Poured Over: Samantha Shannon on A Day of Fallen Night

Miwa Messer

“I feel like we’re in a real golden age of fantasy that’s exploring diversity from lots of different perspectives, and telling lots of stories that need to be heard at the moment — I feel really honored to be working within that space.”

A Day of Fallen Night has what readers want in high fantasy: strong women, masterful worldbuilding and, of course, dragons. Samantha Shannon’s prequel to her highly acclaimed The Priory of the Orange Tree, is a welcome return to the lands and skies of this mystical world. Shannon joins us to talk about reframing myths, equality in the fantasy genre, how her books get their stunning covers, authors she recommends and more with Poured Over guest host, Kat Sarfas. Listen after the episode for a TBR Topoff from Marc and Madyson.

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays with occasional Saturdays here and on your favorite podcast app.  

Featured Books (Episode)
A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
The Unbroken by C.L. Clark
Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig
Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid

Featured Books (TBR Topoff)
Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao
Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Full Episode Transcript
Kat Sarfas
Hello, I’m Kat Sarfas, forever bookseller at Barnes and Noble. Today we are joined by the brilliant Samantha Shannon. Samantha is the best-selling author of The Bone Season series, The Priory of the Orange Tree and A Day of Fallen Night. A writer of epic fantasy and dystopian fiction, her works have been translated into 26 languages. Welcome, thank you so much for being here with us.

Samantha Shannon
Thank you so much for having me. It’s always really fun to do podcasts. Lovely.

So, I have to start with this overwhelming amount of love you see for Priory of the Orange Tree across social media, particularly TikTok. I think my favorite reviews are those that say this book has reignited their love for high fantasy and that they could have read another 800 pages, which just kind of blows my mind. What has this sort of this explosion, this sort of heartfelt fandom meant to you?

It’s been absolutely incredible and and quite overwhelming. I didn’t really understand what was happening at first because, my Bone Season series was ticking along nicely. It’s always had like a decent readership. And when I wrote The Priory of the Orange Tree, to be honest, I was worried it was going to be a little niche, mostly because of the size of it. I remember I was having a conversation with my grandmother, who died in 2019, but she was my biggest fan while she was alive. And she was very sweet. She said to me, is anyone really going to want to read an 800-page book about dragons and lesbians? Like so earnestly. And she obviously thought this was a very niche thing. Yes. I said, Well, I hope so grandma. And then it became a New York Times bestseller, which was lovely. And she said, Well, okay, obviously people do want to read about dragons and lesbians. I was wrong. At first, I didn’t really understand what was happening because suddenly it seemed to have a lot of readers and I was getting tagged in a lot of things and the sales were going up and it was just I never really experienced such a meteoric rise for a book before. I traced it eventually to TikTok and I realized that there was all this conversation about Priory on there, and it was just so lovely to see that kind of hunger for sapphic fiction, first of all, and it’s just really lovely to see people taking on the challenge of this massive book, because, I was worried that the size of it could be off putting, and I know, it is intimidating, understandably. So, to see so many people taking it on and enjoying it has been absolutely amazing.

When I came to this book, it was sort of like, early on in the BookTok craze. And I do remember thinking to myself, if there’s that much love for a book like this — sapphic, dragons, epic fantasy that like, okay, this TikTok thing, it might not be so bad. I’m gonna check it out. It really was the fact that these were the kinds of books that were being devoured and talked about that initially kind of piqued my interest to look into to see like, what’s going on? What are people really saying? What’s this BookTok? And now I mean, obviously, that seems so far away and everything, this this sort of explosion of power, the sort of TikTokers and BookTokers have and how they talk about books, which is just endlessly fascinating and just so wonderful. When I think back to how when I was younger, exchanging our love of books and talking about our favorite authors, and it was so smaller and to see it on this grand stage, it’s just really wonderful. But yes, more dragons more sapphic fantasy absolutely and more 800-page books. Bring it on.

Yeah, it’s really cool to see like a big sapphic community on TikTok. A lot of loves for books like The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri and The Unbroken by C.L. Clark and like the sapphic trifecta, and it’s just been really cool to see that.

So Priory is a feminist reimagining of St. George and the Dragon among other things, you explore a lot of eastern and western folklore. I know you’ve spoken about how the countries in Priory are based on real countries and historical time periods. So, what was your original inspiration in creating this world? Like what was that spark for you?

