in visual storytelling. And so listening to music really helps me, especially with sort of action set pieces. I can get the rhythm, I can get sort of the pulse of a scene so much better. And then it becomes, I know it so well, I can watch it in my head. My challenge is, how do I write that so that someone else sees that exact thing in their head that I am seeing? And I've always been tempted to do a big post with, okay, hit play on this song on this line in the book and listen through this. I would love that.

So what would be the first song for Tempest?

The first one? Well, I'm thinking of a scene in the second one, and I can't tell you what it is.

Why not?

I know, because I don't want to spoil it for you.

Song?

Yeah. Well, yes. Barbosa Is Hungry. That particular track in the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, the first Pirates of the Caribbean, there is like 30 seconds of a chase song. And it's the 2 ships chasing each other. And I can just see the camera sweeping from one ship to the next and who's captured on one ship and who's following them. And it's— It's really, really fun in my head. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, so music is huge, but in that same vein, I can't really listen to music when I write. I can do all the stuff in my head, but once the writing starts, I really don't listen to music that much. Thank you.

So it's inspiration, but yeah, it's distracting if you're writing.

Yes. If I do listen at all while I'm writing, it can't be music with lyrics. I have 2 playlists for every song. I have the drafting playlist, which is no lyrics, and then I'll have the flavor playlist, which is songs with lyrics.

Is that no lyrics like, uh, classical or what kind of—

Yeah, a mix of classical, usually film soundtracks, sort of anything that has— yeah, we're all Hans Zimmer girlies.

Time. I love looping that song.

I love, uh, the Gladiator soundtrack for me. That's incredible stuff. Last of the Mohicans. That is an incredible soundtrack.

Okay, so we're here to talk about The Lord of the Rings, the book that changed your life.

Yes.

Which this is— you could do arm curls with this thing. You could.

I was in 7th grade.

So tell me a little bit about where you grew up.

So I grew up in Western Massachusetts, so kind of middle of nowhere, like 2 hours west of Boston, 4 hours north of New York, Pioneer Valley. And a lot of people are like, oh, the universities are all there. And it's like, yeah, but I was not from a university town. I was kind of on the edge of farmland and then the edge of what was the major city in that area. And it was, in hindsight, you know, one of those places that's great to grow up, but a little bit boring. but quite safe. And I think I was pretty stereotypical in that I was just one of those kind of misfit kids who, you know, didn't quite feel where I belonged. And so I looked for that in the stories that I loved. And I grew up with so many facets of storytelling around me that were just so important.

What's the industry there?

Uh-huh. It used to be a lot of mill towns, but now it's more technology and academia.

But when you were a kid, it was, it was mill?

Not so much mill as much, but definitely blue collar. Like most people were pretty working class.

How many people in your graduating class in high school?

200.

Okay, so kind of small.

Kind of small, yeah.

And, um, what did mom and dad do?

Both my parents, they're retired now, but they're both public school teachers. So yeah.

Did you go to the same school?

No, thank God. And they didn't work in the same school. school either. So my dad, my dad taught American history and then he moved into administration and he ended his career as a vice principal and he was in one of the worst school systems in the state.

I would've seen your dad a lot.

Yeah.

We spent a lot of time with the vice principal. He loved it.

He loved that kind of work. He loved working with the kids who needed a little bit more attention and probably weren't getting it where they needed it. And then my mom, total opposite end of the spectrum, worked in one of the best schools in the state and she was an English teacher. And she taught 8th grade English. And towards the end of her teaching career, it was the very beginning of my writing career. My first, like, maybe 2 books had just come out. And she started seeing kids in her class with my books.

Oh.

And she would tell me, and I'd be like, Mom, they're doing book reports on my books because they know that you will give them an A. You can't grade them down if they bought your kid's book.

Shut up.

And she didn't tell me this at the time. I found this out way later, but she said the last year of her teaching, there was a big scuffle with the parents because they were all fighting to get their kids into her class because she had a daughter who was a bestseller. And they're like, she's clearly a good English teacher. But it makes a lot of sense when you look at me and my work and it's like, dad was a history teacher, mom was an English teacher, she writes fantasy novels. It makes a lot of sense.

That's funny.

Yeah.

How many siblings?

I have one brother. I have a younger brother. He's like 2 and a half years younger than me.

So you're the oldest?

I'm the oldest.

Oh, wow.

Eldest daughters.

So in, uh, in like, you know, elementary school, what kind of kid were you?

I was a little bit of everything in that I played sports and I was also a huge nerd.

What sports?

I played soccer and I was a soccer goalie up until high school. And it became clear like, she's 5'1 and that's not changing. And then I transitioned over to like field hockey and I also played soccer. I mean softball. But at the same time, I was definitely a kid who grew up like into Star Wars and into video games and into reading her fantasy novels and had like a Greek mythology phase and Elizabeth I Tudor phase, like all girls go through, I guess. But I was definitely one of those kids who people say, you know, and this was the nice way of saying, you're a bitch, you should be a lawyer. Or you, you get along really well with the adults. I was that kid.

So you were, you were an old soul?

