If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come is the first book I breezed through this month. It’s a story that will constantly make you feel the emotions on the page, Avery’s struggle with mental health, the love she’s given, her yearning and her eventual healing. So if you a want to read a book that’s equal parts soul shattering and tear inducing as well as hope filled and grounded, this one’s for you! I’m so glad I got to talk to the author, Jen, for deeper insights into their writing process and the characters!!
Continue reading “Chat Over Chai: Interview with Jen St. Jude, author of If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come!”Tag: author interview
Chat Over Chai: Interview with Kamilah Cole, author of So Let Them Burn!
Today, I’m delighted to have Kamilah Cole kick off my interviews for Pride Month!! Although, we have to wait till January 2024 to experience this glorious debut, I’m gonna take up this space to get you all even more hyped for it. If I have to quote one of Kamilah’s tweets, you should be excited for So Let Them Burn if you like “sapphics, sisterhood, dragons, corruption arcs, evil gods.” While I’m especially eager to meet the sisters leading the story, this interview introduces you to them, the world of So Let Them Burn and more!!
Continue reading “Chat Over Chai: Interview with Kamilah Cole, author of So Let Them Burn!”Chat Over Chai: Interview with Ann Liang, author of If You Could See the Sun!
Dark Academia? Check. Rivals to lovers but he’s always been in love with her? Check. An ambitious girl who monetizes her invisibility powers? Check. If any of these things got your eye, I’m sure you’re going to have fun reading If You Could See the Sun!! I’ve had so much fun reading this book; the academic vibes, Alice and Henry and the way it slipped in socio-economic commentary, all combined into this story that brought Beijin to life. I’m excited to have the debut author, Ann Liang on the blog today for this interview as we get her insights on the characters and themes and also some cool memes that totally did not make me miss Alice and Henry.
Continue reading “Chat Over Chai: Interview with Ann Liang, author of If You Could See the Sun!”Chat Over Chai: Interview with Sunyi Dean, author of The Book Eaters!
A recent favourite, The Book Eaters, is a unique book—one that depicts the fight of a mother to protect her son at all costs—but takes on the concept of acquiring knowledge by literally eating books. The twist to it, is the existence of mind readers and that’s what puts the story into motion. Mother characters in SFF are always such a delight to read about and Devon’s journey in this book was no less gripping. I’m so happy to share this interview with the author, Sunyi Dean who talks about her book, Devon and the dark twist on fairytales. I hope you pick up this book when it releases next month and devour it like I did.
About the Book
Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories.
But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.
Hi Sunyi, welcome to A Book and Chai! I’m already a fan of your work but for those who aren’t aware, introduce yourself and your debut The Book Eaters!
Thank you so much for doing this interview, and for your enthusiasm! It’s still mindblowing to me that anyone other than my friends is reading things I’ve written.
I’m Sunyi Dean, an autistic fantasy writer and mom of two. I was born in the states, grew up in Hong Kong, and moved to the UK for university. I currently live in inner-city Leeds, which is a city in the north of England.
My debut novel is called THE BOOK EATERS, and it is a dark contemporary fantasy about a society of people who eat books for food. Any book they eat, they absorb entirely. Sadly, book eater society is steeped in patriarchy and cruelty, and women are forced into arranged marriages to keep their dying species alive. To complicate matters, some of their children are born with a different, darker hunger: not for books, but for human minds. Any minds they eat, they also absorb entirely – memories, personalities, the works. Such children are killed or enslaved by the other book eaters.
The main character, Devon Fairweather, is a book eater born into this toxic mess. As a woman, she is forced to comply with the system of arranged marriages, and produce children with different husbands. As a mother, she has a whole new set of problems when her son is born a mind eater, destined for a life even worse than her own—unless she can somehow rescue both of them, and change their fates.
The story follows Devon’s blood-soaked attempt to escape her book eater family and build a new life, while also wrestling with the sinister and ethically complicated needs her son has.
For vibes, I’d comp it Neverwhere (secret societies hidden among us) meets The Godfather (chilling family factions) meets Interview with a Vampire, but set in an alternate 90s Britain with a sapphic, morally grey heroine.
The Book Eaters is a book unlike anything I’ve ever read. The whole concept of book eaters, mind eaters and the traditions & politics of the Families is so well planned! What was your inspiration behind the book and how did the idea develop into what it is today? (the vampire undertones were not missed!)
Thank you so much, that’s really kind!
I tend to think of books already as things that I eat or consume; I sometimes refer to a book as a snack, or a heavy meal, or a light meal, etc. It’s a quick and quirky way to sum up tone and content in a novel when describing it to someone else.
For the vampire side, I saw someone say on twitter a few years ago that vampires were utterly done, nothing new to say, couldn’t be made fresh anymore, and I kind of took that as a personal challenge! I think the ethical dilemma of vampires (committing evil to stay alive) remains forever fascintaing, and there are so many variations of those creatures in every single culture around the world. What maybe gets old is the Eastern European / Dracula variety, but there’s no need to stick to that one model.
