Journey across the U.S. in fast-paced and witty steampunk
fantasy
One ancient mask with earth-bending powers searching for a
bearer. One magical retrieval expert who is determined to seal it back in its
tomb.
At the moment, both are failing at their goals, but Arwen is
not about to be bested. So what if she doesn’t know what culture it’s from or
where to put it back. She’s smarter than a semi-sentient mask. Hopefully. But
if the thrice-cursed mask breaks out of her seal one more time, she’s melting
it with prejudice, magical backlash be damned.
She put Jaunten out as an ebook, created a website and forum
so that fans could communicate with her, and spread the word as best she could.
Within three months, Jaunten was selling internationally. Within five months,
Honor was making enough to quit the day job and sit at home, writing full time.
Honor has continued to write and publish the rest of her
books through Raconteur House. When she’s not writing or editing, Honor likes
to go out into the community and give presentations of how to be an author. Even
if Honor abruptly stopped selling books tomorrow, she would still continue to
write. Creating characters and worlds is that much fun. You can find Honor on
her website: https://honorraconteur.com
An Interview with Honor Raconteur:
This isn’t your first fantasy novel, but it’s the first one
including a lot of historical research to back up your story. What was that
process like?
Every story takes a lot of research, really. This one was
more arduous than most. I teamed up with a historian and spent six months
learning about the Anasazi, what 1907 America was like, etc.
What was your approach with writing a visually impaired
character?
I asked a lot of questions of people who are visually
impaired. I took what they told me, refined it down to parameters for my
character, and hopefully have created someone that is both unique but
relatable.
How does creating Rise of the Catalyst differ from the other
novels you’ve written?
It’s far more alternate history based than anything else
I’ve written. Most of my career, I wrote high fantasy. Steampunk is something I’m
relatively new to but I’m enjoying this blend of science and magic very much.
What were some of the challenges of recreating actual
historical events?
Not being able to just write my own rules, honestly. That
was the real challenge. I had a lot of notes, timelines, maps of that area, all
over my desk just to help me keep things straight.
There’s also a lot of humor in this story while still being
a serious fantasy. How do you balance the two?
Isn’t that how life really is, though? Nothing is always
serious, or always funny, it’s a blend of the two throughout the day. I try to
keep that vibe in my writing. I’m really just following my character around and
writing up the incident report, so of course she’d do funny things too, or so
I’d think.
While Arwen and Flo are work partners, they also seem very
close. What was it like to write these two characters and their relationship?
I knew going into the story that Arwen would need a full
team, and she’d have to have a female companion according to the rules of society
of that time. She wouldn’t have been allowed out of the house otherwise. I
created Flo for her as not only a helper, but a friend, as she needed one.
What can we expect from Arwen in the future?
All of the magical shenanigans. Not to mention her sassing ancient artifacts that keep trying to escape her seals.
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