New Fantasy Books: The Hedgewitch Queen
By
Lilith Saintcrow writes dark stories – the kind that keep you from falling asleep at night. Her characters aren’t just paranormal – they are people who are rising above pain and the confusion of life to be so much more. Her Jill Kismet series, which she has just completed, is a reflection of Saintcrow’s own life she says: including the fighting of the dark side, the need to slay demons. Her newest book, The Hedgewitch Queen promises to be just as dark.
She recently talked with USAToday about her books, her life and what she has planned for the future. The chat was lengthy and it showed a side to the author that I always suspected must be there for her to write so tellingly about struggling with the dark side of human nature. It should not have been surprising that she feels that writing has saved her life, and more than once.
But her new series sounds equally as compelling as either her YA series Strange Angels or the just completed Jill Kismet series. Saying goodbye to those characters is not easy, she says, after spending years inside their skins. But she is ready to move on, and told USAToday that she always starts a series with a clear idea of where she wants the story to go and how many books it will take to get there.
One of the things that she does particularly well in all her books are the action sequences. I wasn’t surprised to read that she actually plans them out just like a choreographer does for a film. She even told of one time when she was practicing some moves for a story in her back yard with a dummy and a haystack and a cop approached her to find out what she was doing. She had a sword in hand, and explaining she is a writer blocking out a fight scene was a difficult sell at first. So I can see why her fight scenes are so real, and have a weight to them that is so often missing in many other fantasy writers fight scenes.
If you love her last books, you might want to check out her interview about her new series The Hedgewitch Queen, which is a return to a full blown fantasy for her. The full interview can be found here and is well worth checking out.
