Poured Over: V.E. Schwab on The Fragile Threads of Power

By Jenna Seery / September 30, 2023 at 6:00 am

“My biggest goal was to convert people who said they don’t like fantasy.”

V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic series has enchanted us with wit, wonder and a world not unlike our own, filled with heroes and intrigue. Her newest addition, The Fragile Threads of Power, brings our favorite characters on a new adventure. Schwab joins us to talk about returning to her magical version of London, the role of social media for authors and readers, vampire novels and more with guest host, Kat Sarfas. We end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Madyson and Marc.  

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Kat Sarfas and mixed by Harry Liang.        

Featured Books (Episode):
The Fragile Threads of Power by V.E. Schwab
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab
The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
Painted Devils by Margaret Owen

Featured Books (TBR Topoff):
Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Full Episode Transcript

Kat Sarfas
Hello, I’m Kat Sarfas bookseller at Barnes and Noble today we are joined by the brilliant VE Schwab Victoria is a best-selling author of over 20 books including The Shades of Magic series, the Villain Series, and The Invisible Life of Addie Larue just to name a few. The Fragile Threads of Power, Victoria’s long-awaited return to the Shades of Magic series weaves a gripping tale of old heroes and new enemies. a welcome return to the dazzling world of thieves, travelers, magical battles and epic adventures. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

VE Schwab
Thank you for having me.

So I have to go back to the beginning. It’s been a minute, you know, since we all were first introduced to Kell and Lila and Holland, take us back and tell us the origin story for the Shades of Magic series. And then when The Fragile Threads of Power started to take shape.

Yeah, so let’s see, I was 25 when I wrote A Darker Shade of Magic, how to measure in terms of the books that I wrote those ages, so I just turned 36. I was 35 when I wrote Threads of Power 25 when I wrote A Darker Shade Magic. Yeah, I wanted to write a portal fantasy novel, I’ve always wanted to breaking down into that, like Tolkien versus Lewis camp where Tolkien’s world is one you will only ever access through the world of a book. And Lewis is the one that tells you, there’s magic in your world, you just have to find the doorway. So I’ve always been somebody who likes to build a doorway out of reality, I wanted to write a love letter to Avatar The Last Airbender, and Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood and kind of my favorite totemic magical systems. And I also wanted to do something a little different. So there are four worlds in the series. But rather than design four completely distinct worlds, what I really was fascinated by was the idea of designing one world four ways. And so I thought, can I design the same scaffolding, one geographical landscape, and then from there build for different houses, and essentially, these four worlds, which Kell calls Gray, Red, White and Black, because that’s how he thinks of them. They are differentiated by their relationship to magic. So they were all connected. And there was a cataclysmic event in black London, which became so powerful that essentially consumed itself, and the other three worlds sealed themselves off from it. And they each have a very different relationship to magic. Now, white London, which was right next to black London, now like enslaves magic and tries to force it and control it. And in response, it withdraws and resists red London, which is the one that Kell lives in. One of our main characters is a world that has worshipped magic, like a god and their world has thrived because of it. And then grey London is our world, circa 1819 and magic’s been forgotten. So it was really about like, the philosophical idea of how the relationship between mortality and power manifests in these different landscapes. And so yeah, that’s where it all started.

Why, and I I’m part of me feels like, of course, London. But why London?

Several reasons. One, it was kind of a nod to the fact that so many fantasy is classically set there. Having visited in my youth, my mum is English. And I remember going to London for the very first time and just being so astonished by the layering of history in that setting, you know, where as an American by birth, like, it’s very young, so many aspects of American culture and American history, not Native American history, obviously, but like westernized history is very young. And you don’t really have this sense of going back hundreds and hundreds of 1000s and 1000s of years. And I was amazed by this idea that you could round a corner in London and feel like you’ve stepped a century, one direction or another. So I was fascinated by that. I also because I was building one geographical template and then designing new city on top of it, I really wanted to pick a city that was kind of iconic. And also simple. So if you reduce London to its most simple geography, you have a North Bank of South Bank and a river in the middle. So like, take it down to stud in that way, and then build for London’s with the geographic similarity of the north bank, the South Bank and the river. And that would at least help readers kind of hold it in their mind.