Another favourite aspect of mine would be the setting and how the timelines shift from past to present! How did you stumble upon modern day UK as the perfect setting for The Book Eaters?
The UK has a long history of weird fiction and gothic “madness on the moors” type stories. It’s also a country of sharp contrasts and sharper class divides. It felt perfect for the mix of privilege and poverty that Devon comes from.
More generally, I also wanted to celebrate the North, which is sometimes overlooked as a location. A lot of fantasy books set in the UK tend to feature London predominantly. And London is great! But so is the rest of the country.
I adore Devon for her strength, but the complexities of her character and the depths of her motherhood were what compelled me to like her. How did you manage to shape her character for readers to empathise with?
Truthfully, I found Devon hard to write, because she is a very distant character compared to what I’m used to. I typically love close POVs and deep perspectives. But Devon has to hide so many things form the reader that I needed her to keep everyone at arms’ length, or she’d spoil her own plot.
I had to work really hard to find things about her that I enjoyed as a writer, because of that enormous distance, and I think that process also made her more accessible to readers (I hope, anyway!). She does many terrible things but despite her weird and wild origins, her life has many problems that I think will be familiar to folks: parenthood, poverty, emotional baggage, bad relationships, uncertain futures.
Above all, I felt strongly that Devon needed to come across as competent and intelligent. I think readers respect competent characters, and respect can outweigh dislike of a character. Readers might not want to hang out with Devon for fun, but I hope they feel they could follow her into a fight. (Although I’m glad you liked her, as well!)
What propelled you to subvert the morals of fairy tales through Devon’s character? Especially with reference to how she had to lead the life of a princess and how she learns the good and bad of loving someone.
Fairytales are truly dark! I grew up reading cheerfully them as a child, and then re-reading them very critically as an adult. The women who feature in them are often an interesting mix of privileged by wealth, as Devon was growing up, but also heavily constrained and subjected to violence by their society, as Devon was in adulthood. They get married off, killed, raped, discarded, or cursed, all as befits the story, and have no life outside of marriage.
Fairytales are stories boiled down to their basics. There’s no interiority and very little emotion; they’re all tell, no show. The ogre was angry. The princess ran away. The knight killed a monster. Just basic story details, no fluff. They reflect society in their story elements, but don’t comment or critique on society, and I think that’s a lot of what I find so interesting in them. The analysis, if any, is left to the readers.
Sorry, that was a really long-winded way of saying that The Book Eaters was my haphazard attempt to answer or discuss the big questions that fairytales ask.
Immensely curious, what was your favourite scene to write in The Book Eaters?
Aww, what a fun question! I have a couple favorite scenes but the best one for non-spoilers is a certain climactic fight scene towards the end, between Devon and the person who is one of her antagonists. All I’ll say is that there is a creepy castle hedge maze and a lot of bloodshed.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Just want to shout out to all the reviewers, bloggers, and influencers (like yourself!) who take the time to pour labour and heart into books. Authors are nothing without readers, and we don’t easily reach readers without reviewers and marketers doing so much legwork. It is hugely appreciated, and thank you for all you do ❤
About the Author
Sunyi Dean is an autistic fantasy
writer and busy mother-of-two. Born
in the States and later raised in Hong
Kong, she now lives in inner-city
North England. When not reading,
running, falling over in yoga, or rolling d20s, she will escape the city to wild-
swim in lonely dales.
Her debut novel, THE BOOK EATERS,
is scheduled for release on 2 Aug 22
through Tor (USA), and on 18 Aug 22
through Harper Voyager (UK).
Chat Over Chai: Interview with Cynthia So, author of If You Still Recognise Me!
This year has given us some great queer contemporaries so far! If You Still Recognise Me was a joy to read, filled with meaningful friendships, complexity of feelings and celebrations of being queer. I’m so happy to share this interview with the author, Cynthia So, as we talk about their book debuting in Pride Month, how it came to be and fun things related to the characters! I hope you enjoy this interview and if you haven’t read If You Still Recognise Me, what are you waiting for?
About the Book
If you loved Heartstopper and need more feel-good LGBTQ+ romance – If You Still Recognise Me is the one for you!
Elsie has a crush on Ada, the only person in the world who truly understands her. Unfortunately, they’ve never met in real life and Ada lives an ocean away. But Elsie has decided it’s now or never to tell Ada how she feels. That is, until her long-lost best friend Joan walks back into her life.
In a summer of repairing broken connections and building surprising new ones, Elsie realises that she isn’t nearly as alone as she thought. But now she has a choice to make…
Hi Cynthia! Thank you so much for doing this interview for Pride Month! For those who don’t know, could you introduce yourself and your debut?
Hi Gauri! Thank you for having me on your blog!
I’m Cynthia and my pronouns are they/them. I have a day job working in equality, diversity and inclusion, I love D&D, and I spend way too much time thinking about food.