Sure. Yeah, a little bit. Um, I think it was more that I just pref— not preferred my own company, but didn't feel like I quite fit and like I was quite on the same pathway as everybody else. And I always wonder in hindsight, cuz it was a very small town and everyone knew everybody. All our parents went to high school together except for me. My mom is from, Scotland. And so growing up, we would always go there. And so I was one of the only kids who like had a passport that young kind of thing. And so I think there was always that moment of, I don't wanna be here forever. I know there's more out there and I want to find out what that is and how I fit into it.

What age did you start to feel that?

Oh God, very, very young, probably 6 or 7. I mean, that's, I was always that kid in the backyard, like, looking in the hollows of trees and looking for the doorways to Narnia kind of thing. That was always very foundational of like, maybe this morning I'm gonna wake up and someone tells me I'm a long-lost whatever.

So funny.

Yeah.

Well, how old were you when you read Narnia?

Oh, probably 7 or 8 years old. And I, my actual, my favorite of those books is The Horse and His Boy. That was my favorite of all of the Chronicles of Narnia books because it's the only one that is entirely set in Narnia and there's no portal.

Oh, there's no closet?

Yeah. So you follow Shasta and you follow a child within that world. And it's probably the most high fantasy of all of the books and has the most expansive world-building. And you get to see— I haven't read that one. It's very good and it's quite funny. And it has, I think, one of the best female characters in the Narnia books.

So do you remember the first book you ever read that you were like, oh, this is heaven?

So Ella Enchanted was really, really big for me when I was about 7 years old. So Gail Carson Levine, and I actually got to do a book festival with her this year, and it was definitely my first instinct when I see authors like that who I know were so foundational to me is to run in the other direction. And I don't want to make a fool of myself. I don't want to be like, you meant so much to me. But this one I was like, you have to. You're eating lunch in the same green room. You have to talk to her. And it was wonderful. She's just great.

I told— What'd you say? How did you approach?

Well, we were eating salads together and I think we were just talking sort of about how the festival was going, what the readership was like. And I do remember very distinctly, I explained what a fridge cigarette was to her.

Will you explain to me what it is?

Yeah, it's a Diet Coke. Oh, that's great. Yeah. She was like, oh, tell me more. And I was like, it's a Diet Coke. You kind of know it's bad for you, but, You need it in a certain amount of time.

That's funny.

Yeah.

And so then what did you tell her?

I told her about it. That's how the word came to be. It's not a cigarette anymore, it's a Diet Coke. This thing might be slowly giving us cancer too, but this is the new vice that we turn to to cope in our trying times. So that's my contribution.

That's funny. And so What, like at what age do you kind of decide you're gonna be a writer? Well, actually, when did you write your first story?

I was, and I'll tell you why I started writing my first story. And this is also kind of backwards and I'm gonna date myself. But so the N64 had just come out and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had just come out. One of the best video games of all time ever created. And I've got my little brother And he is, even though he's 2 years younger than me, already a savant with video games. So if we get a new video game, he plays it first, and it's a one-player game. And my way of playing the game was to have the guidebook and help guide him through all those fucking temples and all of the different pieces of the story. But there were also all of these maps of that fantasy world in the guidebook, and I became so enamored of these fantasy maps. It was just the coolest thing to me, the idea that you could just draw a totally different world and like the river, the mountain, this city has to go here. So this trade route is here. Like that to me was just—

It's world building, right?

Incredible.

Yeah.

And I didn't even think that's what it was, but I started drawing fantasy maps first. And the natural next question is, well, what's happening in these worlds? You know, who lives here? Why does this mountain look this way? Why is this city abandoned? Building all of that, you know, what story is going on in this thing that you've just drawn? And so that was the beginning of me telling stories, was I wanted to fill these worlds that I was thinking about with characters. And the first, first thing I wrote that I can remember writing down, it was a princess who was captured in a dungeon and she manages to escape with her nurse. And the nurse immediately dies, like falls down, hits her head and dies. And I remember writing like, nurse has fallen, she's cracked her head. Oh my gosh. She's no longer with us, but now I must sleep. It was, you know, written in crayon. And my parents were like, great.

How old were you?

Probably 7.

7?

Yeah. That was like the age where things were starting to crystallize. But I think my parents were really into film and reading also, but we saw a lot of movies way too young. So like Jurassic Park for me was like, I was 3 years old when I saw Jurassic Park. And I'm fine. So I think that's—

I think I saw it when I was 20-something.

Oh my God, really? I'm not fine. That's the secret. You gotta show kids Jurassic Park very early, and if they like it, they're cool. And if they're not, you got some work to do. It's okay.

Yeah, I'm a little scared. I don't like scary movies.

Oh man, I saw Alien way too young. I think I was 5 when— and it was one of those, you know, We didn't have the hover parents in the '90s. They were just kind of like, you're safe, you're alive. Oh, you learned how to work the VCR? We'll see how that goes.

So, uh, who's your early audience when you're writing? Your brother?

