Whenever it is possible, I like bringing two writers together.
Especially when they are exceptionally talented.
Marjorie M. Liu and Kelley Armstrong have joined forces for today’s new release day. They conducted an email interview with one another, where each responded to the other about how their characters relate to family and how they learn to trust after the difficult times they have had in the past.
It is a good look inside the world of what it means to be a writer.
This of course didn’t happen just by happenstance. This interview is in support of their latest urban fantasy releases—A Wild Light by Marjorie and Waking the Witch by Kelley.
Both novels hit stores today, Tuesday, July 27th!
Here is the interview:
Marjorie: Hi Kelley! I think the theme of family is a perfect place to begin. When you make a family with someone—however “family” is defined—that’s a huge act of trust. Or it comes from a need—or desperation—that outweighs trust. Either way, it exacts a profound change on a person.
Readers have watched Savannah grow up with Paige and Lucas. How do you think that journey of becoming a family has — and I know I’m phrasing this badly — affected Savannah, compared to who she might have been otherwise?
I guess another way of asking this is… does learning how to trust (on that level) make someone a better person?
Kelley: With Savannah, unlike Maxine, she was never on her own. It was a pseudo-foster situation, where she was handed over to a stranger after her mother died. So it was a de facto family long before it became a true family. That journey required trust.
The trust came slowly. Savannah had serious ideological issues with Paige. Paige was a Coven witch—Savannah’s mother left the Coven and openly hated them. Everything Paige heard about Eve was negative—she taught the dark arts to others. Also, Savannah was keenly aware of Paige’s youth, and couldn’t help thinking that if she was 22, she’d resent the situation.
Without Paige (and later Lucas) Savannah would definitely have grown up a different person. Paige and Lucas are idealists. Eve was a survivalist. Her attitude, which she unintentionally passed on to Savannah was “Take care of yourself. Don’t bother with the rest of the world because they wouldn’t bother with you.”
Savannah is a melding of the two views. She works with Paige and Lucas helping others because she enjoys the job… and because it’s easier to indulge her darker side if she’s doing it in the service of good.
How about Maxine? How does becoming part of a family make her a better person? And does it, in any ways, have a negative effect, too? Added inner conflict? Added responsibility? Does it affect her feelings and fears about her darker side?
Marjorie: Your question reminds me of an interview I read with James Michener, where someone asked him what penalty he paid in terms of family. He was asked that in relation to his life as a writer, but I think the same thing could be asked about our characters.
It’s hard with Maxine, because she was raised in such an odd environment. In many ways, she was incredibly isolated. Her mother was her entire world—and so were the demons who lived on her mother’s body. All of them raised her. Heck, one of those demons—Zee—even delivered Maxine when she was born.
Maxine never went to school (though she did have an informal education), never had much of a permanent home (basically living out of a station wagon), but for her it was a pretty good childhood. She always knew she was loved. It wasn’t until she got older that she started to resent the life of a nomad, and the isolation. I mean, teenage girl with no friends her age? Never staying in one place long enough to make friends? Not allowed to have friends because of her family’s secrets and her mother’s paranoia?
So when her mother is murdered, Maxine is just… torn apart. She functions, she goes on, but there’s this big gaping hole in heart. She truly is adrift, going through the motions of survival—and she doesn’t even realize it. She thinks being alone is only way for her to live, and she’s reconciled herself to that life. She’s given up on any other possibility—family, home, roots.
Until she meets Grant. Despite her best intentions, she falls in love with him. Deciding to stay with him goes against the grain of everything she has been raised to believe, because there are so many risks involved—including the fact that if she gets pregnant and has a child, that’s the beginning of the end. She’s going to end up like her mother—murdered in front of her child. Being with Grant also opens her eyes to the possibility that she’s been wrong—that her mother was wrong—about so much they took for granted in their lives.
So yes, it does make her a better person. Having the courage to trust another person with her life makes her so much stronger, and it roots her to the world in a spiritual way that was lacking before. Protecting humanity from the demons was almost an intellectual exercise—but with Grant, and the other people who come into her life, the threat becomes more immediate. She doesn’t have time to feel sorry for herself. She has a family to take care of, and protect.
But like Savannah, Maxine does have a dark side, and there’s a fine line between indulging it to help others—and then, just because it feels good to use that kind of power. Maxine is always wondering whether or not she should leave these people because she’s a risk to them. Being around her is dangerous, and much of reason she used to embrace the nomadic life. Easier on the heart. Whenever anyone she loves gets hurt, she blames herself first. She is very scared of her dark side—very—even though she knows she’s going to need it to survive.