My debut If You Still Recognise Me is a contemporary YA romance about 18-year-old Elsie Lo, who has a crush on her online friend Ada. The two of them met through their mutual love for a comic book series called Eden Recoiling. It’s the summer before uni, and Elsie thinks it’s now or never to confess to Ada, so she comes up with a brilliant plan: she decides to find Ada’s grandma’s long-lost best friend. Along the way, she reunites with her own long-lost best friend, Joan, and things get complicated!
Describe If You Still Recognise Me using emojis!
☀️💘💌👵🏻🛤🌅🍚🌈💞
If You Still Recognise Me is a heartwarming story of Elsie’s summer shenaigans but even more so, it’s the story of queer people being queer in their element. What was your inspiration for this book and what kept you coming back to it?
I saw stories (I swear it was multiple stories, not just one, although I haven’t saved any of them) on Tumblr of people finding and reading diaries that belonged to their grandparents, and realising, “Oh WOW those are some queer vibes huh!”
I married that with the many crushes I’ve had on people I know from fandom and some of the ridiculous things I’ve done because of those crushes, and I had a plot.
There’s a lot about this book that kept me coming back to it. Part of it was that I just wanted to see a masc Asian lesbian in a YA book (if you know of any others, PLEASE tell me I am desperate to read them), and a queer POC/POC romance.
Elsie’s emotional arc in this book really pushed me through the writing of it. I wanted her to heal from her previous toxic relationship, and get to a place where she can open up to others again, and where she knows that she deserves to be loved and seen and cherished. That was so important to me.
I adore the representation in If You Still Recognise Me! Apart from queer women of colour, you’ve given us the stories of elderly queer love as well as characters identifying with the queer community (bisexual, asexual, non-binary, questioning, lesbian, gay). What were your thoughts behind including these aspects into the book?
It just felt natural to me to include all these different characters and different aspects of queerness. I myself am bi and nonbinary, and also demisexual, so I identify as being on the ace spectrum, and it’s always been a beautiful, comforting feeling when I’m surrounded by other queer people. I want my book to give off that same feeling, so it’s filled with queer characters of all kinds. The vibe that I’m trying to achieve with this book is the opposite of loneliness. It’s about connection, about seeing a vibrant world full of queer people who have so much love for each other.
Another lovely part of If You Still Recognise Me is the exploration of fandom culture and how it helped the queers! Was this storyline born out of personal experience?
Oh absolutely. I was 11 when I discovered fandom. I didn’t even know that gay people existed until I found fanfiction. And then just months later I had my first crush on a girl. And I don’t think I would have been able to understand that experience at all if I hadn’t been reading queer fanfic. In another world I might have been very confused, but in this world I wasn’t. I knew, clearly, that this was a crush, and that I was queer, and I knew that it was okay, because I had fandom. I was in a very homophobic environment at school and I didn’t have any queer friends IRL, but every day I got to talk to queer friends online, and think about queer characters falling in love, and it was what got me through my teenage years.
I’m so so grateful to all the friends I’ve made in fandom. They’ve helped me become who I am today. I wouldn’t be the writer I am without them.
With the collection of comics and Mangas we have today, what would the characters’ favourites be?
(Here’s where I admit I don’t read a ton of comics, though I do read manga sometimes!)
Obviously all the characters would love Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper! Felix especially is obsessed with it.
Elsie and Ada I think would both be very into The Wicked + The Divine. Although I haven’t read it, visually that’s the inspiration behind Eden Recoiling. I think they’d also like Nimona.
Joan loves sapphic/yuri manga. Bloom Into You is her favourite. I also think she likes a lot of sports manga e.g. Haikyuu!! She doesn’t read a lot of English comics/graphic novels, but if she did venture into that world, I’m sure she would love The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen and all of Tillie Walden’s stuff.
Ritika would love shoujo manga classics like Fruits Basket.
How excited are you for If You Still Recognise Me publishing in Pride Month? (I for one, feel that If You Still Recognise Me is the perfect book to read this month!!)
SO excited! I was thrilled to see that my publisher had chosen a Pride Month pub date! I definitely think IYSRM is the perfect Pride Month book. I finished the first draft during Pride Month 2019, and it’s very gratifying to finally see it out in the world 3 years later.
Fun fact: Writing Elsie’s journey with her gender expression in IYSRM actually helped me embrace my own gender identity and I first started coming out to people as nonbinary in June 2019!
Lastly, what do you deeply wish for readers to take away from If You Still Recognise Me?
I hope my readers know that they’re not alone. You can find your people and your community. There is so much joy and wonder and magic in being queer, and in exploring your identity and taking the time to figure out who you are.
About the Author
Cynthia So was born in Hong Kong and lives in London. Their work has been published in speculative fiction magazines such as Uncanny, Strange Horizons, and Anathema. They are also one of the new voices in Proud, an anthology of LGBTQ+ YA stories, poems, and art by LGBTQ+ creators, published by Stripes in March 2019. When they’re not writing, they can often be found at the theatre, entranced by a play or a musical. They’re also extremely enthusiastic about board games and tabletop role-playing.
Their debut YA novel, If You Still Recognise Me, is out on 9 June 2022. They are represented by Alice Sutherland-Hawes at ASH Literary.
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