I write the books I want to read and just hope other people will want to read them too. One of the aims behind The Owlbear and the Omens was to write a reverse harem where the arrangement was necessitated by politics rather than used as a tool for erotica.
Aengie Scevity – 13 September 2024
The Back Flap
“Imperial Princess Phosphoria of the Zekzterian Empire is desperate to survive the inevitable culling of her father’s harem, when an opportunity arises. In the conquered land of Great Leven, her dying brother is an heirless king until Phosphoria wins the right to his throne.
To secure her rule, Phosphoria announces a tour of the country and trials for her hand, but when servants and nobles alike are murdered, she discovers that the harem she escaped might just be the key to stay the infighting. However, a queen’s harem will be no easy feat as the lords of Great Leven will never accept the proposal and Phosphoria is unable to lie; she is Blessed by the Owlbear, forced to see and speak only the truth.
Further complications arise from rebels loyal to the usurped royal line, and the reappearance of the true heir: the Lost Prince Osbeorn Auber of Great Leven, whose coming was foretold in omens upon the wind.
By marrying many, Phosphoria runs the risk of marrying the murderer in her midst, but she must fight tradition if she is to succeed against the rebels, the murderer, and the lords of Great Leven itself. As for Osbeorn, he must come to terms with the darkness of his past before he can look to the future of his country.”
About the book
What is the book about?
The Owlbear and the Omens is the story of a young princess who wins the right to a foreign throne in a fractured land and must use everything at her disposal to unite her new country, including her hand in marriage. To complicate matters, she bears a dual blessing and curse which prevents her from lying and her new countrymen are skeptics who scoff at the idea of magick. During the trials for her hand, the country’s deposed former prince reappears and joins the competition, but not all are happy to see him. It’s a complex tale where both our princess and our prince must balance protecting their own lives with their duties to their country, but their own dark pasts do not always tug them in the right direction. Equal parts political intrigue and low fantasy, The Owlbear and the Omens twists and turns with the mystery of a murderous nobleman, omens of prophetic divination, and the rising certainty that a harem might just be what our princess needs to stay her new country’s in-fighting. That is, if she can pull it together under the noses of those around her all without ever telling a lie.
When did you start writing the book?
I began writing this in late 2019 I believe. I had been drawn to the idea of a character unable to lie for a long time and eventually there were enough puzzle pieces in my mind that I began to form a plot.
How long did it take you to write it?
The Owlbear and the Omens is definitely one of my longer ones! This took a year and a half to write, far longer than I had initially intended. Part of this is due to the length of the novel, the number of concurrent plots and the sheer volume of characters to move around.
Where did you get the idea from?
The Owlbear and the Omens draws from two major sources of inspiration. The first is the concept of a character who can’t lie, taken from my favourite book of all time, The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones. The second source was the Game of Thrones television show, which aired its final season in the first half of 2019. I binge-watched the entire series in preparation for the final season as I had neither watched nor read it before and fell in love with these political back-stabbings and machinations all for a simple throne.
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
Writing the floral divination scenes, inspired by the Victorian language of flowers, was difficult as the scenes could get too long and wordy. It was tricky trying to pare down the scenes to only the pertinent points without overwhelming the readers with the number of flowers and plants and their various meanings and possible interpretations.
What came easily?
I really enjoyed making the country of Great Leven and carefully planning out each region’s signature colour and animal, and what resources they were either rich or poor in, respectively. It was a fun process creating this political stalemate between the regions and balancing who held power, who would give up what for it, and how they all saw each other.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
All entirely fictitious.
We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?
Diana Wynne Jones, of course, and I will scream it from the rooftops at every opportunity. She was the formative writer of my journey as a reader and it is because of her that I do not feel compelled to limit myself to writing only one genre or setting. I have also written novels in the genres of hard science fiction, contemporary speculative fiction, and young adult high fantasy.
Do you have a target reader?
Not really. I write the books I want to read and just hope other people will want to read them too. One of the aims behind The Owlbear and the Omens was to write a reverse harem where the arrangement was necessitated by politics rather than used as a tool for erotica. This is not meant as any disrespect for erotica, I too enjoy harem and reverse-harem media, that’s why I wrote one. I just wanted to explore that which I enjoyed through a different lens.