Yeah, no, I mean, again, it’s I think what you were saying, I don’t know if it’s just because of the age or because of just if there is something about London you feel like you’re going to turn the corner and step into or like they’re going to be immortal or like you have to step into a magical door so now The Fragile Threads of Power which is like a new, a new arc and I feel like I’m getting this like ask this question like, is it a prequel? Is it in the world like, I need more information. I’m like, Okay, it’s in the world, but it’s gonna have its own arc. Did you always know you always like, Oh yeah, I’m gonna have this and then I’m gonna start a new arc or like when did this… I hate calling it Threads now because of…

I know, I know. Like, wow, SEO nightmare. But yeah, so Threads of Power is set seven years after the end of Shades of Magic, so Shades of Magic is the first arc in the series. And then Threads of Power the second arc in the series, I write my stories in reverse meaning like, I know how all of them end before I know how they begin. And so for Shades of Magic, I knew the end of A Darker Shade of Magic and the end of Conjuring of Light. Before I started writing the series, I was about halfway through Conjuring of Light when there was a plot point that I needed, which is this favor, that Maris who’s the captain of this floating market, which is an illegal market, she basically gives Lila gift in exchange for a future favor. And I knew at the moment I wrote that, that I wasn’t going to have time to call the favor in or if I did call the favor in it, it would have been rushed, it would have been rushed to tie up a loose thread. And I just was like, Okay, I’m gonna hold it. And it was kind of the first moment where I thought oh, like, I would like to give myself an opportunity to return back, I’m gonna plant this little piece, this favor, and then that it all grew out of there. And by the time I finished revising Conjuring of Light, I knew I wanted to do a new trilogy. But because I never want to tell the same story twice, I felt very strongly that this cannot simply be continuation. It is not a straightforward one directional continuation of the existing cast, there is an old cast and a new cast. So in The Fragile Threads of Power, the old cast is probably the largest that they will be in terms of the story because it’s kind of how we’re guiding readers in and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t say like, Oh, definitely Kell and Lilah will be in it. And then they have like a one page cameo. They are hefty plot pieces. But I also really wanted to set myself a new storyline and a new objective, or else, what’s the point of writing something new when people could just reread what they love. And so that’s my own creative philosophy. I know there are plenty of people out there who just really like living in a place a fictional setting. But for me, there has to be a strong enough premise.

I think you do that really well. And I think that there’s, you know, knowing when there’s an ending, and that you know, not everything, you know, maybe it gets wrapped up or like you said it, or if it doesn’t, then it maybe it has its own, it has its own place. It has its own story. It’s its own contained unit.

Because like my goal as an author, particularly is to make sure that you as the reader feel like the characters you love keep living when you put the book down that you’re simply no longer invited to follow them. I don’t ever want to write characters that you feel cease to exist without your attention. And so this was an interesting exercise for me, because I was like, okay, Kell, Lila, Rye and Alucard have now lived seven years, I have to make you believe that they are not the same people that you left, at the end of Conjuring of Light, they have to feel seven years older and more experienced. And that was exciting and extremely daunting as a writer.

Yes. I mean, because you do have to, I mean, we’re not going to do spoilers, but you know, you’re gonna have to go back in time a little bit to sort of, like when you’re in Fragile to sort of set like, okay, so this is, this is when this happened. And this is kind of, you know, like I said, you’re kind of setting this foundation for this new art, for this new story for these new characters. And it gets seven years. I mean, that’s a lot. I mean, think about your own life like

That was the irony of this is like, basically, it ended up timing out is almost exactly seven years for me between finishing Conjuring of Light and finishing Fragile Threads of Power. And I was like, Oh, it gave me a little bit of permission, because one thing I always I’m a little worried about is that, you know, books, they become time capsules of the people that we are when we’re writing them, but then we finished them, and they become static and preserved. And we as creators continue to grow. And so one of the hardest things to come back to a series is I’m glad I gave myself the seven years, because I think it would have been much harder to return to the series, right after Conjuring of Light. And then two, for me to be seven, eight years older, as a writer and trying to almost mimic the writer that I was in my late 20s.

Yeah, we always put so much into ourselves into anything we do. And it’s hard to sort of break apart. And I mean, it could, I would say in these last maybe seven years, and particularly there’s been I think there is a thread that I think we’re all connected to in terms of events and things that have happened. I feel like you’ve been thinking seven years ago, it’s like I don’t even know who I was I or maybe I thought I did at the time. And then like you said, you grow and you, not necessarily change or maybe you do change but it is evolution. You evolved. So it’s actually had this question. I was gonna ask you later but now since we’re talking about it, you know, you have these characters and I think we do get I think, as readers, we do have formed these attachments. We can’t help it, you know that we just have these attachments to these characters and Fragile Threads of Power, we have sort of like a new cast of players, but we also get to reconnect. And so can you talk a little bit about that sort of revisiting old friends saying goodbye to others, because in other your other books, you know, standalone out of the room, you, you say goodbye. That’s it. You know, like that’s, that’s the story.

Much to people’s chagrin, and they’re like a sequel? And I’m like, no, no.

So what is it like, being able to say goodbye to some, revisiting others, how does that play on you.