I wasn’t initially intending to write anything outside my Bone Season series, which is an ongoing epic dystopia.

I was like, you have an epic already.

And I love the Bone Seasons, so intensely. But when I wrote the third one, I think most authors have had the book that just was really difficult for them. Every single author has had that book that I’ve spoken to. And for me, that book was the third book in The Bone Season series, which is called The Song Rising. And I was very conscious of having an audience at that time, when you write your debut, you’re obviously writing it without the expectation of an audience. You’re just writing it for yourself in some ways, and then you edit it for an agent or a publisher, but when I wrote The Song Rising, I was aware I had an audience waiting for the story to continue. So, I will admit, I rushed the first draft and I sent it off to my editor, and then there was this dead silence and I thought I have really, really messed up. And indeed, I had. I had written, The Song Rising as more of a bridge between the second and the fourth books. And I did eventually manage to edit it into coherence. But it was it was definitely the most difficult installment of the series compared to the fourth one, which was just incredibly easy and lovely. But while it was with my editor, I’m a full-time author, so I really needed something else to work on. I always need something to put my creativity into, I can’t just take time off, I needed to be working on some kind of writing project. So, I thought, okay, I’ve always wanted to write a book about dragons. I’ve loved dragons since I was a kid, I watched a movie called Dragon Heart in around 1996, when I was about six years old, I just fell in love with it. And I had this love of dragons ever since then. And I always wanted to find some interesting way to explore them. I was raised in Christian schools, and St. George was quite a big part of my childhood because he’s a patron saint of England, among other countries. I’m not sure how well known the legend is in America, but it’s pretty much just a standard damsel in distress story, a knight comes and saves a beautiful princess from a dragon and he saves the damsel and marries her. And that’s the simplified version of the story that we’re taught. You know, it’s an example of heroism and selflessness and that kind of thing. And I decided that I would really like to re- approach this story, because I felt like the damsel in distress narrative is one that deserves some modern interrogation. I thought I could perhaps bring my own perspective to it. So, I started to research the George and the Dragon Legend. And the more I got into it, the more ugly and problematic I found the story and it has, I won’t go into tons of detail because it would take me ages, but I’ve written an essay on this called “Damsels Undistressed” which you can find if you Google that with my name, which goes into detail about it. But basically, it’s not a very nice story and its roots — one thing I found very interesting was that in a very early version of the story, when St. George goes to this country that is being tormented by a dragon, the people are feeding their children to it, their livestock, they’re in a really bad state. And St. George says to them, I will slay the dragon, but only if you become baptized, become Christian. And I felt that his heroism was conditional, and I didn’t love that. I read several different versions of the story and one that I found particularly problematic was from the late 16th century and it was written by an Elizabethan author, who basically said, he wrote this incredibly long-winded epic, called the Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom. And St. George is one of the characters and the story contains some elements that I hadn’t heard in the George narrative before. One of which was that when St. George fought the dragon, he did so underneath an enchanted orange tree, and it protected him from the dragon, there was also a character called Kalip, who is an enchantress who gives St. George his sword before he goes on his journey. And he then kills her. There are lots of elements that had been removed or pruned out of the basic sanitized version of the story that I had heard. And I decided to take this all of the different versions, I had read and interrogate them and deconstruct them and try to challenge them, I suppose, because I found so much in those stories that I didn’t like. And that’s where the initial seed of The Priory the Orange Tree came from and then I just had to keep building outwards. I’m not very good at writing small stories, they become really big and ambitious. And I always just end up world building to the point that I build these enormous, sprawling worlds. And so I was, asking myself, okay, well, in this world, where did dragons come from? Why would an orange tree have been enchanted? Why would it have had magical properties? What kind of magic would an enchantress use, and I ended up creating this kind of dual magic system, which is a magic based on above and beneath. So, there’s a fire magic that comes from beneath the earth and then there’s a star magic that comes from the sky from a comet. And so that was the basic duality I built the world on. And then there’s two kinds of dragons, one that comes from fire, one that comes from starlight. And yeah, that’s how it all began. Really, it just kind of kept growing from there.