Eve’s mother seems similar to Maxine’s mother—both survivalists, practical, not bad people, but ruthless in their own ways. That, and they’ve got long shadows that even in death continue to hold influence and reputation. People judge Savannah a certain way because of her mother.
Is that going to catch up with her? Is she going to be forced to choose concretely between the ideologies that she’s been raised with—one or the other, for good—or is that a choice she’ll always battle with inside herself?
And is there a point where Paige and Lucas, no matter how much they love her, would turn against her? Would Savannah ever turn against them?
Kelley: Marjorie, I don’t think it’s possible for Savannah to pick sides—her mother’s ideology or her foster family’s. She’s old enough now to see the appeal of both, but can’t fully embrace either. Living for others doesn’t interest her; nor does living completely for herself. It has to be a balance. The problem is finding that balance. When things go wrong, she tends to blame the fact that she was being her “usual selfish self” and not thinking enough about others.
There isn’t a point where Paige and Lucas would ever reject her. They understand her darker side and her struggles, and no matter how bad things got, they’d be there to support her. Savannah isn’t as convinced of that, though. She worries that she could do something that would sever the bond forever…which may explain why she hasn’t moved out of their house yet! As long as she’s part of the household, she’s part of the family. And as long as she’s there, she’s under their influence. She worries what might happen if they aren’t there watching over her daily.
In A Wild Light, we see Maxine dealing with the loss of a family member, two if you include her loss of memories re: Grant. How important a book was this for the series? Did you see it as a turning point in Maxine’s relationships? Or maybe, more accurately, in her feelings about those relationships? There’s a lot of emotion in this one, some of it quite heartbreaking. How did you find that as a writer? Was it an easy write? Difficult?
Marjorie: Oh, man. A Wild Light cuts it all open. Growing up, Maxine built her entire world around her mother‐then after her mother’s death, she built her world on solitude. When she meets Grant, her grandfather, Byron—all those people who become her family by blood and choice, she builds a brand new world around them.
And then, in the opening pages of A Wild Light, she loses it all. The two people she loves most—one dead, the other forgotten. But that’s not even the worst of it, because right after she’s had the rug pulled out from her, her worst nightmare comes to pass. She finds out things about herself that are so awful they can’t be true—but they are—and she has to cope with a new reality that is just nuts.
That has a huge impact on her relationships. Maxine has always felt skittish about making a home. Her presence puts people in danger. And what she discovers about herself makes those fears and insecurities a million times worse.
But conversely, the truths that come out also strengthen her—and her relationships—because Maxine realizes once and for all that she is still the same woman, at heart—that no matter what she might be physically, her soul is still hers. No one can take that from her. And the people who love her? They continue to love her, even after learning those same truths. Those friendships and that love is unshakeable, and that is…healing. The strength Maxine derives from that unconditional acceptance gives her far more power than the darkness inside her.
It wasn’t easy to write, though. But it felt good. Does that make sense? It felt so (yes, I keep wanting to use this word) good—good, good, good—to tap into all of Maxine’s uncertainties and fears (and self-loathing), and bring her out of it into a better place. There’s one scene in particular, in the woods when she’s with the Zee and the boys, that made me feel as though I was waving a ray of sunshine in her face. You know, she just looks at them and knows what matters.
I felt that way about the end of the book, too.
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More info about both books
Kelley Armstrong’s WAKING THE WITCH, A Dutton hardcover, $25.95, National on-sale date: July 27, 2010, ISBN 978-0-525-95178-0
Golden girl of the supernatural world, orphaned daughter of a dark witch and a conniving sorcerer, Savannah Levine has nothing to lose and everything to prove on her first solo case as a paranormal investigator.
She’s got a wide arsenal of spells at her fingertips, many that only she knows.
She’s got a tough-as-nails attitude and an even sharper wit.
She’s got one problem though . . . no one thinks she can handle this on her own.
Savannah has the power . . . and she’s not afraid to use it.
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At twenty-one, Savannah Levine—orphaned daughter of a notorious dark witch and an equally notorious cutthroat sorcerer—considers herself a full-fledged member of the supernatural race that rules the Otherworld. The once rebellious teen has grown into a six-foot-tall, motorcycle-riding jaw-dropper with a full arsenal of spells that she’s not afraid to use when she gets caught in a bind. There’s only one small problem—her adoptive parents, Paige and Lucas, don’t always trust her. Of course, she’s given them plenty of reasons . . . but those are in the past. People can change, right?
