Interview with Kalyn Josephson for The Crow Rider

The Crow Rider (The ​Storm Crow #2)

by Kalyn Josephson
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Release Date: July 7th 2020

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Synopsis:

Princess Thia, her allies, and her crow, Res, are planning a rebellion to defeat Queen Razel and Illucia once and for all. Thia must convince the neighboring kingdoms to come to her aid, and Res’s show of strength is the only thing that can help her.

But so many obstacles stand in her way. Res excels at his training, until he loses control of his magic, harming Thia in the process. She is also pursued by Prince Ericen, heir to the Illucian throne and the one person she can’t trust but can’t seem to stay away from.

As the rebel group prepares for war, Res’s magic grows more unstable. Thia has to decide if she can rely on herself and their bond enough to lead the rebellion and become the crow rider she was meant to be.

Can you briefly describe the series, its characters and what’s happening in THE CROW RIDER?

THE CROW RIDER picks up where THE STORM CROW left off, with Princess Thia and her friends desperately trying to reach Trendell for the alliance meeting between the kingdoms. To convince them to ally with her against Illucia, Thia and her storm crow, Res, must make a show of strength, but Res is new an untrained, and struggles to control his powers.

To make it a bit fun, can you describe the series or THE CROW RIDER with emojis?

🛳️⛈️⚔️🦅👑 – one day there will be a crow emoji!

How did this new story occur to you? Was this more difficult to write than the first book?

It was easier in some ways, and more difficult in others. I already knew the characters and the world, so there was a lot less to come up with from scratch, but I had also established a lot of rules and timelines in the first book that I had to abide by in the second book, and since I hadn’t completely outlined book 2 before book 1 came out, that was a bit of a struggle! I did always know how the series would end though, so I was always writing toward that.

If you could choose one song to describe this new book, which one would it be?

The She-Ra theme song haha. Only mostly kidding. But I struggle with these questions! I don’t make book playlists or listen to music when I write so I don’t often associate songs with my books.

What drink and place do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date?

A hot cup of tea and a comfy couch by the fire while it rains outside.

Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish THE CROW RIDER?

CROWN OF FEATHERS by Nicki Pau Preto! It’s also a bird riding book, but phoenixes instead of crows.

What would you say is the most difficult part of writing a book?

Not rushing. I prefer editing over drafting, so I’m constantly trying to rush through my drafts so I can get to edits. Part of that comes from this feeling that publishing is a race (which it’s not!) but you feel like you have to be constantly producing. I’ve been doing a lot better at slowing down though!

What’s next for you?

I can’t talk specifically about any new projects, but I’m working on a couple potential new books right now.

Kalyn Josephson currently works as a Technical Writer in the tech industry, which leaves room for too many bad puns about technically being a writer. Though she grew up in San Luis Obispo, California, she graduated from Santa Clara University with a degree in Biology and a degree in English (Creative Writing). Currently, she lives in the Bay Area with four awesome friends (because it’s the Bay Area and she’d like to be able to retire one day) and two black cats (who are more like a tiny dragon and an ever tinier owl). THE STORM CROW is her debut novel.

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The Merciful Crow Excerpt + Giveaway

The Merciful Crow (The Merciful Crow #1)

by Margaret Owen
Publisher: Henry Holt (BYR)
Release Date: July 30th 2019

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Synopsis:

A future chieftain

Fie abides by one rule: look after your own. Her Crow caste of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when they’re called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime.

A fugitive prince

When Crown Prince Jasimir turns out to have faked his death, Fie’s ready to cut her losses—and perhaps his throat. But he offers a wager that she can’t refuse: protect him from a ruthless queen, and he’ll protect the Crows when he reigns.

A too-cunning bodyguard

Hawk warrior Tavin has always put Jas’s life before his, magically assuming the prince’s appearance and shadowing his every step. But what happens when Tavin begins to want something to call his own?

It was nigh midnight before they set foot on the League-High Bridge over the Hem. The great river thundered only a few hundred paces below, but for murder’s purpose, it worked near good as a league. Fie minded her step during the ten minutes it took to cross.

The moment her nail-studded soles touched gravel instead of cobblestone, Fie held her breath. If the royals meant to claw back their teeth, this was where the Hunting Castes would strike.