It’s like coming home, it was truly like it was such a gift. One of the more daunting things about starting a series. And one of the reasons I like to write standalones, as well is because there’s so much that goes into building a world from scratch. And it’s daunting, and you do so much. And then you have to leave it when you’re done. And you’re like, but I just did so much work. Like it was really a joy. You know, I could write 20 books in this world and not touch every corner of it. One of the reasons we chose London is like for the sheer necessity of having a geographic pin, so that we don’t become a travelogue so that it doesn’t become something that’s massively expansive. But it also means like, we call them you know, red London, white London, black London, grey, London, but there’s whole red, black, white, and grey worlds outside of London, there’s empires there’s, and so it’s very easy to kind of like feel overwhelmed as a creator by the prospect of editing of like, self editing, of choosing what to include and what not to include. And so a series is a really beautiful thing. And this is my first time returning to a world that I built and finished an arc for, which has its own daunting prospects as an author because you think, Oh, I hope they don’t say the last one was better. I hope I have to make this one. But like, your own pressure, on the whole, it’s a joy. And one of my goals, like one of my challenges, but I really love it is the idea of how can I introduce new forms of magic to a world that you already understand without it feeling like I’m breaking it. So like, I’ve tried in each book of the series, a in every one of the Shades of Magic books, and now in Threads to like to begin each book and give you a form of magic you haven’t experienced yet. So like, for instance, between A Darker Shade of Magic, which was our first book, A Gathering of Shadows, you meet Alucard Emery and Alucard Emery has the ability to see the threads of magic, you also learn that he is a triad magician, he can control three elements like there’s all these pieces. And so my goal then is okay, I’ve built this world I’ve designed how magic functions. How can magic then go through its own form of industrial revolution? How can magic begin to grow and change it in Fragile Threads of Power? There’s an inventor queen, who’s like entire interest is in taking magic and making it improve. So I think one of my like, little pet peeves when I’m reading fantasy is when it feels like magic has always looked this way and always shall. And I’m like, this is your science and your God, like, surely there’s people coming along with ingenuity and creativity, like tests, the main the new lead in Fragile Threads of Power is a 15-year-old tinkerer who has the ability to manipulate the nature of reality around her. And yet I don’t think it feels like it’s breaking the rules of the world that I set up because it she’s still functioning within it. It’s just, it always feels like there’s something new to turn over.

And I mean, to think about it just in our world where you know, where there isn’t magic, I mean, you again, things evolve, we find ways to improve things, you know, we find ways to create things to make things easier to make things better to make things more fun. And so like it does, it makes sense that magic would have the same, you know, that would kind of follow that same path.

I mean, I’m such a nerd, but it’s like, what does an antique look like then in red London, you know, what and that’s where you get something like the inheritor which is like a device that originally allowed one magician to transfer their magic to their heir, but it was seen as like, everyone used it for the wrong reasons, and everyone used it to steal other people’s magic and so it was done away but it’s a piece of failed magic and I liked the idea of having relics of having pieces that were they were like, You know what bad idea let’s just scrap that.

And now I’m like thinking back and was like I remember Kell when he’s collecting it’s these like, because he’s so fascinated with like, how you’ve adapted, like how we’ve adapted and how we’ve sort of evolved and to solve problems without you know without magic.

14:44

Yes, he was in grey London because it’s you have like in our world, you have to do things with technology and he and they don’t any comments on this in the very beginning of A Darker Shade of Magic that one of his favorite things is the architecture in grey London because having to earth movers and stone movers and all of these magicians in his world makes the architecture extremely fickle, because things can go up and come down all the time. Whereas in our London, everything is so solid.

And it makes you like, as much as I would love to be live in a world of magic. It does make you appreciate that.

He loves music boxes, he loves automaton, like he loves the idea of you having to make magic in your own ways.

I love that, I think that’s so beautiful and then when you think of things, and then you’re walking around and you see things and it does, it kind of makes you feel like this is all magic. It’s just, we figured it out.

And I think that gets to a kind of core premise of in every book in this series, which is really figuring out the difference between insider and outsider. Because dealing with these four worlds, you always have somebody for whom any one of those worlds is normal, is baseline is the thing that they’ve known all their life, and someone for whom they’ve never set foot in that world before. And so a lot of the conflict and a lot of the interest in the new characters is like, Okay, you take a character like Lila Bard who’s born in our London and a place without magic, and it’s never felt like she belongs fully put her into a world with magic and watch her adapt. And she’s gonna notice completely different things and engage with the world in a completely different way than Kell who’s lived there all his life and take certain things as just for granted. And so I love looking at what happens when you take the character out of their pond. And so having these four worlds allows you to constantly have someone who is learning to adapt to a new space.

