Day 2 of Terah Edun Feature
Sworn to Conflict (Courtlight #3)
Terah Edun
December 2013
Cover: Releases on October 16th
Synopsis:
Ciardis Weathervane fought for the living dead and won. But worse than taking on a mass murderer, was her discovery that she had been deceived by her friends. Now she needs to not only fight a war in the North and survive, but also decide where she stands in the midst of competing sides.
Blurb:
About:
Terah Edun is a young adult
fantasy writer born and raised in the Atlanta metropolitan area, who
transplanted to the Northeast region for college, and has spent years living
abroad in South Sudan and Morocco. She writes the stories that she always loved
to read as a young girl.
She prefers tales of adventure,
magic, fellowship and courtship – in other words high fantasy. But she’s not
adverse to the occasional contemporary fantasy coming her way.
Sometimes you’ll see cloaks, daggers, independent and strong girls, independent
and strong guys, sweet and soft spoken girls, sweet and soft spoken guys,
sparkly magic and irritatingly know-it-all boys.
4 Facts About Terah
1.) She drinks a caramel iced
coffee every morning to get revved up.
2.) She rarely has time to read
for pleasure.
3.) She spent one year living in
Morocco and one year living in South Sudan. Very different experiences but each
country brought challenges of their own.
4.) She wishes She owned a West
Highland White Terrier, a Bernese Mountain Dog and a Pug.
Q&A:
What inspired you to write about companions?
I’ve always
enjoyed reading about the bond between two individuals whether its
soulmates or
best friends and this seemed like a great way to explore the limitations and
experiences of a
not-quite-love-story between a guy and a girl over a long period of time.
Did living in Morocco and South Sudan influence the
setting in your books?
Absolutely.
Lived in other cultures and countries had opened my mind to different
possibilities.
The setting for Book Three takes a lot of initiative from my experience
living in the
Atlas Mountains in Morocco. It’s the only place in the country that receives
more than four
feet of snow during winter and is quite scenic. I’ve also included some
of the things
I’ve experienced while living in South Sudan in the books. For instance in
Sworn To Raise,
I tried to include scenes from the markets and to give a sense of what
it’s like to
live with deprivation to readers – in this case it’s deprivation of magic.
How do you feel about the role of female characters
change from helpless Disney
princess to
strong independent?
About time! I
firmly believe in having strong, female characters and I love it when I
read young adult
fantasy that’s like that. Young women need role models of girls in their
books who are
adventurous, smart, brave and exemplify leadership. It’s nice to have a
guy save you
from time to time, but you need to know you can do it yourself as well.
Authors like
Mercedes Lackey, Tamora Pierce and Sherwood Smith really exemplify
those
characteristics and I can only hope to one day emulate them.
Where did you come up with the character names? (ie.
Ciardis)
A lot of it is
imagination and some of it is reference. I’m not one of those authors that
poured over baby
name books or extensively researched names in different cultures and
languages for
the perfect one that meant ‘Moon poison’.
But a lot of the
cultural references in my book come from Arabic, which I studied for 2
½ years, or a
derivative. For example Algardis is my word for ‘The Guardians’ as well as
the name of the
empire. Al is the Arabic word for ‘The’ and Gardis I made up because it
sounds like
Guardian. Another example is Sahalia, in reference to the Sahalian dragons,
which is Arabic
for lizard.
TTFN,
Ashley
@Bookz4Nerdz
Good interview!!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks. It was hard to come up with the questions but once they started it was fun.
DeleteAshley
Hey Ashley - Thanks for having me on Books Buying Beauty! :D
ReplyDelete