So this is actually quite funny. The person who reads all of my books first and was especially really helpful— and by helpful I mean just a great motivation— with my first book That I never knew would ever find a real audience was my dad. So I like to say my books are all dad-approved. And he's not, you know, an editor in any kind of way. His notes are more just like, what's next? I wanna keep reading. And he used to read them chapter by chapter, and now I don't let him do that. And I actually say like, you can't read it until it's gone through a few edits now. And I'm actually a little nervous about the second Tempest book 'cause I think there are some things in it that I'm like, I don't want my dad to read that. He might have to get a different version of the book than me. Whereas my mom is like, you better give me those scenes. So that's funny. But my dad always wants the book as early as humanly possible. And my mom is like, I don't want to see it until it's polished, or else she's going to tell me about all the spelling errors. And I have to be like, that's not helpful to me at this juncture.

That's funny.

Yeah.

So mom's the editor?

A little bit. She did proofread my very first book when I first After I wrote the first draft of it. Yeah, a long time ago.

So how old when you read Lord of the Rings?

I'm gonna admit something that is a, like, a shame that I carry, and I know it's a shame that other younger Lord of the Rings fans have, and it's not the worst thing in the world, but I didn't read Lord of the Rings until I saw the first movie.

Oh, really?

So I was 11 when Fellowship of the Ring came out, and going to the movies was like ritual in my family, especially in the summer when, or whenever the big movies were coming out. We went every weekend and we went to see Lord of the Rings and it was like a soul had been breathed into my body.

Mm-hmm.

When I watched that film, I felt set on fire from the inside out. And you know, the, the Frodo and Sam walk into the wilderness, the music comes up, the credits roll, and you're just, I'm just shaking in my seat. Like, I need to still be in this world. How do I keep doing that? And I remember 'Cause I knew it was a book. I got up from that seat and I marched over out of the movie theater, which was in a mall, and walked over to Target. And I went into the book aisle and I picked up the copy of Lord of the Rings that they had, the like old, it was just a paperback movie edition cover.

Wow.

And I just dove right in. And that's how I started reading it is because I'd read The Hobbit before I'd seen the first movie. But that first movie was like, This is going to change your life. And it has changed your life. And in hindsight, like, that is the moment I can feel like up until then, I loved stories. I loved storytelling. I loved all the different versions of it. But after Lord of the Rings and after reading Lord of the Rings, it wasn't just, you love stories, it's you have to tell stories yourself. This is something you need to do in some capacity for the rest of your life. And you have no idea what that looks like. For a lot of people, writing is such an opaque career. You have no idea how to get into it. You have no idea how people start. It feels so far away from anyone who's not already kind of connected to that world. But I was just like, I'm going to go and write in my room and type on my little laptop. And it sent me careening into fan fiction, which is where the first sort of creative pieces of writing I ever did were. And it was the first time I got to experience having any kind of feedback on creative writing. And up until then, it was always really hard for me to show people creative writing because I felt so embarrassed by it. And to this day, it's still, if I'm in the early stages of a book, I don't want anyone to look at it. I still feel that like, ah, don't look over my shoulder while I'm working. It's still kind of coming together in my head. But yeah, Lord of the Rings really set me on the path. And I remember 7th grade, I carried that paperback sort of Bible pages copy of Lord of the Rings through every single day of school because we had like a block of class where we would just read. And so I just read it over and over and over again all year. And there were some kids who would try to read magazines during that time of the day. And the teacher would be like, you can't read a magazine. That's not acceptable reading for sustained silent reading. And they'd be like, well, she's been reading the same book all year. And the teacher was like, do not get between her and that book. It's highlighted, it's annotated. I'm rereading over and over again.

Yeah. How many times did you read it?

Oh God. I think that year I read it 11 or 12 times, something like that. Wow.

What's different about Lord of the Rings?

It's interesting in that Lord of the Rings is different in that it is so somehow universal. And I think almost all fantasy authors, especially in sort of the Western lexicon, are Mm-hmm. In conversation with Lord of the Rings in some way. Either they're trying to build on it or they're trying to subvert it. There is something about this story that is in the genetic code of so much that has come after it. And some people would just argue, well, it's like, it's because it was just one of the first. And that's fair, but I think it also happens to be an incredibly well-done piece of work. And for me, something else that it sort of Maybe not gave, but made me want, was I wanted more stories like this that felt like they had room for me because it, it naturally does not. And that's something I realized I was always sort of reaching for in when I would then turn to fan fiction and start writing my own stuff. That's what I was doing is I was trying to sort of make a home for myself in the stories that I loved, but maybe didn't have a home for me in the same way it might for another reader. Why, why didn't it have a home There's no women in The Fellowship of the Ring. And frankly, it's like, if you don't have blue eyes, you're really not in this book either. But it was one of those things where it was just— there is quite an interesting distance between you and the world of the story. It's like you're kind of watching it happen through glass, which can also be a really beautiful thing. But these characters and these archetypes, while They have very human moments. They still feel very inhuman to us, especially as modern audiences. And it's interesting how genre-wise, this used to be very much the standard, the sort of the hope, the nobility, the hero always winning. And now fantasy has swung so into the subversion of that, that now sort of grimdark has almost become the standard. And I think we're almost in a time where we're now turning back. to more heroism, more hope being subversive to what we write now.

Yeah, it's interesting, right? Um, what are your favorite characters in here?