Is that outsider? Yeah. I love that. So you have and I’m looking at your copy in the back and I see all like the post it notes and all the notes. I love that. Which reminds me that you’ve been doing a Shades of Magic read along. Yeah, it’s I I’m kind of obsessed with it. I’m just obsessed in general of the idea of like an adult storytime. I feel like people talk about, you know, the importance of like reading to children. And every time I hear something I’m like, What about the importance of reading to adults? Really, I think we can all use. And I’m not just talking about audiobooks, audiobooks are lovely. But there is something about like, a contact, like a human and watching. And you know, whether you’re in a room with someone and they’re reading to you, or you’re on YouTube, and you’re watching someone read to you, I just think it’s so it’s just so fun. And to just kind of get the fact that you’re not even just like you’re not just reading…

In fact, I almost I do almost no actual reading instead of short form memorization where essentially, I went through, reread every book, and then essentially recited it back in small summary form chapter by chapter to the camera in 10 episodes. So my brain — and I have a very strong rule for myself against not reading my books once they’re on shelves, because they become static entities. And I’m not I read a book probably 50 times before it’s published because of John’s editing. But because of that, I had never actually read Shades of Magic, since it first came out. And so doing this read along involves me sitting down with the original trilogy, and like annotating and reading and like, memorize and I was terrified, because I was like, what if I hate it, this is going to be so uncomfortable for me, because also audible like self edit something I wrote last week, I don’t want to get stuck like that. But honestly, it was really a joy. And I hope that that if nothing else comes through in the read along. So just like I’m having a really fun time holding that space with the readers and chatting with readers. And I try and give a behind the scenes glimpses into like, oh, well, this was actually the very first scene that I ever wrote for the book, or this is my favorite chapter in this book. And oh, here’s the thing. I don’t even remember writing and how weird is that? Like, there’s just, I tried to just be very, very honest about each section and how I would do things differently 10 years later in a certain segment and so yeah, it’s really just kind of like equal parts. Gossip, and fandom and behind the scenes moment.

No, I love it. And I guess in my head when I first was like, Oh, I’m gonna check it you know what I wanted? Yeah, I didn’t think it was gonna just be like chapter one. Like sitting with a giant arm chair fire in the background. Yeah. And then I’m like, Why does she have so many like, posts I’m like, looking at all like, just like, just are tapped.

Like every single chapter I like summarized on a single post it note so that I could be able to because that’s the other part is like you’re not just memorizing you then have to be entertaining. How can I like I basically I just had to refill one because several were lost in a great hard drive accident. And I one of them was like 27 mins long. I don’t think I took a breath. I don’t think I don’t think I’ve ever looked down at the book or took a breath the whole time. So they exist in their imperfection. They’re not meant to be like perfectly curated videos that are meant to be very informal, honest walkthroughs and I also it’s because I’m the kind of reader who like I need a refresher like I need someone to refresh my memory of what happens. Actually, because yes, you can start with Fragile Threads of Power. But I do believe there’s a level of nuance that you might not get in terms of the old cast in terms of how far they’ve come without Shades of Magic. So obviously want people to read Shades of Magic, before Threads of Power if they have the time, but if they don’t have the time, the read along videos are really good. And they’re fantastic.

And there are times when like, and I always challenge myself and I did, I did the same thing this time, and I literally have the stack. And they just keep on getting bigger.

Like, just why they keep getting longer. Just give up.

And I was like, because like, and I’ve done this before, like where like a new book is coming out and see maybe there’s been some time and I’m like, I’m gonna go back and read every single one. And then you start and you’re like, oh my god, and then when I started the videos, I realized I was like, Oh, you’re just doing like synopsis and no commentary. And this is brilliant, because then you can kind of follow and then like the fact that you do you know you have the book there. You do remember lines, obviously we all remember certain lines, because they just stay with us. But it was just I think the whole idea is brilliant. I had to say well, I also had to say I’m very I’m a big fan of the furry guests.

Oh god, they’re the worst, Thomas mostly because he has to be there at the worst of times and Chauncey because he’s always just out of frame.

Just like you see like the great poof.

It’s been an ordeal, they just think it’s all about them. It’s fine. I know. I refuse to give them their own social media because then I know no one would follow me It’s okay, I’ve accepted it.

Well, I did, I enjoyed your dogs, that was also that was very enjoyable. So but I do you know, the other furry friends you can’t, you can’t.

Of course, my favorite thing is someone posted, they were in their living room and they were casting the read along video to their television. And Thomas was sitting on the edge of my chair in this on the screen and their cats came up and we’re like, trying to make direct eye contact with them. So there’s just two cats having like a face off in the corner of my screen.

I love it. I love it. I imagined the fan response has been wonderful. And I mean like being able to sort of connect with your fans literally like having a sort of a love bash a Shades of Magic love fest essentially before this new work comes out.