When Paige and Lucas take off on a romantic vacation alone, leaving her in charge of their detective agency, Savannah is presented with a case that she can’t turn down, and one she can finally call her own. Recruited by another supernatural detective, she travels to Columbus, Washington, a small, almost shell of a town. Two troubled young women have been found in an abandoned warehouse, murdered. Now a third woman is dead, and darker forces seem to be at play.
Savannah feels certain she can handle the case, but with supernatural activity appearing at every turn, things quickly become more serious—and far more dangerous—than she realizes. Caught up in a web of lust, false identities, and lies, Savannah must summon strength from her depths, and fight like she’s never fought before.
Kelley Armstrong is the author of the New York Times bestselling Otherworld series, the young adult trilogy Darkest Powers, and many other titles. She lives in rural Ontario with her husband and three children. With her first book, Bitten, Kelley introduced readers to her singular brand of sophisticated, fast-paced storytelling. The Otherworld, a place populated by a wide array of supernaturals with an even wider array of powers, continues to engage and enthrall readers all over the globe after more than a dozen books. www.kelleyarmstrong.com
Praise for Kelley Armstrong:
“Savannah is a gutsy, shrewd, and accomplished protagonist who will immediately capture the reader’s allegiance. ..Readers new to the series will still be able to enjoy this delightful, fast-paced adventure without difficulty.”—Library Journal on Waking the Witch
“Armstrong writes with page-turningly lucid prose and outfits her heroine with plenty of pluck, which she’ll need to navigate the handful of handsome fellas who drop in for potential romancing.”—Booklist on Waking the Witch
“Armstrong skillfully juggles her twisty plot, weaving in characters from previous novels as she builds to a fast-paced conclusion.” –Publishers Weekly on Waking the Witch
“There is never a slow moment . . . or a false line in Armstrong’s writing.” —Charlaine Harris, author of Dead and Gone and other books in the Sookie Stackhouse series
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Marjorie M. Liu’s A WILD LIGHT, An Ace paperback $7.99, National on-sale date: July 27, 2010, ISBN 9781101188880
Obsidian shadows of the flesh…tattoos with hearts, minds, and dreams. By day, they are my armor. By night, they unwind from my body to take on forms of their own—demons of the flesh, turned into flesh.
For too long Maxine Kiss has felt an inexplicable darkness around her—a force she channels into hunting the demons bent on destroying the human race. But when she finds herself covered in blood and crouched beside her grandfather’s dead body with no memory of what happened or of the man she loves, Maxine begins to fear that the darkness has finally consumed her.
With blood on her hands and her sanity in question, Maxine must face the truth about who she really is and embrace the love of the only man who can help her—before she loses what she cares about most: her family.
Marjorie M. Liu is an attorney, and the New York Times bestselling author of short stories, novellas, and two ongoing series: Dirk & Steele novels of paranormal romance, and the Hunter Kiss urban fantasy series. She wrote NYX: No Way Home, X-23, and Black Widow, for Marvel Comics, and is co-writing the ongoing bestselling Dark Wolverine series. Liu divides her time between the beautiful state of Indiana, and Beijing/Shanghai, China. For a complete listing of all her work, please visit her website at: www.marjoriemliu.com
Praise for Marjorie M. Liu:
“This pivotal book in the Hunter Kiss series proves Liu’s dark side is a haunting place to be as she pushes Maxine to the brink as a sharp-witted, uncompromising defender, not immune to self-doubt but tempered and made stronger for it.”—Booklist on A Wild Light
“One of the key mysteries of the Hunter Kiss novels has been the truth about Maxine Kiss’ genetic heritage. Clues have been dropped, but in the third chapter of this amazing series, real answers are given. Liu’s craftsmanship grows with each novel, but it is the emotional undertones tahat give this story its devastating kick. Truly on of the most darkly intense and spellbinding series in UF today! Every Liu book should be an auto buy!”—Romantic Times Top Pick on A Wild Light
“I adore the Hunter Kiss series! Marjorie Liu’s writing is both lyrical and action packed, which is a very rare combination.”—Angela Knight, New York Times bestselling author
“Readers of early Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, and the best thrillers out there should try Liu now and catch a rising star.”—Publishers Weekly
“Liu’s ability to deliver kick-butt action and characters whose humanity resonates, even when they’re anything but human, is a testament to her outstanding storytelling skills. Liu’s imagination is an amazing place to visit.”—Romantic Times (Top Pick) on Darkness Calls
