These Rebel Waves Author Sara Raasch and For a Muse of Fire Author Heidi Heilig Talk Revolution and Magic

Sara Raasch: Heidi!! I finished For a Muse of Fire two days ago, and I must start this by saying: HOW DARE YOU and DIBS ON LEO.
When we first got paired up for this conversation, my heart skipped a beat! I’ve been getting asked for recommendations for other “unconventional pirate” books (the pirates in These Rebel Waves tend to skew a bit unusual), and your first series, The Girl from Everywhere, is always on my list! You do such a good job of taking familiar concepts and flipping them on their head in deliciously enticing ways. For a Muse of Fire is no exception—and you manage to enhance, flip, and alter every aspect of this book, from the plot to the characters to the format itself. This book is an epic of art and intensity! What led you to tell the story how you did, through Jetta’s eyes as well as the alternating bits of songs and scripts?
Heidi Heilig: Ah, Sara, thank you! Coming from you, that’s high praise indeed. The idea for the ephemera actually came to me because I was once a performer myself. Jetta and her family are shadow players turned refugees, and where once they traveled from village to village to put on shows, now they must journey across their war-torn country to find a cure for Jetta’s mental illness. And if you’ve ever spent any time backstage, you’ve seen the things that accumulate. Cut sections of scripts, broken props from past productions, a half-dozen sequins from a well-worn costume, glitter gleaming across the floorboards like tiny stars. I’ve always loved the clutter and detritus that lives on as relics even after the shows they came from are over. And I wanted to bring that feeling into my worldbuilding to set the stage.
Speaking of worldbuilding, you are a master of it. You’ve brought together piracy, botany, and the Spanish Inquisition to create an organic world so alive on the page I can practically smell the greenery. And the magic system you’ve built grows out of the setting quite literally! What was the inspiration for the botanical magic of Grace Loray?
Raasch: I’m blushing so much! I adore worldbuilding, so hearing that the elements struck home is immensely gratifying. Grace Loray is an island that was once a colony of Argrid, and only won its freedom in a bloody revolution after Argrid’s Church tried to cleanse it—precisely because of the “evil” botanical magic that grows in its many waterways. The first bare nugget of an idea for this book was about “river pirates,” so I knew there had to be something worth pirating in these rivers. Gold felt too easy; but what about magic? Everything unfolded from there, which is one of my favorite aspects of worldbuilding—asking questions and seeing where the answers flow!
The line you used: “the clutter and detritus that lives on as relics even after the shows they came from are over”—that is such a perfect (and heartbreaking!) description of For a Muse of Fire. So much of Jetta’s world echoes that sentiment, and as the book progresses, the importance of the “clutter and detritus” she once clung to changes. I think she and Lu from These Rebel Waves would have a lot to talk about on the subject of shifting belief, and how what you put your faith in one day can shatter around you the next. What did you draw on for Jetta’s transformation?

Heilig: Jetta’s arc comes from seeking firm footing on an unstable landscape. Of course she has her mental illness to deal with, and her fear and guilt about how that “malheur” could affect herself or her family. She’s also dealing with her newfound ability to control the spirits of the dead, which is a power forbidden by the colonizers. But she uses souls to animate her shadow puppets and create fantastical shows that the foreigners adore—shows that might be her ticket to freedom. Finally, the country itself is in upheaval after the colonizers destroyed their temples and disrupted their farming, and the ensuing insurgence leads to guerrilla fighting, sabotage, and even more upheaval. Of course I never experienced that level of instability, but I did draw on my own diagnosis of bipolar disorder and my childhood in Hawaii, which was a sovereign land before American interference.
Speaking of colonizers and outlawed magic, I loved Prince Benat’s struggle to study the forbidden plants and how it impacts his understanding of Argridian politics and his father’s machinations. Both he and Lu have powerful and quite different family bonds. Can you speak to the role of family in your writing?
Raasch: I’m so glad you touched on this! Yes, family is a huge theme in These Rebel Waves, and each of the three POV characters has different (yet similar, it turns out) family structures, but particularly Ben and Lu. Ben, the Crown Prince of the formerly colonizing country of Argrid, grew up idolizing his father, who is also the king of their country and the leader of their church. But stark reality has cut through his idolization, and Ben starts the book on the precipice of questioning everything his father has taught him. Lu is the exact opposite. She has an incredibly tight bond with both of her parents, a relationship forged during the revolution to free Grace Loray from Argrid. She believes in her parents above anything—which makes it all the more heartbreaking when she, too, starts to question what they have led her to believe.
Heilig: I can’t believe that we ran out of time on that ominous and tantalizing response! You are an absolute master of the cliffhanger, Sara. (AHEM.)
Raasch: Um, RIGHT BACK AT YOU. Again I say, LEO, MY LOVE!
These Rebel Waves is on sale now. For a Muse of Fire is out September 25 and available for preorder now.