Very nice. The engagement is nice, it’s nice to have the interaction, it’s also just nice to have a very intimate form. So much of social media is flash in the tan and it’s there and gone. It’s really nice to have a place where it feels like not only can the readers and the fandom interact with me, they can interact with each other, and each other and I just think it’s really cool community building it. I don’t know, I just think I’ve had a really nice time doing it.

No, it’s wonderful. I mean, that’s one of the things that you know, for better or worse, I do kind of, I kind of love about, you know, booktok and the you know, these sort of social committees as much as, like, there will never be anything to me better than just walking into a random bookstore, like seeing someone like holding a book and whether I know about that book or don’t know about that book and like striking up a conversation or looking at the rec cards talking to the booksellers, you know, like having conversations with not only with the readers in the shops, but the booksellers that are there as well, like that, to me, it’s just, that’s like, perfect afternoon, you know, like having conversations around books. And we obviously can’t always be with each other. And so these other forms, you know, whether it be like the booktok, or these YouTube videos, these read alongs it’s just been, it’s being able to have conversations around stories and characters and how they make us feel. It’s just really wonderful. And I just, I love it. I love it so much. So which brings me to, you know, we’re reading along. But we have new covers.

We do, we have new editions.

We have new editions, and I have them all and I love that you’ve been doing these like…

Well, they kind of lend themselves to these reveals these like little sets.

I mean the other covers, they are so iconic. I remember, like, you know, like hearing like, Okay, we’re going to do new covers and like immediately, you know you clam up like what? Okay, like, what do we do.

I think that’s the problem with like, also having years between, which is not to say like my OG covers are stunning. They’re exquisite. They were also at the time when they came out at the forefront of specific time like they were really among the like, they were the first red, black white, like graphic iconic covers. And in the seven, eight years between like that has become kind of a design staple in fantasy. And I did truly think that like they might not stand out as well as they had and so part of the challenge of like, I’ve always been extremely lucky with covers, but part of the challenge is like, how do you have covers that put you at the forefront of a conversation in 2023 not just continue any conversation that was there in 2015. Also, as much as I love my original covers, there obviously was like somebody who didn’t pick them up. And so it’s about like, how do you then try and find new readers as well as continuing your love for your existing audience. One of the challenges of any publisher is to say, like, how do we capture people this time that we didn’t capture last night, to be honest, like the other option was not giving Shades of Magic new covers, and The Threads of Power cover still would not have matched it because it’s seven years later, and it’s, you know, they’re gonna want it something new. So I fought really hard to make sure that the Shades of Magic books got an update as well, because the alternative was no matching covers ever, and that’s catastrophic in a different way. But I love them because they look like movie posters. I love them because they feel like pop culture, which is like you ever wanted to do is write accessible fantasy, right? fantasy that makes you forget that you’re reading that just like drags you in. I’m the kind of reader who, when I was young, I felt very off put by a lot of fantasy because it felt like I had to prove that I was smart enough or that I deserved to like be part of the fandom. And so with Shades of Magic in particular, my biggest goal was to convert people who said they don’t like fantasy.

Yes, I feel like I have that struggle every day. Just talking about you know, that’s, that’s what I do. I talk about fantasy books. I talk about science fiction, and trying to think that there is sort of like a barrier, like people feel like it’s that they can’t access it. It’s not, it’s not accessible, or like, oh, that’s I think they immediately go to like high fantasy and oh, I can’t enter that. Well, I can’t be there.

I think about this all the time with like The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, which is a fantasy novel. And yet so many people who read that were like, I don’t love fantasy. And I’m like, But you loved Addie Larue, and they were like, Yeah, but that’s not fantasy. I was like, That’s a deal with the devil over 300 years. Like, I hate to break it to you. That’s a fantasy. But there’s still this preconceived notion of what fantasy is. Fantasy is dragons, fantasy is Tolkien, fantasy is like lots of hyphens and apostrophes and names, but fantasy is like a d&d game and a book, right? There’s, like so much of my like, welcome to my TED talk of it all is trying to convince people that they can just like love the story, and that they don’t have to get bogged down at the threshold of a category. They don’t, it’s not a huge commitment.

And I think that just like most other, you know, fiction or whatnot, there’s there are, there are sub genres. And I think that that’s something where I feel like I tend to talk about, you know, somebody I just had was having this conversation about, like cozy fantasy, and somebody was talking about, you know, like that, for instance, like, House in the Cerulean Sea like that. And they’re like, oh, I don’t read fantasy, but I read that and I’m like, but that’s fantasy. And it’s like, okay, so again, like to what you were saying fantasy isn’t just names you can’t pronounce languages, you can’t speak, world you don’t understand, dragons. And you know, are people with an old man with pointy hats? Like it’s not that’s there’s a whole there’s a whole spectrum. And the more I will say, I like had these just staring at me like these. Yeah, they really start. And they do and they do start to grow and you and then you feel like you’re cheating. And I’m like, but I do know.

