On the surface, L.R. Lam’s new epic fantasy / high fantasy / romantasy novel Dragonfall (hardcover, Kindle) seems like it’s all about that hot human-on-dragon action. And it is.
But as she explains in the following email interview, it’s also about false gods hating those who put them on their pedestals.
With Spring’s Arcana (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), writer Lilith Saintcrow is kicking off a fantasy duology called The Dead God’s Heart, which she’ll conclude August 8th with the release of The Salt-Black Tree.
In the following email interview, Saintcrow discusses what inspired and influenced this first half, and why it’s a story that had to be told in two.
Six years after launching the urban fantasy duology the Unseen World with 2017’s An Unkindness Of Magicians, writer Kat Howard is completing the saga with her new novel, A Sleight Of Shadows (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook). In the following email interview, Howard discusses what inspired and influenced this second half, as well as why it’s the end of the story.
With his new sword & sorcery fantasy novel Herald Of The Black Moon (paperback, Kindle), writer Stephen Deas is concluding the Dominion trilogy he launched in 2021 with The Moonsteel Crown and continued in 2022’s The House Of Cats And Gulls. Which, all together, form a sequel to The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice series, and a prequel of sorts to his novel Dragon Queen, which was the first book of his Silver Kings series, itself part of his Memory Of Flames series. (Whew!)
In the following email interview, Deas explains what inspired and influenced Moon, including how he knew how it ended before he even started writing Moonsteel.
In novels where a crime is committed in a fantasy realm, the person investigating said crime is often a magic user with a bit of noir to their name. And while that’s also the case with Daniel M. Ford’s adventure fantasy novel The Warden (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), he’s taking a somewhat different approach by having said magic user not be a witch or wizard but a necromancer, and not be very noir, either. In the following email interview, Ford discusses what influenced and inspired this magical mystery.
It may seem counterintuitive, but distraction can, for some people, be an important part of the creative process. Trent Reznor of nine inch nails once told me he had an arcade in his studio so he could clear his head when he got stuck.
But in the following email interview with author Tim Akers about his new novel, a high fantasy / hard magic thriller called Wraithbound (paperback, Kindle), he explains that when he got stuck writing it, his distraction of choice was to write another book.
While some fantasy novels have a bit of romance in them, writer Sarah Hawley is taking the opposite approach with her new series, Glimmer Falls, by having them be fantasy rom-coms. In the following email interview, Hawley discusses both this series, and the book that kicks it off, A Witch’s Guide To Fake Dating A Demon (paperback, Kindle, audiobook).
With Into The Vortex (hardcover, Kindle), writer Charles E. Gannon is presenting the middle part of the epic fantasy Vortex Of Worlds trilogy he launched in 2021 with This Broken World. But as Gannon explains in the following email interview, this story is bigger than a trilogy…and the epic fantasy genre.