All of them strained to catch any hint of company. The long, terrible silence stretched thin and treacherous as young ice while Fie scoured every flicker of leaves for an ambush.

None came.

Maybe—just maybe—they’d done it.

Someone inhaled sharp. Then a deafening cry broke out:

“OH, I ONCE KNEW A LAD FROM ACROSS THE SEA, WITH A MOST PARTICULAR SPECIALTY—”

Madcap’s voice split the night like an axe, swinging into the bawdiest walking song Pa’d let them sing in Fie’s presence. The rest of the band broke into wheezing laughter, near weeping with relief.

“Twelve hells, Fie!” Wretch clung to the cart for dear life, slapping a knee. She had near as many years as Pa and twice as quick a temper, one of the few who’d known Pa when he was still called Cur, not yet Chief. She took the cat from Fie and scratched its brow. “I thought you’d ask the queen to throw in a crown for all that trouble!”

“What good’s a crown?” Swain drawled from behind Wretch. A flash of mirth leavened his perpetually dour voice. “She could have just asked to slap the king. Probably would’ve gone over better with Her Majesty.”

Madcap, a Crow allergic to dignity, snatched up Fie’s hands and wheeled her about the road in a giddy whirl, belting yet another lewd and anatomically improbable verse of “The Lad from Across the Sea.” Fie couldn’t help but throw back her head and laugh. Aye, they still had leagues to walk and bodies to burn, but—but she’d done it.

For once, she’d made the palace pay.

“Stop, stop,” Madcap wheezed, laughing as they clutched their stomach. “I’m like to barf!”

The two of them slowed to a drunken tilt near Pa. By all rights, he ought to be reeling with glee like the rest of the band.

He hadn’t even taken off his mask, staring straight back at Dumosa.

“Come on, chief—” Madcap started, but Pa cut them off.

“It’s not done yet. Save your dance for when the bodies burn.” Pa fired off the whistle-order to march.

Wretch passed the cat back to Fie, shaking her head at Pa’s back. An unease draped over the Crows once more. Madcap still hummed under their breath, and Swain muttered along after a few steps, but otherwise silence clung to the cart as they dragged it on.

The scattering of huts and god-grave shrines by the road eventually yielded to the twist-trunked, lichen-shawled forest. “The Lad from Across the Sea” wound down, another song rising in its wake, louder and steadier. Soon the only marks of Dumosa were glimpses of a gilded crust over dark hills, sometimes sparking through the trees.

“Here.”

Pa’s voice cut through the night, snipping off the walking song’s last verse. He thrust his torch into the soft dirt by the roadside. The cart creaked to a halt as Pa shucked his mask and nodded at Fie and the tabby.

“No strays we can’t eat, girl.”

“Not a stray, she’s mine,” Fie returned. “My share of the viatik.”

Pa huffed a short chuckle. “Covenant’s crap she is, Fie, but we’ll talk your share later. What’s her name, then?”

She thought of the steward’s queasy face and Madcap’s dance and grinned. “Barf.”

“That’s proper.” Pa ran a hand over his bald crown. All his hair had migrated south to his short salt-and-pepper beard long years past. “Now let’s see about these boys, eh?”

Fie leaned on the edge of the cart and studied the two shrouds lying among splits of kindling. “Big,” she said. The prince had been near a year her elder, and clearly both boys had been better fed. “Dunno if we have enough firewood for both.”

“Will if we douse ’em in flashburn,” Hangdog suggested, lounging over the cart’s other side.

Fie’s beak was only in the way now. She set Barf down in the cart and pushed back her hood to loosen the mask’s straps, letting it hang about her neck as she ran a hand through her chin-cropped tangle of black hair. It was a blessing to breathe clean night air and not the palace’s incense or her mask’s stale mint.

She had naught to fear of contagion. It was said that every Crow had fouled up something grand in their past lives, bad enough for the Covenant to strike them down with plague and boot them directly to a life of atonement in containing the disease. That Crows were born already in debt to the Covenant’s measures of sin. That it would not take them to their next life before that debt was paid.

So it was said, at least. Fie didn’t know how much of that rang true to her ear. But it was truth hard as iron that the Sinner’s Plague left only Crows untouched.

