Hi Virginia! First, I want to say welcome to Two Chicks on Books I’m so
happy you stopped by for a visit! TRAITOR’S HOPE sounds fantastic and I can’t
wait for everyone to read it!
For the readers:
can you give us a little recap about BLADE’S EDGE and the characters?
The Rōjū Council’s dark secret
is one that it has spent centuries killing to keep, and Mishi and Taka know too
much. The two young women have overcome desperate odds in a society where their
very existence is a crime, but now that they know the Rōjū’s secret they find themselves fighting for much more
than their own survival.
Spoiler alert: don’t
read the next paragraph if you haven’t read Blade’s Edge and don’t want to know
any major plot points.
At the end of the book
the two friends have helped to overthrow the corrupt Rōjū Council, but at great
personal cost. Traitor’s Hope follows both Mishi and Taka once
more, but also follows a secondary character from the first book. Fun fact:
both books only follow female POVs.
So is this the
end? Is there more to come?
Ah, yes… Good question. Well, to be honest, when I
first wrote Blade’s Edge I thought I was writing a
standalone novel. I mean, of course, I left a bit of room for a sequel, but it’s not as though Blade’s Edge ends on a
cliff hanger, it’s a complete story. However, after
giving it a lot of thought, and also having a number of readers ask for more of
these characters, I realized that there was indeed more to tell. And now, of
course, we run into the same question. Is this the last one? Well, I can say
for sure that there are more stories in this world sitting in my head. Indeed,
there are a lot of stories from Gensokai’s distant past that I would like to
bring to life. Also, the more I think about Gensokai’s future, the more I think
there is room for exploration there too. So the answer, I think is, yes, there
will definitely be more from this world. Although I can’t guarantee that there
will be more with these exact characters (but it’s a possibility). It all comes
down to which stories intrigue me the most.
Were any of the
characters in the book inspired by people from your real life?
Ha! That’s a dangerous question. The honest answer is both no and yes.
No, in that I can’t think of a particular character that was inspired by a
specific person, but yes in that all my characters are inspired by real life
people. I snatch personality traits, quirks, and expressions from the people
around me constantly. If you’ve spent five minutes in my company and you are in
any way interesting there’s a good chance some part of you will wind up in a
story of mine some day. But, due to how often I borrow from those around me, by the time I’m done
writing a book it’s almost impossible for me to remember where any given
character’s traits came from. Meanwhile, for this series in particular, I
definitely stole names from people in my real life. A number of my friends from
Japan made it into this book in name only. However, the characters that are
named for them are nothing like the
people whose names I borrowed. So the name and the person have been separated
from each other thoroughly.
Who was your
favorite character to write? What about your least favorite?
I think my favorite character to write in this series has been Kusuko.
She’s been a delightful surprise every step of the way. Each rewrite saw her
becoming more and more complex. Also, her psyche is perhaps the least similar
to my own of any of the POV characters in Traitor’s Hope, so it was very
interesting to get inside of her head.
My least favorite…that’s tough. I enjoy all
of my characters, but I often find Mishi difficult to write for a couple of
reasons. The first is that she was the hardest for me to get to know. The first
time that I wrote her I felt like she was just an empty shell. I didn’t feel
like I had gotten to know her until the end of the second draft of Blade’s
Edge. By the end of the third draft (the one that went to print) I finally felt
comfortable about who she was. In Traitor’s Hope she was difficult to write at
first simply because she’s gone through so much. Her head was a pretty dark
place to inhabit for big chunks of this book and that was… uncomfortable.
Also, I struggled to keep the balance between letting everyone know just how
damaged she is, and keeping the rest of the story moving forward at a reasonable
pace. This is what editors are for though, and I think mine helped me come to a
solid balance in this regard in the end.
What is your
favorite passage/scene in TRAITOR’S HOPE?
I have more than one, but the one that most of my early readers pointed
out as their favorite, and also happens to be one of mine, is the scene where
Taka goes into the infirmary she’s been charged with and takes over. It’s… well, let’s just say she shows up to kick ass and chew bubble gum, but she’s all out of bubble gum. It was extra fun to write because Taka isn’t a
fighter, so all of her ass kicking has to be more subtle.
What kind of
research did you have to do for the story?
I did all manner of research for this series (weapons, armor, fighting
styles, red-tailed hawks, how much distance a horse and rider can cover in a
day without harming the horse), but for this second book in particular the
thing that I researched most were the symptoms, causes, and treatments for
PTSD. The end of Blade’s Edge isn’t exactly happily ever after, I’m afraid, and
it leaves Mishi in a pretty scary place. Despite the fact that this is a
fantasy world filled with magic, tree spirits, and the occasional dragon,
violence and death are still traumatic events. It was really important to me to
address this in my writing, as I think it is often glossed over in any action
story. Mishi is an excellent fighter, and she has trained to fight all of her
life, but that doesn’t mean the violence done to her and by her doesn’t affect
her.
Who is your ultimate
book boyfriend?
Drizzt Do’urden from RA Salvatore books.
What inspired you
to write YA?
You know, it kind of happened by accident. This story started with MCs
who were children, and grew to be young adults. That’s who they were, so that’s
how I wrote them. It wasn’t until later when I was ticking boxes for genres
that my husband looked over my shoulder and said, “It’s YA right?” And I
thought about it and realized he was right. Nevertheless, I have always been
drawn to YA, both as a reader and writer, because I think stories of self-discovery
are some of the most important stories we can tell, and those go hand in hand
with young adulthood.
Lightning Round
Questions
What are you
reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to read?
I just finished reading Jane Unlimited by Krisin Cashore, which I
thoroughly enjoyed despite how different it is from all of her other work to
date, and I just started reading Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (which I’m
apparently very late to the party on, but I’m glad to be catching up).
What Hogwarts
House would the Sorting Hat place you in?
According to the Pottermore website, Ravenclaw.
Twitter or
Facebook?
Instagram!
Favorite
Superhero?
Storm from X-Men
Favorite TV show?
Firefly
Sweet or Salty?
It depends on my mood, but generally salty.
Any Phobias?
No. But I do have an irrational hatred of jello.
Song you can’t get
enough of right now?
I don’t tend to listen to many songs on repeat, but my husband and I
have been working on the duet You and Me by You+Me (Pink & City and Colour)
so I’ve been listening to that a lot, and I still enjoy it even after hearing
it a hundred times.
Winter Movie
you’re most looking forward to?
The Last Jedi (female Jedi for the win!)
Thanks so much Virginia for answering my questions! I can’t wait for
everyone to read TRAITOR’S HOPE!