Okay, I think, I think Gandalf is really interesting, sort of that he's got a lot of contrast in him in that he is that archetype of Mm-hmm. The wise elder, the mentor, but is also an angel, but is also deeply human, and is able to step back from power, and is also a very comforting kind of character. So, being able to balance all those things in one person, it's really well-done character work. And then, I'm also quite a fan of Boromir, who I think is the most human of those characters, who actually shows flaws and failure and— missteps and then also sacrifice at the same time. I really find that interesting.

What is, what is the series saying about power?

Well, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's, that's really what it's looking at. The thing that really strikes me the most about Lord of the Rings is everything in it circles around this sort of grief and Sorrow and this sort of idea that for every step we take forward, we leave something behind. And I really, it's something that kind of stops me in my tracks every time I think about it. And no story I've ever read besides this really captures that for me. And it's funny because this is such a, like a hallmark of the very positive fantasy, but it could go dark so, so quickly because it's kind of about the diminishing return. And how we're always looking backwards. But he hits so hard on that means the things that are happening right now matter so much more because they're not infinite and because the things, the people that we're with and the things that we carry aren't gonna last forever. So we have to admire them and appreciate them. And I always find that so relevant.

So how does that process in your mind when you're 11, versus now. Like, it's gotta be, 'cause the perspective is completely different.

Yes. And I think when you're 11, you are very much taken by a lot of the more, and I don't say surface as like a, an insult or anything, but the more surface, like the adventure of it and the scope of the world. And you know, this guy invented a language for, he wrote these books because he invented a language. He wanted a book that would go with this language that he had invented. And how cool is that? Or some people would think that's very weird. I think it's cool. And then you start reading it 11 or 12 times and you realize it's more than just, oh, I love the family trees in the back. This is so interesting. It's also about thinking about your place in the world and what you're leaving behind and what you're carrying forward.

What does the book say about friendship?

It says that probably friendship, it balances those 2 things, that friendship And small things are the most important things that we can care about and hold onto in the world. It really, it really draws such a sharp contrast there of, especially when you root everything in the hobbits and who they are and how small they are, not even quite literally, but in the grand scheme of what's going on in the world, showing that these people are the root of not just all the good, but all the things worth keeping.

In the series, how would you rank them? One, which one would you put first?

Okay, so I have a different ranking for the books than them for the movies.

Do the books.

Okay. Fellowship of the Ring, and then, and then I think I go Two Towers and Return of the King are kind of similar for me. I would normally go Return of the King, then Two Towers, but I just love Rohan so much and I love that piece of the story. But Fellowship of the Ring, the way it starts in the Shire, you get this such a sharp, beautiful, you know, sweep into the world, and you start so small and you, you go so high. I think it has to be Fellowship of the Ring that is the best of the 3 books.

Okay, now the movies then.

Two Towers.

Really?

I go Two Towers. Fellowship, and then Return of the King.

That's funny.

I'm a Helm's Deep girl.

Do you have a Lord of the Rings tattoo?

I don't. I don't have any tattoos.

So do you want— if we had a tattoo artist here right now, would you believe that somebody on our team here has—

I would. I would. I would absolutely believe that.

Actually, haven't we had like 3 people have a Lord of the Rings tattoo? 2 or 3.

I always find it interesting like which symbol someone gravitates towards too in those, because there's quite a few that you could pick from, or if there's like a quote or something.

So that being said, what would you get?

Oh, this is interesting. Oh, this is tough. So the ones that like mean more to me are actually— I like— they're quite ugly. I wouldn't want it on my skin. Oh God, there's the really basic white girl answer of Not All Who Wander Are Lost, or Deep Roots Are Not Reached by the Frost. I think all of the poetry in it, or The Road Goes Ever On and On. I think that's a good one. Tolkien, he really knows a song. He really knows a poem.

That's fun.

Yeah.

Okay, let's go through.

Oh, okay. So— Wow. I think my publisher has told me they're going to send me this, So many times and they've never sent it.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Because I think that, yeah, this is my book. This is my publisher. I'll gift one to you if you want it. Oh, I'll take it.

I always try whenever we get a book, like even this, I'm like, where's the hard copy? I know.

The hard copy of this one's going to be really cool. I'm a paperback because I like to break the spines. That's why I have my nice versions that I don't read.

Okay, so page 51.

Okay.

This is a pretty powerful quote. Do you want me to read it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it.

I wish it need not have happened in my time. So do I, said Gandalf, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is Yep.

Unfortunately or fortunately, so relevant in today's day and age and has been relevant since this book was written. Yeah.

Why is it more relevant today?

Because I think a lot of people are lamenting the time that we live in, and you hear that a lot more and more of like, what a time to be alive essentially. And people say it thinking like, why couldn't I have lived In this era, in this era, in this era. And on a macro scale, you can be like, you can pick any time in human history and I'd be like, that would've been a shit time to be alive. Um, this is probably better, but it depends on who you are. I don't know. So it, it, I think it—

What, what possible time? Mm-hmm. Like, I, I get really fired up about this self-loathing thing.

Yeah.

We're doing what possible time was better than now?

Maybe it depends on who you are. But a lot of people loved the '90s.

Well, I grew up in the '90s. Yeah, it wasn't as good as now.

It wasn't. We didn't have certain things, that's for sure. Yep. And I think—

Remember the Thomas Guide in the payphone?