I feel like feel betrayal sometimes.

But I like it. People will be thinking that the covers are iconic, I’m like, these colors are beautiful, like and they’re colorful, and they’re just they do they just kind of grab you and you want to know who is that person.

To be very nerdy about it for a moment is that like the original series that color palette was generated by Kell. Kell’s concept of the four worlds was this red, black white color palette, and that was how he perceived the world. The new series Threads is about how Tes perceives the world and Tes as someone who is surrounded by a cacophony of color because literally magic manifests visually around her to like migraine inducing points. And so I wanted the new cover for Fragile Threads to have this vibrancy that no it’s not how Kell’s cover would be, of course, but like this isn’t Kell’s book. Yeah, this is about broadening the world and broadening our cast and understanding as well that like how one person perceives an environment is not how another person perceives it.

No, and I love it and I love how like you, you get through all these colors and then there and then you get to know and it’s like…

I can’t wait to see it with it’s finished. Yes, I’m like this is which I’ll which I honestly I’m a little bit of a I love collecting like advanced reader copies. Something about like those papers. There’s like first editions and yeah, you know, again, they’re always like, Oh, these aren’t you know, they’re not they’re not completely you know, uncorrected and they’re just to have copies and I’m like, I love it. I love it and it’s raw form mostly raw form, you know, again thinking about, you know, I’m sure there’s so many fans that come to you like tears and come to you through Addie. You know, again, these people who I don’t read fantasy, but I love it and having obviously those conversations and you know, they’re probably discovering Shades of Magic for the first time. So after two and a half years you finally got to finally go on tour like to go back but you got to finally go on tour this past spring for Addie. So what was it like? I mean, now you’re gonna have a new tour. What was it like sort of reconnecting with those fans old and new. And again, like knowing that these are these are, you know, a lot of them may be new and like reintroducing them to all of your work. And then my sub question is how many Addie Larue tattoos did you see? Do you have a definitive number?

I saw hundreds which is insane. I went, my favorite is that we went to Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego and four members of the staff all had Addie tattoos. And I’m like that, to me, is one of the coolest things. It’s amazing. I’m really glad I fought for that cover. The original Addie Larue cover was, it wasn’t the right cover, obviously. But I fought I kept going back and being like, I just want a black cover with seven gold stars. Like this is what you have to give me like, and I push and they push and they push, they push and they finally gave it to me. And so it feels very validating to see that constellation, like of all those tattoos that wouldn’t exist. But it was it was so interesting to go on a paperback tour. It’s not something I conventionally do a paperback comes out for it was two and a half years, but normally a year to two years after the hardcover and you go on tour for the hardcover. And when you go on tour for a hardcover, you’re promoting a book that people haven’t read yet. And when you go on tour for paperback, you’re celebrating a book that most people have read, there was so much love and so much space held and so many people found Addie, you know, because it came out during the pandemic they felt it found that book at a very difficult time and it’s a book about stubborn hope you know and joy and finding small happiness and it meant a lot to a lot of people and that was palpable. Yeah, and of course, like because my brain works the way it is. I was like nobody’s ever gonna love my other books. But here’s the beautiful thing is like, I’ve now watched over the last two years, readers some readers find me through Addie and then find Shades and find Vicious and find Gallant and like, it’s incredible. I know that it’s this trickle down system where of course not every Addie reader is going to become every Shades reader, but and Shades has its own fandom, which is always very important to remember that like I’m one of those weird authors where when I speak to my social media audience, I know that I’m not speaking to like one audience, I have to follow me because of all my YA novels and people who follow me because they love Shades and people who follow me because they love Addie and people who follow me because they love my pets. I know, I know. And so I try to be very mindful that but it has been really hope inducing to see people come to Shades and to come to my books, my other books with a measure of trust, because they’re like, oh, well, I want to see what else you have. And then it’s really exciting when they love those other things. And I know that I’ve like converted them. And that’s my goal is truly like I just want to get people to enjoy the story and worry about the category after it. And I think that Addie was a good first step in that but I think that shades has that power to because thankfully because of Addie and because it’s something I’ve done a couple times now. I love being that fantasy series for people who think they don’t like fantasy.

I love that, I do love that it is sort of bringing people in and then and then because of Shades of Magic it is accessible it is you know you know we do you do touch on you know guests okay, we’re there’s a there’s you know, four worlds and it’s a magical system. And you know, like the guests there’s lots there.