I love the rabbit hole that you go down. So obviously, I mean, hearing you speak and reading these books, that a lot of research kind of went into that world building. And it was interesting to hear you kind of uncovering some of these unsavory bits. What was the most unexpected thing you discovered that did or didn’t make it into this story while you were doing your research?

Oh, that’s an interesting question. I started writing Priory so long ago that there’s some elements of the research process that I don’t fully remember. So, there’s always interesting facts I discover, like I can remember like the weirdest thing I found for the prequel Day of Fallen Night which was I was researching Joan of Arc actually, because she’s one of the characters that I very loosely modeled one of the protagonists on. And I found out that one of her contemporaries suffered from this condition called the glass delusion. And it seems to have only affected sort of the European medieval nobility. And it was this really strong belief that they were made of glass, and that they would literally shatter if they weren’t really careful with themselves. And it got to the point that there was one noble king, and he wore like a special constructed cage like just to stop his internal organs from shattering because he was so convinced that they were made of glass. So that appears very briefly in Day of Fallen Night. It’s like the smallest throw away line about a very minor character who believes that she’s made of ice and I just thought it went quite nicely with the world building, but that was like one of the random facts I discovered that just it’s just something I know now.

I love that there’s always something that makes you like, what had more people not noticed. This is a crazy thing. Speaking of A Day of Fallen Night, The Priory of the Orange Tree has a lot of history. Speaking of all your all your research, there’s a lot of history in there. So, while it is a contained story, a prequel too, sort of dive into all that rich history makes my brain very happy. And I think it will make a lot of readers very happy. When did you know— again, you’re working on The Bone Season series and then you dip into this? When did you know you want it to return to the world of the Priory? And when did these stories sort of begin to form A Day of Fallen Night?

Well, I did originally set out to make Priory a standalone and I really do mean that sincerely. But I remember saying that to my agent and he just gave me this look. And he was like, it’s not going to be a standalone. When I said like I can’t afford to take any more time off from The Bone Season. I need to just write a standalone. He goes, yes, but I know you. Like with The Bone Season, it couldn’t just be one book. It had to be seven books, didn’t you? I know your imagination. You’re gonna dwell on this. And I was like, oh, okay, fine. And then eventually, I had to go back to him with my tail between my legs. And I was like, um, so what if, what if I wanted to sell another one. So it was probably I don’t know, maybe about halfway through writing Priory, because I had built like you said, this really big history to the world. I really like my worlds to feel like they haven’t just been constructed around these present characters I want them to feel really lived in. So you, you have a sense of what they used to be like, and also what they might be like in the future. So that meant I really wanted this to feel like an ancient world that had been there for a long time before this current crop of protagonist. And I created this event in the world’s history called the Great Sorrow or the Grief of Ages where there was basically a lot of wyrms, which are like fire breathing, dragons came out of a mountain called the Dread Mount, and they pretty much destroyed the whole world. And as soon as I mentioned this, in Priory, I thought, oh, that would be an interesting period to explore in a book. And there’s characters mentioned who appeared during this time period. And as soon as I wrote them, I thought they would be interesting people, you know, to explore whose lives would be really fascinating to go into more detail about in another book. So yeah, I think it was probably about halfway through Priory that I started to think about writing one that was set 500 years before, but it was definitely a little daunting to do it, especially because when Priory had gone out, a lot of readers seem to connect really strongly to the characters. I knew that if I was going to write a prequel, obviously, most of the main characters would not be able to appear because they haven’t been born yet. So that was worrying. I was just thinking our reader is going to be able to connect with a new cast of characters, or are they going to be sad that they’re not seeing the same characters again? And I was nervous when I started to write these characters. You know, I was I was like, oh, who are you? Why aren’t you writing Ead and Sabran? But I do this thing where I sort of, it sounds a bit silly, but I take my characters out for a coffee. So what I’ll do is when I have a new character in my head, I will literally go to a coffee shop, and just open a Word document and sort of type out questions for them, kind of like we’re on a date. And I just managed to do that I took them all out for a date. And by the time I walked away from the coffee date, I was like, okay, I think I like these people. I’m going to try writing from their perspective. And the next thing I knew I had fallen completely in love with them. And I was very, very attached to them by the end. So I really hope that readers will love them as much as I do.

So they all got a second date.

I would say we’re in a relationship now.