I remember the paper maps in the car. Yeah. Um, but I think that like all we have to do with the time that is given to us is quite comforting at the same time because it almost makes what feels very big and daunting and something like an obstacle we cannot climb feel like it's within our power. You know, just decide what to do with the time that is given to you. And that can expand to like decide what to do, what is right in front of you.

Yeah.

And I think we sometimes get very overwhelmed and back to that, oh, this feels like the worst time ever to be alive. It's definitely not, but we feel that way because we see We see so much more than we've ever seen in human history. And so I think that can kind of overwhelm us into feeling helpless.

But don't you think that's a decision?

Sometimes. I think it's really hard to not be inundated by, did you see this? Did you see that? And you open your phone and it's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I think that's hard. And maybe we have to be stronger about closing ourselves off from those things. But I understand how people can get overwhelmed. I just—

I control that. I control who I give my number to.

That's smart.

I control who I block. I control what I look at. I control who has access.

I have to be better about the block. I really don't block people and I should.

No, it's too— it's, it's, uh, I don't want it on me. I just don't.

Yeah.

Especially super negative people or people that are always a victim.

And well, there's also, especially on the social media side of things for us, we have gotten really, really good at identifying who actually wants to have a conversation, even if they disagree with you, but who's actually like going to have a discussion and who's doing this in bad faith. Like, who has no intention of actually hearing what you have to say? And then it's like, oh, this is not even worth my time, worth my energy. Fine. Out. And I should be like, you don't get access to me anymore. But it is what it is.

Yeah. Well, okay. I'm, uh, I'm protecting myself from that.

I think that's very smart.

Okay. You want to read this one?

Okay. We're going to page 60. Yes. So Shadow of the Past has one of my favorite quotes in it too. This chapter is all bangers. Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so too eager to deal out death and judgment, for even the very wise cannot see all ends. It's true. Again, it's something that's really, really heavy, but is also slightly comforting. And, you know, you actually don't want this on you, and it's not your responsibility to take it on you. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, it's perfect. Yeah, in a lot of ways. It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. He used to say, you step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.

So exciting. How do you read that and not be like, let's go? Really, it like makes you wanna get up and get on the road and just see what's on the other side of the horizon. It really does.

Do you live your life that way?

I think I don't in the micro. And then I look back on the macro and some of the choices that I've made and the leaps that I've made in, you know, my career or leaving home. And I thought like, you actually have made some very brave choices with no idea what was on the other side.

Do you make time to take trips and go on adventures?

Yes, that is one thing I really love to do is travel.

What's on your list now?

So in August I'm doing a research trip to, so I've been to Scotland many, many times, but we're going to some more remote islands in Northwest Scotland to Lewis and Harris. And then we're taking a boat Out into the North Sea to this island called St. Kilda. And if you have ever thought about, like, any kind of fantasy island, any sort of Western mythology fantasy island, that's the island you're thinking of. It's this incredible, almost Icelandic in the geography of it, small island in the middle of the ocean. And there was a small village on it until, like, the 1920s.

Wow.

And the British government had to clear it because they're like, you're Your population's too low. You're going to start inbreeding. We can't let you live here anymore. But the village is still there. There's these immense cliffs. There's hundreds of thousands of puffins that now live on this island. And I've been dying to go there my whole life. And so that's going, and it's all a research trip for the book I'm doing after I finish Tyrant.

Okay, let's go to page 349.

Ooh.

You want to read this one?

Yeah. Let me get there. I'll do it. I appreciate the taps.

Are you curious what we tabbed in your book?

I am. And this I also, because I thought you might ask me quotes, I tabbed this one too. The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places, but there's still as much that is fair. And though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. Yeah, so that's that idea that sorrow and loss makes the good things that much sweeter and sharper and more important. And you can't experience good without experiencing bad. It's, it's so obvious and so simple, but it, it's obvious and simple for a reason. It's central to who we are as humans and like what it is to be human and how we experience things.

Yeah, it's funny, the key to happiness, like nobody's ever really been able to figure this out. Like, what is it?

Yeah.

And there was this study that they did at London University, and I think it was like a 20-year study. And what they found is kind of the only thing that really affects happiness is expectation.

Interesting. I mean, that's true.

You control your expectations. So if you think about any time you've been unhappy, it was an unmet expectation.

Yes. And that's actually a really good to compare with like sort of the struggles we're seeing in the modern era of, again, we see so much more than we've previously seen. And so you, you have all of this, you're seeing things that other people have that you would've never seen before. And so there's all of this envy and keeping up with the Joneses and your expectations fundamentally change because you have never, would've never seen inside this person's house before or inside this person's closet or seen this person's car. And so we have all of these, not to quote Hannibal Lecter, but how do we covet? We covet what we see every day. And now we are suddenly seeing things every single day that we've never seen before. And it's like fundamentally changing our brains.

Yeah. Let's go to 784.

Okay.

And tell me if this is one that you tabbed in yours.

I didn't, but this is a good one. Shall I always be chosen? She said bitterly. Shall I always be left behind when the riders depart to mind the house while they win renown and find food and beds when they return. A time may come soon, said he, when none shall return. Then there will be need of valor without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defense of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised. And she answered, all your words are but to say you are a woman and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honor, you have to leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl, and not a serving woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death. What do you fear, lady? he asked. A cage, she said. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is beyond recall or desire. Incredible.