Also found family and queer romance and friendship and you know, yes, of course there’s like some political intrigue and things but it’s really like, because of that love letter to Full Metal Alchemist and to Avatar, like, my magic system is elemental. And it’s very nature based and it’s very organic. So that hopefully no matter how complicated it becomes at any one point, it still has a foundation which is very easy for one to understand and grasp organically. Yeah, and I think that’s the thing is I want to make sure that I don’t lose readers ever with the rules. I want for that that’s the easiest part. Right that everything is in its context. It’s not something where you need to like really be stretching to grow to wrap your mind around an element. It’s still at its foundation, very organic.

It is, I feel like it is definitely a series that will love you back. I will say that.

I mean literally one of the most important parts of the entire series is the relationship between Kell and Rye as brothers and the fact that like their lives are but tethered to one another and the kind of interpersonal drama that happens when you realize you have to hold someone else’s pain.

Yeah. And I think we as humans, that’s a human reality for us, you know, and I think that that many of us go through. And so I think that that’s something with a lot of these fantasies that it’s like a reminder, like, there’s humanity and big heartedness at its core. So you’ve written like, I can’t even hold this giant stack of what you’ve written. And these are just this is just one series. But you’ve written short stories, graphic novels, which I love, you’ve also served as a more novels, you’ve also served as a creator, writer, executive producer. And so I really love when I’ve heard you speak at events, I really love how open you are about your writing process, and sort of like the uncertainties that you have, and just all the emotions that go into, you know, when you are starting a journey, when you’re starting, whatever it may be, whether it be a graphic novel, or a script, or a novel or short story. So you definitely have experiences across the board. So what have been now that you’ve, you’ve written in many mediums, have there been any unexpected surprises, writing in all these different mediums?

I think what’s more surprising to me, or just my philosophy is the similarity, which is that like, I don’t really think about the audience age or the medium so much as just trying to tell a story. And I think the thing that’s been most surprising to me is that I have kind of enforced and have been allowed to enforce due to my success, a kind of policy that it’s not about creating a narrower category for my work. Like Gallant, which was my most recent book before Threads is a book for all ages, because I got really frustrated this idea that like, because I’m writing it, it’s automatically YA if it has a teenage girl in it, and I’m like, well, first of all, The Power has two teenage girls at the core of it is very adult. But like, I feel like a lot, a few authors are really given permission to just write books. And yet so many of us are like, Oh, you write this kind of book, or it’s only for this age, or I’m too old for this. And I’m like, but the thing I’ve found in having such a broad audience, across so many ages, and demographics is like, we all can read the same story at different times in our life and take away different things. And so one of the things that I really love to do now is create fewer boundaries, create fewer declarations, like of course, I know from a bookstore perspective, we need a place to shelve them, right? But I would rather be shelved in more places, I’d rather have things that are crosslisted I’d rather be able to, I just got so tired of like, readers coming up to me being like, I know, I’m not the demographic but and I’m like, it’s like reading is like jigsaw puzzles, right? Like, they tend to have a lower age guideline, but no upper age limit. You’re never too old for a jigsaw puzzle. Like I want to create a space where people just think, Oh, I just like her books, not like oh, well. I like her adult books. But I’d never read her YA or I like her YA, but I wouldn’t read her adult. But like, I’m just like, just read the stories just have stories. And so because of that, as long as it’s a written form, I don’t I try not to impose very many creative restrictions on myself before the industry does. I think I used to be very anticipatory of restriction and think, oh, I need to play within this lane and make sure I don’t stretch, make sure I don’t do anything that will confuse the marketing engine. And now I don’t do that. The only exception is really the TV and film side is a lot more. It’s not just that it’s more complicated. It’s that you go from being like a tiny God, writing in your world to being part of a committee. And I don’t really love that, because like working in TV and film, they’re the people who get to make decisions are not the people who are the most creative. They’re the people who have the most money. It’s amazingly difficult to maintain a cohesive vision when there are 300 voices in the room. Yeah, as compared to one or two or three when you have your agent and your editorial team. And so I would say that as intoxicating as TV and film is and as much as I love translating from one medium to another, I would say that I’ll never give up novels because to me, this is where I feel my freest to actually be my most creative and most cohesive self. Love it but I think it will always need to be the icing and not the cake because it’s very, very easy to get lost in the fact that it’s not yours. It’s very easy to forget that it’s not yours.

Thinking of First Kill, I have to ask because of all the fantasy sub genres. I think vampire lore might be my favorite. I read Carmilla young age, and it was like sapphic vampire. Like I remember just being like this exists? This has existed, you know, obviously at the time, you know at that point, and be kind of like having my mind blown. was like my freshman year of college. Are there any possible — even another short story? I’ll take it like in terms of exploring that, I mean, you’ve done in terms of like, you know, the magic in the house and the magical house in the different city like you’ve explored so many subsets in fantasy. Is there room for vampires?

