Interview with Roshani Chokshi (THE LAST TALE OF THE FLOWER BRIDE)
Roshani Chokshi is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestselling series The Star-Touched Queen, The Gilded Wolves and Aru Shah and The End of Time, which Time Magazine named one of the Top 100 Fantasy Books of All Time. Her novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages and often draw upon world mythology and folklore. Chokshi is a member of the National Leadership Board for the Michael C. Carlos Museum and lives in Georgia with her husband and their cat whose diabolical plans must regularly be thwarted.
Roshani can be found on instagram: https://instagram.com/roshanichokshi?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Welcome to the Hive, Roshani. Firstly, congratulations on your latest release, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride! Can you tell our readers a bit about it? What can they expect?
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a fairytale in the gothic tradition. That said, it is not a fantasy. Its world is like our own and its characters are armed with human magic — charisma, manipulation, imagination, faith and desire. The plot goes like this: a man marries a woman he loves, but does not exactly know for she has forbidden him from asking questions. When the aunt who raised her falls ill, they must return to his wife’s childhood home where buried secrets begin to make themselves known.
Just for fun, can you describe your book in five words?
A softly beating dark heart.
Flower Bride is your first foray into writing adult fantasy. Was this a conscious decision you made or did the story naturally evolve into one?
It was a little of both. As much as I love following characters in the first blush of adulthood, time becomes a limiting framework. By the time we get a glimpse of who they might be as adults, the book is finished. At the time of writing, my own life had drastically changed. I got married, I moved, I changed, the pandemic struck. Specific life experiences informed the book and naturally made it an adult tale.
What would you say are the main differences between writing YA and writing for an adult audience?
Hmm…it’s hard to say. I think it comes down to shelving and character age. Both adult and YA can have opulent, elegant writing. Both can keep a reader close or hold them at a distance. Both can be dark and taboo. I think with books that are shelved adult there is a built in expectation of caveat emptor. I don’t expect my young adult readers to go into every novel having gaged whether the subjects would be detrimental to their mental health, and that tends to make me tread more carefully and have content warnings at the outset of material.
Your book heavily features various fairytales and almost reads like a dark fairytale in itself. What draws you to fairytales? And which have inspired you the most?
I’ve always liked fairytales and myths because they either seek to explain the world around them or offer no explanation for the magic that might at times be cruel and other times kind. That kind of callous randomness is almost comforting. It says “It’s nothing personal. It’s just, well, life.” Other times it suggests that such awfulness is outside our mortal scope of understanding and that’s also fine.
The ones I always return to and find something new are the tales of “Savitri and Satyavan,” “Bluebeard,” “Eros and Pysche” and “Orpheus and Eurydice.”
Let’s talk about your characters! Both Indigo and Azure hold such a deep connection to one another, yet their friendship is also somewhat toxic. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind both these characters’ personalities?
They are representative of the best and worst parts of me. What’s sentimental can turn strangling; what’s imaginative can tilt insidious; what’s perceptive can skew paranoid. And like many people, I’m often at odds with myself.
And our Bridegroom? What was the significance of keeping his name unknown?
I was thinking a lot about Bluebeard, and how his wives who met their tragic ends remain unnamed and only the villainous character is remembered. In many ways, Flower Bride is a genderbent version of that tale, so I wanted to keep the tradition.
The majority of your book is set in Indigo’s childhood home, The House of Dreams, which is arguably a character in its own right. How much fun was it to write an almost haunted gothic house full of history and secrets?
I wouldn’t say any part of writing this book was fun, per se, especially after emerging from the joyous world of Aru Shah…but it was hard to leave the House of Dreams. Every time I wanted to stop, some new detail appeared. A shadow, a corner, a story. Even when grotesque, the process of discovery is always exhilarating.
Whilst I was reading Flower Bride, I couldn’t help but think what a fantastic film it would make. The visuals would be stunning. If your book was to get an adaptation, which medium would you prefer: feature film or tv series? Do you have any actors in mind who could play your characters?
Definitely a mini-series. No idea who would play who, though I am putting it out into the universe now that my dream directors would be Joe Wright, Guillermo del Toro or Robbert Eggers.
Ok, we have to mention how gorgeous your UK cover is! The more I look at it, the more details pop out! How involved in the process were you? Was there a particular aesthetic you hoped they’d portray?
The Hodder team has been amazingly supportive of my vision, and capturing the book’s aesthetic perfectly. They were attentive to my feedback to the original design, but to be honest, it didn’t need much work. It was near perfect from the very beginning.
One of our favourite questions here on the Fantasy Hive: which fantastical creature would you ride into battle and why?
Elven battle moose ala Lee Pace in his role as Thranduil.
So Roshani, what is next for you? Can you share details of any future projects? Will you be returning to adult fantasy in the future?
Many, many things! I love the middle grade space, and fittingly my next middle grade work is as spooky as Flower Bride. It’s called The Spirit Glass and will release sometime in fall 2023. I do have another adult book I have been turning over in my mind, which I hope will be another gothic piece. But it will take me some time to be in the right headspace to tackle it properly.
Finally, what is the one thing you hope readers take away from your writing?
A sense that they are being let into a secret that they had once known but somehow forgot.
Thank you so much for joining us today!
Thank you for having me 🙂
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is out today! Order your copy HERE