Reminds us a little bit of a character in here.

Yeah, a little bit. It does. I feel like that's the core of So many, not female, not just female characters, but so many women in general is this fear of being kind of trapped by our gender and the expectations of our gender and the rules that come with that. So that's a core of everything I write is very female rage.

Female rage?

Female rage.

What is female rage?

Female rage comes from that idea of being overlooked or underassumed or underestimated or expected to be something that you aren't. And I think women, a lot of women are already put in boxes just by nature of their sex. And so we are always kind of bumping up against walls of, even while we're still figuring out who we are, you bump into a wall and you wonder like, is that wall there because that's who I am? Or is that wall there because society has made me think it? there. I think that's something a lot of women go through. You know, what is this choice? Is it coming from society or is it coming from me? We don't know.

Yeah, it's good. Let's go to 955.

Okay.

This is beautiful.

Yeah. And all the hosts laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears, the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all the men were hushed. And he sang to them now in the elven tongue, now in the speech of the West until their hearts wounded with sweet words overflowed and their joy was like swords. And they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flowed together and tears are the very wine of blessedness. This is where you really get into sort of the dream parts of Lord of the Rings, where every— obviously it's a fantasy story and it's not meant to— some parts of it feel so real and some parts of it don't feel real at all and don't feel like they're something that could ever really happen. They're almost beyond our reach. Yeah.

What does that do for us as readers?

I think, like, reading is always about stepping outside yourself a little bit and reaching for something we can't ever touch. And sometimes you feel like you can touch it, And that's the magic. And sometimes, you know, you can't, and that's the magic too. You're still experiencing it, but you're like, I'll never quite get there.

How do you play with that when you're writing?

Ooh, I am always— because I write fantasy, you're always balancing the ordinary and the extraordinary and the real and the unreal. And you're always trying to get your readers in that very, very small target Of fearing for the characters 'cause they feel that they're real people, but also knowing that they're not at the same time because they're surrounded by the fantastical.

Mm-hmm.

And so, the way I do that, or at least I try to do that, is I try to make the characters realistic and have flaws and have mistakes that they make, or to sort of call out something that's quite ridiculous that you wouldn't call out in a ridiculous way in a fantasy novel before and sort of hang a lantern on something. And so, you're balancing the audience of, I want you to believe, but I also want you to not believe at the same time, I think, a little bit.

Yeah, it's a tightrope, right?

It is a tightrope. And that once you— once that rope is cut, if you lose that thread of disbelief from the audience, it's so hard to get it back. So, you have to be very careful how far you push.

Okay, the last one. 10:31.

At last they rode over the Downs and took the East Road, and then Merry and Pippin rode on to Buckland, and already they were singing again as they went. But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the hill as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light and fire within, and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in and set him in his chair and put little Elanor on his lap. He drew a deep breath. Well, I'm back, he said. So many things come jump to my mind when I read this paragraph. And the first is, you know, I'm the first one to joke Tolkien will take 3 days, 3 pages to describe a tree, but he has this paragraph that is so simple and clear and quick, and it draws just as sharp of an image as those 3 pages telling you about a tree. You know, that idea of the yellow light and the fire, you immediately like, I see the warm house. I understand what he means. And the emotion and the physicality and the mentality of this scene. It's so beautifully done. And then also, this is one of my favorite things in books, is escalation. When you have a book that starts in such a small place, and Lord of the Rings does this beautifully, um, and you get to the end of the story and you get to such a height, you look back and think, how the hell did we get here? And it escalated in every sort of facet of the story and the characters and the tension and stakes of the world. Um, and now he also brings you back to that small beginning, and you have to actually look back and be like, all of that happened, and now, well, I'm back. So cool.

I love that.

Yeah.

Okay, so the big question: how did The Lord of the Rings change your life?

The Lord of the Rings made me who I am as a storyteller. Made me know I wanted to be a storyteller. And I think for a weird kid, gave me something, yes, that made me weirder, but made me more myself. And this is something I tell readers now or aspiring authors, especially younger people. What makes you weird now is gonna make you successful later. And I think this book made me successful later. It showed me so much of what it is to be a storyteller, but also made me want so much more from my storytelling. Um, so yeah, I will be indebted to this book for the rest of my life.

That's such a great answer. If you could— I mean, like, if you went back in a time machine and talked to the 11-year-old girl—

Don't you want to?

Told her that. Yeah.

But then I think, will I mess up the timeline if I go back in time?

No, you don't want to go back in time, but I'm just saying, if you did, like, that thing that's weird is the thing.

Yeah. It's gonna make you.

So many kids don't get that. I didn't get that when I was a kid either.

No, you don't get it. You don't get it until—

And honestly, if somebody showed up and told me, I still wouldn't get it.

No, I wouldn't believe it. If someone came back and told me at 12 years old, like, hey, you're going to be a fantasy author and you're going to be successful for wherever I am in the, in the world of fantasy, and this is how you're going to support yourself and you're going to be doing this as your full-time job, I'd be like, You shut the hell up right now. How dare you? I'm going to go cry. But yeah, it's very weird. It's one of those things you can't think about too hard.

So beautiful though.

Yeah.