Love it. I mean, I think that it’s very interesting, you know, because I think to your point, yes, the readers the characters, there is that connection you feel, almost like this person is with you. But I think that a lot of it when you hear people talk about this book and sort of wax poetic about it, I think it is that world that they don’t want to leave. Obviously, the characters that are in it are so important. I just think about the world, and I think about how you’ve built it. But I feel like right away, you kind of build this history that this is not just— yes, we’re here in present day. But everything that’s happening has been built on, from the time before. So, I think it’s going to be so exciting. Now we have a series. Okay, so yes, we had one. Now we have a series, The Roots of Chaos series. I think one of my favorite things is to talk about books and hearing people and what they have to say, what was the part that they took away from the book? And what did they love the most, hearing what the series has bought to so many readers. And one of the things I think that is my favorite is what I mentioned earlier about how it’s really brought readers back to or introduced new readers to high fantasy. I honestly don’t know many people who don’t love dragons, let’s be serious. But what you’ve done here, with queendoms, and openly queer characters, and storylines devoid of sexual violence is, quite frankly, refreshing in this space. And for many who are sort of new to the space, they might not know some of these all these sorts of tropes that have sort of defined high fantasy for quite some time. So how important was it to you to have such diverse representation in this? I mean, in high fantasy in general, but in this high fantasy?

Yeah, I mean, it was important to me in a number of ways, and especially the point that you make about sexual violence, I should, first of all emphasize that I think that fantasy and books in general can be a really great place for authors to explore that. And I think that there should always be space for authors to be able to talk about that in whatever way that they see fit. I think the issue I was having was, that I felt as a younger writer, certainly that sexual violence and misogyny were almost expectations of the genre and that’s where I want to draw a distinction, I think that it’s fine if authors want to explore that subject. And I think it’s important for them to be able to do so. But I do not think it should be an expectation of any genre, or fiction as a whole. I think there needs to be a good variety of books where we do explore that, but also where we readers don’t have to have that vented to them. You know, when I watch Game of Thrones, for example, you know, I always felt I had to sort of brace myself every episode for the misogyny and again, it’s fine. I’m able to deal with it. I enjoyed the show. I also wanted readers to be able to have a space where they didn’t have to see that basically, and I think both of those are valid. So, I decided that was going to be my approach for this particular series, the representation in general, in order to write an authentic retelling of George and the dragon that deconstructed the elements I didn’t like about it, I felt it really needed to be a diverse story, because the original story is not particularly tolerant. I really wanted it to be a celebration of diversity and working together in a way that I felt some versions of the story did not celebrate that. So yeah, it was it was important to me, I think I was I was also sort of discovering my own sexuality, as I was writing it. I realized I was sapphic while writing The Priory of the Orange Tree. Some people have said to me, oh, I realized I was gay while I was reading it. And I was like, oh, really, I realized I was gay while I was writing. That was really interesting. And it was it was nice to be able to express that on the page and to explore that feeling I hadn’t really explored before. I think diversity in general is important in fiction, I feel like we’re in a real golden age of fantasy that’s exploring diversity from lots of different perspectives, and telling lots of stories that need to be heard at the moment and I feel really honored to be working within that space.

I love that. It’s like, I haven’t put a word to it, but it is kind of a golden age of fantasy right now. I can’t say how happy it makes me to see just not only diversity, but just women in the space sharing stories, whether it be reimagining or building new worlds. It is a very exciting time and as someone who has read fantasy for a very, very long time, and it was always my safe space, even as a child, knowing it all the books that I had to read and what was available to me, at that point in the 90s and the early aughts versus where we are now— I’m very jealous of new readers in the space and just sort of this embarrassment of riches that they have. So it’s just really wonderful.

Yeah, it is lovely. And I certainly wouldn’t want to discount the work of early female writers who were working in the space. But yeah, it’s definitely nice to see just so many female writers now. It feels like we’re really part of a movement towards a more interesting fantasy landscape where more stories are being told.

Yes, you know a fantasy is going to be epic when a book starts with multiple maps, ends with several pages describing families, family trees, players, as well as an entire glossary of terms. So, at what point in your process are you calling in the cartographer?