About Writing
Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?
I will get an idea or be inspired by something, and that idea will sit in the back of my head for months or years, gathering dust and other bits of ideas until something vaguely resembling Frankenstein’s monster emerges, and then I must pat it into the shape of a coherent story.
Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?
To some small degree, I do outline. I will have two documents open while writing, one is the novel and one is the plotting. In that second document I write down roughly what needs to happen in a chapter in the form of a handful of sentences, then move to the first document and write the actual chapter. However I only ever write those handful of sentences for the chapter I am currently writing. I do not jump between plot points or chapters; I always have to go from Point A to Point B and so on and so forth. I know where the plot points are – they’re in my plotting document – I just have to find the path between them. That’s what makes the novel itself. I believe it is this process that makes cohesive novel with a flow and style consistent across the entirety of the novel.
Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?
I edit as I go. I can’t move on to the next section until the one prior to it is ‘done’. That means formatted, spell-checked, edited and tidied. I will occasionally edit a word or two here and there over the course of the novel’s creation but for me each section must be complete before moving on to the next to keep everything tightly written.
Did you hire a professional editor?
I do not, perhaps to my detriment. Hiring a professional editor is not something my finances can accommodate and so I do the best I can and have faith in my abilities.
Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?
No, pure silence. If there is music I will want to sing along and I cannot sing and write at the same time.
About Publishing
Did you submit your work to Agents?
Yes. I have four manuscripts that I have submitted to agents and various manuscript competitions.
What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?
I was very afraid to go indie. Eventually though, I came to the realization that my novels weren’t serving me just sitting in my hard drive and I ought to try self-publishing. I picked The Owlbear and the Omens as my test subject as it was the most commercially challenging of my novels, by which I mean that at 180,000 words I had been told by numerous agents that they would not touch it with a ten-foot pole. I have faith in the novel, I love the story, and so here we are!
Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?
I did my book cover myself. I am lucky enough to have a little experience in graphic design and photo manipulation.
Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?
This has very much been a process of scrabbling though the dark, trying to figure out what I am doing. I did as much research as I could and now I am just winging it, learning every day. There are some things I have tried that were a waste of time, others I’m waiting to see how they pan out, and more that I’d like to try but don’t have the finances to test.
Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?
It’s simultaneously the easiest and most difficult process in the world. On one hand, once your novel is complete, that’s the hard part done, all you need to do is hit ‘publish’. On the other hand I would not advise doing so. Don’t be like me, don’t hit publish with nothing in place to support your release. It’s a drop in the ocean in the middle of the sea with no land in sight and no one will see it. You need to have systems in place to drive traffic – engage in advance review copy giveaways, in book-blogger reviews, in everything you can get your hands on and be aware that these processes take months. I’m sure, however, that the extra effort would have been worth both my time and the discomfort of putting myself out there.
About You
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Darwin, Australia. It’s a tropical place, very hot, many crocodiles. I love Darwin. It has the best sunsets in the world and I hope to visit again someday.
Where do you live now?
I now live in Melbourne, Australia. I still love Darwin but I am very much a cold weather girly and breadth of public transport here blew my mind. Trains! They’re the best!
What would you like readers to know about you?
Nothing terribly interesting. I like my work to be considered as a separate entity to myself.
What are you working on now?
There’s currently a very dusty idea kicking around in my head about a deal with a devil. I’ve got plot Point A and Z and maybe a handful others in between but I’m still looking for that last sticky detail that will bring it all together.
End of Interview:
Get your copy of The Owlbear and the Omens from Amazon US or Amazon UK.
If you’d like to check out The Owlbear and the Omens, please enter this giveaway for an e-copy from Library Thing.
https://www.librarything.com/ner/detail/51031/The-Owlbear-and-the-Omens
The giveaway runs until September 26th, 2024 at 8:00am AEST (Australian eastern time – in the US this would be early evening on September 25th). Selection of winners takes only a few days, after which winners will receive an electronic copy of the book via email. Best of luck!