So tell us about Tempest. I would love if you'll look through our highlights.

Okay.

We can't ruin it. So I don't know that we can go through them, but that is completely up to you.

Okay.

Yes.

Tempest is my adult fantasy. It's my first adult book. All of my previous books have been written either specifically for the YA audience or more of a crossover in that it's a mix of YA and adult. But Tempest is firmly an adult fantasy, and we're calling it a romantic pirate fantasy. That's how I'm talking about it, 'cause there's a lot of discourse about what is romanticy and what isn't romanticy. And I'm like, you know what? Let's sidestep that whole thing. It's pirate fantasy. And I call it very much sort of my love letter to Pirates of the Caribbean. And I was also really inspired by Black Sails. I loved that television show. As a kid who, besides loving Lord of the Rings, also got to go through the Pirates of the Caribbean era, I've always been trying to scratch that itch of a pirate story that feels and gives you that adventure while also is a little bit more grounded in a female perspective. Mm-hmm.

What do you love about pirates?

Pirates in general? I think pirates exist in between worlds, and that's something I've always really been interested in, is worlds in flux, worlds that are dying, worlds that are being birthed. And pirates, for the most part, have to exist in those sort of gap spaces. So they exist in, like, the power vacuums left behind by empires or places where the lines on the map don't really matter. And I think that's so cool to talk about those sort of Things that spring up in between. Yeah.

What do you want us to walk away from Tempest understanding?

First and foremost, I, I see myself very much as a writer who is aiming to entertain you. Like, my first goal is to make sure you forget you're sitting in a chair reading a book or experiencing whatever, however you're experiencing the story. I want to strap you into the roller coaster and take you out of your life for A few hours. And when you come back, you hopefully have that moment of, oh my God, I maybe see the world in a little bit of a different way, or I got what I needed in that moment of escape. In terms of more on the emotional side, or sort of thematically, Tempest is absolutely rooted in expectations, not just of women, but very much women, of people who live within—

Mm-hmm.

sort of boxes and oppressive structures. And how do we either try and manipulate those things to our benefit and find out we really can't? You know, we're all kind of subject to that thing. How do we get outside of it? And I was really interested in telling a story from the point of view of an adult woman who, up until now, when you're writing young adult, you're writing characters who are discovering who they are, who are choosing who they're going to be. When you're writing adult, you're writing characters who know who they are. And so I loved writing someone who knows exactly who she is and is now surviving with the choices she has made to stay alive and stay what she thinks is protected in this world.

Mm-hmm.

And so going at it with that very clearly drawn character of Kat in my mind, of a woman who is always going to choose herself first because she doesn't think anyone else will. It really guided me through this world of the rise and fall of piracy in a fantasy world inspired by the Caribbean in 1718.

How much of her is you?

I think all of our characters have us in them, even our worst characters. I think you kind of have to do that to be able to understand them. And I think she's more ruthless than me. I always have characters who I'm sort of like, ooh, I wish I could be a little bit—

Like she's your shadow?

A little bit. She's my shadow who maybe you want to unleash on somebody. So she's definitely more ruthless and probably more intelligent than I am. And I think probably a little bit more resilient too. The things that she survives and chooses to survive through, especially in book 2.

Wow. How satisfying is it to write that character?

It's so satisfying. And I think we all have those moments where you write a character that scratches an itch or kind of gives you a little bit more id than you're allowed to have in your real life.

Okay.

All right, I gotta see first.

I bent a page on one I really wanted to read.

Oh, you did? I see it. Okay. With a few quick strides, Captain Moravant stood nose to nose with the sniveling Lord Rose. Across the deck, the pirates howled their amusement, all but the one with tempest eyes. His focus was on the cargo, inspecting A crate of books.

Yeah.

I mean, we have this image and this connotation of pirates, and I wanted to immediately— how do I immediately and economically show that that's not always the case? And part of the thing about writing about pirates is we as an audience Have all of these preconceived notions, and we have all of these sort of myths and legends and symbols and things that we associate with pirates, and not all of them are historically correct. So as a writer who's trying to honor the expectations of an audience going into a pirate book, but it was also thinking about, well, realistically, how would this have played out? What would be the real thing here? You are balancing those 2 things 'cause you don't wanna break expectations. And sometimes you find something that's true that's like, I can't put this in the book 'cause nobody will believe it, or it'll feel wrong. You're trying to gauge the feeling of the audience. So here I'm talking about, you know, it wasn't just— they weren't just taking gold and putting it in a treasure chest and burying it on an island. The money went back into the ship, and all of these things, like, they didn't walk the plank, they keelhauled people. And getting to do keelhauling was, like, so cool. But that was one of the things where I was like, I think this is is cool enough to include in the book. But yeah, showing that it's not just, we're shaking you down for money, and it's not just, we're attacking every single ship and killing everyone aboard. It's, we're gonna say, hey, we're pirates, we're coming aboard, bring out your stuff. Okay, nice doing business with you. On we go. Um, but yeah, those moments of how do I honor the expectations and not disappoint the reader, but also include maybe a little bit more of the reality.

So good.

Yeah, it was fun. I got to go to the Bahamas.

Research.

Yeah, research trip. It was great.

Are there any trips you take that you can't write off?