Oh, goodness, I should really stress that I don’t design the maps myself, I gave Bloomsbury a truly embarrassing map. In fact, I didn’t even give it to Bloomsbury, I gave it to my agency. And my agent’s assistant at the time, was a better artist than me. And so, she drew it into something slightly more coherent. I basically just sent some blobs on a page and kind of roughly divided them and just marked them with the name of each country. So yes, it’s nothing to do with me. I mean, I sketched out a map relatively early in the process, because I really needed to understand the geography of this world, just for my own sake. And then I think I just sent the kind of blobby map along with the manuscript to my agent. It’s a funny piece of trivia, actually, the map designer for the Roots of Chaos books is Emily Faccini and she is the sister of Cressida Cowell, who wrote How to Train Your Dragon. So, there’s a fun dragon fact.

There’s a little fun fact for you.

She does a really fantastic job. She I really like her illustration style.

That’s amazing. All the dragons were all connected.

I thought that was really cool, when I found out.

Another thing, these epic fantasies, you got maps, you’ve got a glossary of terms. And then of course, as you’re reading you sort of have, I find this that a lot of fantasy books, and I’d love to chat about this because I always think it’s endlessly funny. there’s the pronunciation. And you think that in your head, this was you know, if you’re not listening to the audio book in your in your reading it, you put ideas in your own head of oh, this is how it’s how it said. And then of course, you go online, you try to research and then see how you’re wrong. But there are quite a few, sort of, unofficial pronunciation guides online for the countries and everything. Have you listened to any of them? Is there any thought into doing your own official Samantha Shannon Roots of Chaos pronunciation guide?

So, I have a bit of a thing about this. So, so many people have asked me for a pronunciation guide, and I have been incredibly slowly working on one, I have this bizarre dread that I cannot explain, of putting it out there and then people being sad that their pronunciation was wrong. I don’t want to make people sad. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s just this kind of weird, hang up. I’ve had like, I will put one out I am working on it and it’s interesting because apparently, the audiobook narrator for the book, actually pronounced is one of my characters names in a way that I don’t pronounce it. So even the audiobook can differ from the way, Audible only asked me for some of the pronunciation strangely. So obviously, the audiobook narrator was left to her own devices otherwise, and I think that’s completely fine. That’s just one version of the story. It’s not how I pronounce it. But that’s totally fine. But yeah, I will at some point, I haven’t listened to any of the other pronunciation guides. Currently, I think what I’ll do is I’ll wait for A Day of Fallen Night to come out and then I’ll just do one big Roots of Chaos guide. Even when I have to commit it to the audiobook, I just had to send over the Audible pronunciation guide for A Day of Fallen Night because they’re just about finished recording it now. Even then I was like, oh, is that how the name should be pronounced? I was like doubting myself because I had to actually commit to it. Obviously, when you write it, you don’t have to commit to the pronunciation, but then I was like, oh, my goodness, like, is that correct? Is that the way it should be?

It’s funny how you say that people sort of, you have it in your head, just like how you visualize a character, you have a sort of visual of that character. And then, sometimes there’ll be an adaptation and, the actor or whomever is, you’re like, that’s not what I had in my head. And it’s so funny to think that it’s also these names and whatnot, but they will say there was a bit of satisfaction, when I was kind of, of course, going down the Google and rabbit hole and, and looking at the pronunciation when it would match someone else’s. It was like, ah, like a connection. Like, I guess I was, I was right.

The head casting thing is always really interesting as well. So, at some point in the process, this is probably somehow my fault, but I think I’ve miscommunicated to people a lot of people think that Sabran, who’s the queen in the Priory of the Orange Tree should be played by Katie McGrath. And I think I said at one point Yeah, she looks a bit like Sabran and somehow that got passed along. Now it’s apparently Samantha Shannon based Sabran on Katie McGrath. I just said she might be a good person to play her and she looks a bit like her, it’s just quite funny like that. I tend to not get involved in that kind of thing. So, I prefer readers to be free to imagine the characters for themselves.

And that’s the that’s the game of telephone that happens.

I would see this and be like did I say this? I was thinking to myself, did I actually say that at some point? I know it’s not true, but I’ve seen people say it.