My next adult standalone novel, which is what I’m hoping will be like the spiritual successor to Addie Larue. So my next novel is about three female vampires. Yeah, it’s about three lesbian vampires. And it is like it’s very much the aesthetic I would give you is the kind of latest version of Florence in the Machine. That kind of aesthetic that she’s been crushing the last year and a half, it is said over 500 years, and it is an intertwined tale of toxic romance between three lesbians.

Just chills.

So, it is also the darkest thing I’ve ever written. Definitely like the probably the most sexual of anything I’ve ever written as well.

Well, I mean, I think vampire…

I think it’s you know what it is? So Addie was a book about hope and joy and optimism. This is a book about hunger and rage. And then it is just those two things. And it’s about insatiable and about having hunger and being in a femme presenting form. And the ways in which you’re told to be satiated when you don’t feel it.

I love that. I mean, I think that’s this very, it’s very little bit ying and yang there.

Exactly. Choose your meal. Would you rather have this like, you know, straw like raspberry sorbet and dark chocolate, which is my vampires. So would you rather have like a lemon sorbet in a little wafer, which is Addie, but they’re a little bitter and a little sweet?

Oh, gosh, yeah. No, I almost would be like, Okay, I’m done. I want it. That’s amazing. I think I just in recent times, there’s been a lot of vampire books, we’re not gonna get into them. And I feel like there’s been different lores everyone kind of takes their own…

It’s time for me to have my own. I like I have a very strong philosophy on whenever I write a supernatural element, whether it’s magic or super villains, or vampires, or witches, I like I want to figure out my own rules. And this is definitely me setting out my own rules. And I would say it’s like the very femme counterpart to the new TV version of Interview with a Vampire in that it’s like canonically queer it is like aggressive, it does not romanticize toxic relationship, but it is very much at the forefront of exploration of toxicity. I will not say anything else.

My next question was again, it was gonna be I was like, not to be greedy. Because obviously you’ve given us an amazing new novel and a series to look forward to. But yeah, what’s next for you? So is it. It’s this is what’s next. So come in, before the next or…

So my goal essentially, is to alternate between the Threads of Power series and this and Victorious, which is the third Villains book. So my goal is for Threads of Power one, and then this book that I almost revealed the title of and that and then Threads of Power two, and then Victorious and then Threads of Power three. Well, that’s the goal.

but so on top of the fact that you have this, I’m gonna say a pretty insane writing schedule. Like all these things, you are also an extremely avid reader. I love when you post you’re like, these are all the books I’ve like, just casually read last year, and it’s like 100 books.

It was 175, I want to say that I’m very behind this year, dude, though. Yeah, definitely, definitely slowly.

But I love that, because it’s just, you know, I think that you are just a product of reading these stories and your own, what they bring to you and then kind of filtering through you and reading this beautiful prose, writing these wonderful worlds. But I’m gonna ask you because I’d love to close out my interviews with this because I love book recommendations from brilliant women. So what are you what are you reading now? Or I would like to give you option because some people are like, I’m not reading anything right now. Or what was the last thing you read that you just like, can’t stop talking about?

I can answer both of those because I am in a stage of drafting where I have to be very careful about fiction, because I just am in a precarious place and sometimes I don’t want to get like other people’s voices and pictures in my head when I’m trying to hold up a world as complicated as the one for Bones, which is the nickname for the vampire novel, it is not the real title for it. So I’ve been listening to a lot of audio nonfiction because it’s something that I can carry with me and so I just listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia, which was really really good, I also just listened to Maggie Smith’s You Could Make This Place Beautiful. It is exquisite. Fictional, the last book I read that made me like evangelical was Painted Devils, which is the sequel to Little Thieves by Margaret Irwin and I am so enamored talk about a fantasy series, that even if you think that fantasy isn’t your bag, you should pick up this fantasy series. It is exquisite. It is about a girl a con girl. And she has two godparents one is fortune and one is death. And it is just so good. It is delicious.

I love that I love this is what I this is what I’m talking about, like book recommendations, talking about books, screaming them from the rooftops. That’s amazing. I love it. Victoria, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for these for these books. I can’t even lift them up.

It’s only 600,000 words between them.

And I love looking at the spines and just seeing them get like bigger and bigger and bigger.

That’s cheating because they definitely reduced the margins between three and fours for paper costs. It looks like Conjuring of Light and Fragile Threads of Power are almost the same length. And they’re not I mean, Conjuring of Lightis 165,000 words and Fragile Threads of Power is 195,000 words so they there’s some magic that has been warped wrought in the typesetting to make it like that.

That’s okay, we want magic in our story. We went back in the page. It’s everything. And this book is everything. Thank you again, The Fragile Threads of Power is out now.