As a writer, actually, my accountant's like, not really. You really, you know, everything you do is research.

Yeah.

That's nice.

It's great.

Yeah, it is pretty good.

I need to talk to my accountant. Do you want to look at any?

Yeah, I do.

But yeah, I don't— we can't spoil it, but— Hmm.

I just, I do this to readers too who come up and they have their books tabbed and I'm like, oh, I want to know what you tabbed in the book. Ha! I like this one. The church preached of hell, a place of eternal damnation, a torture, a red place filled with burning flames. By now, Kat knew those preachings were false. Hell was not red. It was verdant green and tropical blue, but it certainly still burned.

So good.

Thank you. Yeah, I—

You have a way with words. Thank you.

I try. I try really, really hard. And I felt, um, I was quite chuffed because an author, a friend of mine who read this to blurb it, she pulled me aside and she's like, I loved it. I want you to know I'm from South Florida. You really nailed like describing hurricanes and heat and humidity and tropical like environments. And so I was like, yes! That's such a good— such a compliment. I took that.

It's not easy to do.

I took that one to the bank. But I think, you know, you're also, again, balancing, like, how often do I mention how sweaty everyone is? 'Cause they are incredibly sweaty. They're all going to be. And especially because most of the characters are part of a colonial empire that is— they're not from that climate. They're— I'm describing how sunburned they are and how they all can't handle the heat. And it's kind of like, There's a metaphor here. Yeah, these are good. You like the quippy lines. Ooh. Triumph rushed through her, an unfamiliar feeling. She had few victories in this life and all of them fleeting, if not defeats in disguise. Doing something right, doing something useful felt like lightning in her skin.

See, that feels autobiographical. Autobiographical.

Yes. And I am lucky in that I am in so much— I mean, how much control does any person have? But I feel like I do get to make a lot of decisions about myself for myself. And this is a character who is experiencing that for the first time, a few times in this book where she's really in control. And that's something that becomes intoxicating to her because she's She's a woman in a time period, in a setting where women have no control whatsoever. So getting that, it's like catnip. Yeah. Oh, I can't read that one. That one's a spoiler. I can't read that one either.

Yeah, I know. That's so good though. I wanted to, but we can't.

Well, thank you. You'll have to read—

Do you have a sense for, uh, how well this book is gonna do?

Haha, touch wood. Um, I— you hope with every book, and we have a saying, we say that every book is a lottery ticket, and most lottery tickets do not hit, but every book you write is a lottery ticket.

There's no way this book doesn't hit.

I'm very superstitious. I'm gonna tell you that right now. Like, I'm touching wood.

Okay, well, I'm a consumer.

We'll see. Um, one thing in the publishing industry industry is that it's always been unpredictable, but now especially it's become very unpredictable. What hits, what sticks? That's the big thing is does it make a big splash and then doesn't hang around? And I really, really wanted to hang around. But the second one, I'm really excited for this because I wrote 2 accidentally, um, is hopefully coming out end of spring, early summer next year. So that'll be the fastest book set.

Here's my prediction. People are going to love this. And they can't wait for the second one because it's a setup. I hope, you know, it's, you know, there's another book coming.

Yeah. They, you think that, but you, I can't tell you how many readers I've had who have read books that end on cliffhangers and they're like, well, there'll be another one. And you think, of course there will be another one. You always want them, you always want them to put a number on the spine too, so that people immediately know. And I did ask in the final, make sure there's a page right after that that says like, the voyage continues in Tyrant, so people know, because sometimes people don't know. You can't really predict.

Well, I will order a bunch of the hardcovers.

Thank you. They're gonna be really cool. They have, um, like the gold is golden shiny and the edges are gonna be pretty. But I'm always one who thinks the package can be as beautiful as possible, but it really matters what's in the book.

You know what I, what I secretly love is super talented people like yourself, how vulnerable you are right now, cuz this isn't out. It's the moment between it being done and it seeing the light of day.

It's the worst moment because I can't do anything.

Yeah.

Up until this was locked, I still had power, and now it's done and people are reading it. Like, advanced copies have gone out. I'm— I've been told that this is a weird practice of mine, but I read my reviews. Like, I go to Goodreads and I read the reviews that people are posting and I don't do anything with them, but I need to know like how it's landing. Um, and so it's fun. It's interesting seeing what things people gravitate towards or don't. And you just kind of think, ah, nothing I can do.

Yeah. That's a funny thing.

It is. It is.

But you'll miss it.

Yes. Yes. I will say it is. Once I'm done with the second one, It's going to feel like a clean break. Um, with my first series, Red Queen, I finished, felt like a clean break. My trilogy that came in between my, like, Lord of the Rings trilogy, that it was like, I'm going to take a crack at my Lord of the Rings. Um, that one still keeps calling to me across the distance, and it's like, come back, there's more. So that'll be interesting if I get to go back and do more with that one. But this one will be done when it's done. I set out to write one book, and I Failed so epically.

That's good.

Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I got— I didn't get paid for the second one. Like, it was written as a second book. We're going straight to royalties on that one. There's no advance.

You'll do okay.

We'll see. That's, uh, we're hoping that's my Star Wars merchandise.

Yeah, that's fun. Well, thank you for doing this.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

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