Yeah. And it’s funny because I’ve heard other authors say similar things like, they made that one— they maybe casually mentioned the person or an actor or some sort of figure that like, oh, this was— and then it takes on a life of their own. And they’re kind of like, never again, say, because it is, there is something very personal when you’re reading and how you’re connected. And I can’t imagine, when you’re writing these, and then you have your own kind of vision, and then you sort of put it out in the world and to see all the different, the other versions and the other pronunciations and the other of these characters. So that’s just like endlessly fascinating. So, we’ve got these maps, we’ve got the glossary of terms. And now I cannot not ask you about the cover design. It’s so iconic at this point. And then also the fact that it’s a wrap around. I mean, I kind of feel like it’s just this like, perfect package. Did you work in on the cover design? Did you have any ideas that you sort of put forward where you’re like, I just want this to be as breathtaking as possible.

So, I did not have anything to do with the cover. Like I said, I’m not an illustrator, I do not have any artistic talent whatsoever. I left that to Bloomsbury. So, the art director of Bloomsbury is a guy called David Mann, who has done all of my covers since the beginning of my career. And interesting when they sent me the initial sketch I was always skeptical because I thought it was beautiful, but there was more of a trend at the time to more simplistic covers, like a kind of a symbol on a plain background, like kind of something like more like George RR Martin’s books, quite simple, and when I saw this, it almost reminded me of like, old kind of 80s fantasy in a way, but I ended up coming around to it because it was just so beautiful. And the colors that they had chosen were just amazing, like that kind of beautiful sunset palette. And I said, Okay, let’s go with this. But I think the only piece of feedback I gave was that I thought the dragon was slightly tail heavy and possibly couldn’t fly. He had this really kind of massive tail initially. And I think, that doesn’t really look like it would be airborne very easily. So, I think that was the only commentary I gave. just slim the tail down a bit. Just on the aerodynamics of it working for me visually. I don’t know anything about aerodynamics, I think I was just trying to sound smart. But yeah, so I didn’t really have any feedback apart from that. And then of course, it was incredibly well received. And so, it’s designed by David Mann, but the illustrations are done by Ivan Belikov, who specializes in like these beautiful, detailed drawings of mythological creatures, so that he has Instagram and they’re all over there. They’re stunning. And I really didn’t think that they were going to be able to top the design for A Day of Fallen Night. But then when it came in, I was like, how— they made it even more stunning, like, the colors were amazing. I mean, I asked them if they could do a wraparound where the back had a volcano on it, because the whole kind of inciting event A Day of Fallen Night is the eruption of this volcano called the Dread Mount. And I asked for that and then I asked for the front to be more kind of stars and snow and ice, kind of like polar opposites, essentially. And that’s pretty much exactly what they did. And I think David kind of came up with the initial concept and then Ivan did the illustrations and it’s so stunning. I don’t think I had any feedback other than having a little bit of snow on pine branches on it. And I wanted them to have some snow because there’s you know, snow in the book. So just being quite just basic feedback. But I love it, I think it’s such an explosion of color. It has this like really nice streak of hot pink on it and I very rarely see hot pink on covers. It just looks so nice. I love it so so much.

Yes, I’m actually looking at it right now. And as you were as you were talking about, yep, there’s that there’s this. There’s, there’s the snow.

I have it literally in my hand at this moment.

I was lucky to see it early on, the same thing where it’s like, how do you top Priory because I just think you don’t judge a book by its cover. But really, when you see something like this, you have to kind of stop and even just “what is this” and then to see the cover for the Day of Fallen Night. Whereas you were saying the Priory has this sort of this beautiful sunset palette and then to see the Day of Fallen Night and it’s just yeah, between like the blues of the of the snow and the starlight and then there’s pinks, and it’s just how it’s done. It’s just quite breathtaking.

And it’s really remarkable. I feel very lucky to have it because I am under no illusions that a lot of the reason the book has been successful will be to do with the cover because it really just looks like such a work of art. Is something that you just want to have on your bookshelf when you look at it. It’s beautiful. So, I feel really lucky both for Ivan and David and also for Emily for doing the maps inside. It’s just really beautiful.

You captured our imaginations with your vivid imagery and attention to detail with Priory. So then you take us back to unearth the history in A Day of Fallen Night. What is next for the Roots of Chaos? And I have to ask this question, no spoilers or as much as you can tell us— what’s next?

