Author Interview: Amy Raby

“The Raven Prince” by Elizabeth Hoyt. I don’t think it was the first romance novel I ever read, but it was the first one I enjoyed, and ever since, it’s been my go-to comfort read. If I ever have to go to the hospital or something, that’s the book I’ll throw in my overnight bag. It features an angsty heroine who was rejected by a previous husband and an angsty hero who believes no one will ever love him because of his smallpox scars. There’s some crazysauce, too, where the heroine goes to a brothel in order to anonymously sleep with the hero. I love it.

Here we go back to the 80’s to a fantasy novel called “The Silent Tower” and its sequel “The Silicon Mage,” both by Barbara Hambly. These books spoke to me when I was a teenager because I felt I could have been the heroine, Joanna, an insecure computer programmer who ends up taking a portal into a fantasy world. The hero, Antryg, is a mad wizard who is one of the most intriguing and multi-dimensional characters I’ve ever read in fiction. I see a lot of influence from this series in my own work. For one, I set some of my fantasy worlds later in time than the Middle Ages, as this Hambly series did, because the interaction of magic and gunpowder is interesting. And I think there’s a fair bit of Joanna in some of my heroines, and some Antryg in some of my heroes.

This would be very hard for me, because I read just about everything! And it’s common for me to get tired of a subgenre for a while, switch to something else, and then come back to it later. I’m going to say Young Adult. What I love about Young Adult is that the books are fast paced, they tend to be voicey, they usually have happy endings (though not always), and they can cover almost any subject, which allows for a lot of variety.

My favorite part of writing is discovering the characters. I had a great experience just the other day. I was writing a chapter in book 4 of my Hearts and Thrones series in which I needed a minor character for just that chapter. Even though his role in the story wasn’t huge, I fleshed him out like any other character, and he turned out to be really interesting. He came to life for me right off the page, and then I wanted to write more about him. I had not planned to use him again later in the book, but now I really want to, so now I’m looking for ways I can bring him back into the story. Bringing characters to life out of nothing is a magical experience.

I think the only way writing has affected my reading is that I read more than I used to, because I have writer friends whose books I want to keep up with, and I also need to keep up with what’s current in my genre. I’ve heard of some writers losing the ability to read for pleasure because they can’t turn off their internal editor, but I don’t have that problem. I quite happily turn off my internal editor.

I don’t think the characters would consider it funny, but this could certainly qualify as Worst Date of All Time: my hero and heroine from Assassin’s Gambit have a tryst interrupted by an assassination attempt and a violent coup.