Death-stink hadn’t settled on the boys yet, but she still flinched at the crimson stains on their shrouds. Of all a chief’s duties, cutting throats was the one she dreaded most.

She reached into the cart, prodding what seemed like the nobler of the bloody heaps. “They really royals, Pa?”

“Just the one. Other was his body double.”

Fie tugged back the linen until torchlight landed on a boy’s rust-flecked face, looking for all the world like he was sleeping. Maybe a little afraid. Maybe he’d been awake when Pa’s blade touched his throat.

She pursed her lips. “So that’s what a sinner prince looks like.”

The dead boy sat up.

“Well, no,” he said, “but I’ve been told I’m fairly close.”

Born and raised at the end of the Oregon Trail, Margaret Owen spent her childhood haunting the halls of Powell’s Books. After earning her degree in Japanese, her love of espresso called her north to Seattle, where she worked in everything from thrift stores to presidential campaigns. The common thread between every job can be summed up as: lessons were learned.

She now spends her days wrestling disgruntled characters onto the page, and negotiating a long-term hostage situation with her two monstrous cats. (There is surprisingly little difference between the two.)

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Interview with Kalyn Josephson for The Storm Crow

The Storm Crow (The Storm Crow #1)

by Kalyn Josephson
Publisher: SourcebooksFire
Release Date: July 9th 2019

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Synopsis:

In the tropical kingdom of Rhodaire, magical, elemental Crows are part of every aspect of life...until the Illucian empire invades, destroying everything.

That terrible night has thrown Princess Anthia into a deep depression. Her sister Caliza is busy running the kingdom after their mother's death, but all Thia can do is think of all she has lost.

But when Caliza is forced to agree to a marriage between Thia and the crown prince of Illucia, Thia is finally spurred into action. And after stumbling upon a hidden Crow egg in the rubble of a rookery, she and her sister devise a dangerous plan to hatch the egg in secret and get back what was taken from them.

Can you briefly describe THE STORM CROW and their main characters?

THE STORM CROW follows Thia, a princess who trained her entire life to become a crow rider—until the day they’re destroyed. When she finds a surviving crow egg in the rubble, she teams up with her sister the queen, her best friend, and a kind-hearted inventor to hatch the egg and defeat the empire that destroyed the crows.

Who would you say is your favourite character from the story and why?

Kiva! I love her cutting honesty. She doesn’t beat around the bush and she’s not afraid to say what she thinks.

How did the story occur to you? Did you find inspiration anywhere?

I did! The story was inspired by a newspaper article I read about a little girl who fed her neighborhood crows. In return they brought her gifts, and her neighbors called her The Crow Queen. That title is what gave me the idea for a kingdom whose way of life was based of magical crows and what would happen if they were suddenly gone.

If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be?

Alive, by Sia. I think it really captures Thia’s emotional journey, and it has a raw strength to it that fits the vibe of the book.

If your book was going to be made into a movie, who would play your characters?

Oh gosh, these types of questions are always so tough for me. I think Isabela Moner would make a great Thia, and I’ve thought of Ericen as a young Robbie Amell. For Caylus I think of a young Eddie Redmayne. Kiva is the one I really struggle with and haven’t figured out! Someone tall and seriously badass.

Summer is here and we love to go out and enjoy the sun. What drink and place do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date?

I’d recommend somewhere cold and rainy, like Ireland, or warm and storming, like a little cottage off the US east coast. Anywhere with the steady drum of rain the background that promotes drinking a nice cup of tea ;)

Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish THE STORM CROW?

CROWN OF FEATHERS by Nicki Pau Preto! Instead of crow riders, you get phoenix riders, and they’re super cool! It’s got fantastic worldbuilding for all your epic fantasy needs.

What’s next for you?

Right now I’m working on the sequel to THE STORM CROW, which we should be announcing the title for soon. Other than that, I have a couple drafts of other books I’m playing around with, all to do with more types of animal magic!

Kalyn Josephson is a Technical Writer in Silicon Valley, which leaves room for too many bad puns about technically being a writer. She grew up in San Luis Obispo, CA, but now lives in the Bay Area with four awesome friends (because it’s the Bay and she’d like to be able to retire one day) and two black cats (who are more like a tiny dragon and an even tinier owl). When not writing YA Fantasy, she loves baking, reading, playing sports, and watching too many movies.

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