Well, I’m very happy to say that I have sold another book in the Roots of Chaos cycle, which was really wonderful. Bloomsbury have been very, very supportive of the series all the way through. And they were really delighted that I did want to write another one, I’m probably not going to be working on it for a few years, each of the books, because of their size and their complexity, they take me about three years from start to finish. And I really needs to consider my schedule carefully before I start one. So I’m going to be first of all, finishing the fifth book in my Bone Season series. While that is with my editor, I’m going to be working on a book inspired by the Greek goddess Iris, which is going to be a standalone. And after that, I will probably start working on the third Roots of Chaos book alongside the sixth Bone Season, but because I want to make sure that I continue to get the Bone Season to my readers as fast as possible, because people have been very patient waiting. You know, I’ve been working on this series for a decade, and it still isn’t finished. But I’m a real perfectionist, like I love The Bone Season series so much that I really agonize over every installment just like I do with the Roots of Chaos books. Yeah, it is coming. I think I just need a breather from the doorstoppers, but it is it’s in the process of being cooked in my mind.

I love it. And I will say I think fantasy readers are pretty forgiving when it comes to you these epic series and when the books arrive. I feel like you’re you’ve been pretty good, in comparison. It started as a standalone now Roots of Chaos is now three. And then you had mentioned a possible standalone, is it going to be a standalone for Iris?

I think so yes. Again, never say never.

Never say never.

I’ve definitely learned not to make any promises on this kind of thing. I do think this is different because it’s you know, it’s just a straight sort of reimagining of the Iliad, really. I don’t think it’s something I would continue is inspired by Iris. But it’s going to be focused on the women of the Illiad, particularly, although I will also be looking at other events in Greek mythology. But I think I’m pretty sure that will be a standalone, I don’t think, I just really was fascinated by this particular goddess. And there is a trend of kind of looking at historical and mythological women at the moment, which I think is wonderful. Because it feels like we are really building a library of books about women’s history and women’s stories and sharing their perspectives and giving them richer stories than they had in the original. And this is, I suppose is my contribution to that ongoing library that a lot of female authors are building together. But yeah, Iris, in particular, just really interested me. I’m actually often more interested in minor goddesses and minor figures in mythology. And I always found her appearances in the Iliad to be very interesting. So that’ll just be my book exploring her character, but she’s a pretty minor goddess. So I don’t have a ton of material to work with strangely, so I think it will just be a standalone.

But I mean, all the more to build. And speaking of brilliant women, because I’m always looking for book recommendations from brilliant women, and I happen to have you here. What are you reading now? Or what was the last book that you read that just that you loved?

I always get overwhelmed by book recommendations. I always want to read like 10 books, and I’m reading a book called Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig. Yes, it’s really stunning. It’s about this Chinese pirate queen. And it’s just really wonderful. Again, it’s kind of part of that movement towards telling women’s stories from their perspective and just giving them like a richer narrative and I’m doing an event with Rita for my tour when I come to California. So I’m really excited about that. A few other books I would recommend, one of them is called The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri. It’s a part of the so-called sapphic trifecta, as it gets talked about on TikTok particularly, it’s sort of an epic fantasy inspired by India, and it’s about two women who have to work together to take down an emperor like a sort of a religious fanatic, and they might just fall in love on the way. One of my favorite recent books and I love it so much. I recommend it all the time. Another one, which was published last year is called Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid, which is a gothic horror, inspired by 19th century Ukraine. And it’s really, really stunning. It’s a very interesting examination of trauma and survival. And it’s incredibly romantic. Ava Reid writes the most wonderful love interests like I’m always so ripped by her love stories, and I would really recommend it is just very dark and gritty. And it’s so beautifully written, Ava Reid is a wonderful writer.

And I will also comment that all of those books that you mentioned, of course, I’m thinking of and I’ve been lucky enough to see the covers for the first one and it hasn’t been published yet. And they’re all just so striking. Books that you can’t help but pick them up and then when you do you are just in for a treat.

I really love the illustrated covers that are coming out recently and I just I love the level of detail and also the sense of movement. I feel like a lot of covers, including A Day of Fallen Night are very dynamic. They look like they’re moving, and I just think that’s great.

Samantha, I cannot thank you enough. Thank you for the dragons, the magic, the epic adventures. This has been wonderful. A Day of Fallen Night the prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree is out now.

Thank you so much for having me.

Poured Over