Andrea Stewart is the daughter of immigrants, and was raised in a number of places across the United States. Stewart is a Sunday Times Bestselling author whose short stories can be found in such venues as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Galaxy’s Edge, and others. Her debut epic fantasy novel, The Bone Shard Daughter, was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, the Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy and Debut Novel, and the BookNest Award for Best Traditionally Published Novel. She now lives in sunny California, and in addition to writing, can be found herding cats, looking at birds, and falling down research rabbit holes.

The Gods Below is due for release 5th September 2024. You can pre-order your copy HERE

Melissa Caruso writes books of murder, magic, and mayhem. Her published fantasy novels include the Swords & Fire trilogy (THE TETHERED MAGE, THE DEFIANT HEIR, THE UNBOUND EMPIRE) and the Rooks & Ruin trilogy (THE OBSIDIAN TOWER, THE QUICKSILVER COURT, THE IVORY TOMB), all from Orbit Books. Her debut novel was shortlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award in 2017, and her books have received starred reviews and made countless Best Of lists. Melissa is a tea drinker, larper, and mom, and lives in Massachusetts with her video game designer husband, two superlative daughters, and assorted pets.

The Last Hour Between Worlds is due for release 21st November 2024. You can pre-order your copy HERE

Welcome back to the Fantasy Hive Melissa and Andrea, and our Women in SFF feature! 

We’re thrilled you could both join us for an interview about your upcoming new novels.

To begin with, can you briefly describe your story in three sentences or less? 

Andrea Stewart (AS): THE GODS BELOW is set on a hollow world, where magic exists as particles in the air, and density increases the closer you get to the center—the home of the gods. When a cataclysmic event separates Hakara from her younger sister, they end up on opposite sides of a clandestine war between the gods.

Melissa Caruso (MC): THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS is about a star investigator on maternity leave who just wants to enjoy a night out at a fancy party without her newborn. But when people start dropping dead and mysterious forces plunge the ballroom through increasingly weird and dangerous layers of reality, she has to go to work. Worst of all, she has to cooperate with her personal nemesis, notorious cat burglar Rika Nonesuch, to have a chance to save her city from the cosmic forces aligning against it.

Can you tell us a bit about your main character? What kind of personality do they possess?

AS: There are five point-of-view characters in my book, though I’d say Hakara is the most prominent. She’s basically three raccoons in a trenchcoat—ruthlessly determined, ill-mannered, a bit filthy, but when you get a real good look beneath the collar you think, “Well you’re just a funny little guy, aren’t you?”. Don’t touch, she WILL bite.

MC: Andrea, I seriously can’t wait to meet her, she sounds amazing!

My main character, Kembral Thorne, is really tired. She’s a total badass who is feeling off her game and out of place after being stuck at home with a newborn for two months, struggling to reconcile her new life as a single mom with her beloved but extremely dangerous job that she suddenly needs to be able to do again at peak performance when she’s really out of practice. She’s pragmatic and a bit grumpy and so fed up with all this magical bullshit that keeps happening when she just wanted to have a nice, relaxing evening.

Ok, ok, we have to ask… which of your characters would you fuck, marry, kill? 

AS: Well, if I MUST—fuck Thassir, marry Sheuan, kill Mull (sorry, Mull).

Editor: Same tbh

MC: Oh wow, OK, help me out with the rules here—I can’t pick a villain, right? (Otherwise, uh, the same character might be a candidate for fuck and/or kill.) Oh, this is hard because honestly none of these disasters are marriage material (plus I’m ace spec so the fuck option is pretty abstract for me). Uh…I guess fuck Jaycel, marry Kem (only one likely to be a responsible member of the household, frankly), and that leaves Rika for kill, which is a bad and regrettable idea but what can you do.

Did you create mood boards to help set the atmosphere of your story? If so, what did your mood board consist of? 

AS: I’m a weirdo who keeps the visuals in my head. I was asked to make a mood board at one point after I’d handed in the book, and it consisted of wings, a woman with horns, a lush landscape, an arid one, a cave with some bioluminescent life, and some eyes.

MC: Mood boards always sounded like too much work to me, a person who would spend days in endless internet ratholes trying to find the perfect image, so I’ve never tried one! I’m with you, Andrea, and keep all my visuals in my head.

Andrea you have one trilogy under your belt, Melissa you have two! Tell us how it was leaving one world behind for a whole new one?

AS: It’s sad, and also exciting, and also incredibly, incredibly anxiety-inducing. Will the people who enjoyed my last trilogy enjoy this one? It’s wonderful to start afresh, but I just had to make peace with the fact that some people will like this new world and trilogy better than the last, and some people will like it less.

MC: For me it was exciting and inspiring! I love worldbuilding, especially the early vibesy part where I’m discovering the magic of a new world for the first time. It feels so deliciously exploratory in a way that’s harder to capture in an established world. It was also really fun getting to write with a voice that was a bit different—For this series I gave my voice a slightly more contemporary feel, including modern swears. It was so liberating to finally say “fuck” after 6 books without real-world swears that I wound up overdoing it and dropping about 200 F-bombs in my first draft. I had to cut way back! (Spoiler: There are still a bunch of F-bombs.)

Without giving away too many spoilers, tell us about a scene from your new book you most enjoyed writing? 

AS: Oh, I definitely enjoyed writing a scene where several of my characters are out on a mission with Thassir—a big, grumpy winged man who has an intense fondness for feral cats. In the middle of this mission, while they’re in stealth mode, a cat starts wandering toward one of their traps. And while everyone is basically telling Thassir, “Dude, you had better NOT,” he wilfully puts the entire group in danger to go rescue this cat. Is the cat grateful? No.

MC: Andrea, I LOVE that, and I have to tell you that I identify with the rest of the party in your story, because when I was larping once we were literally sneaking up on a group of monsters in the dark and a friendly feral cat came wandering up and one of our group just scooped it up and put it on his shoulder while we were still skulking around stalking these enemies. (Reader, I married him.)

As for me, I had such an absolute blast writing the epic final swordfight. This is my seventh published book and only my first with a viewpoint character who’s a badass fighter, and it felt so good to finally get to write an all-out first person swordfight. Plus it was really interesting to write, because my main character has this blink step ability where she can basically do super-short teleports through this conceptual outside-of-time space, and in this particular fight there were, uh, interesting things going on there, and it was really fun working in this completely fantastical element and thinking about how that would affect the tactics.

How do you think you’d fare in your new worlds? 

AS: Hmmm…NOT well. I’d give myself a couple hours in a restored realm, and maybe a year tops in an unrestored one. Unrestored realms are pretty inhospitable and unless you’re in the top echelons of society, you’re not doing great. Restored realms are very “Here Be Monsters.”

MC: I’d do all right in Prime—the top layer of my layered worlds, where the characters are all from. It’s reasonably civilized there, and the food is good in the city-state of Acantis! The Echoes—lower layers of reality—get more and more dangerous as you go down, so…I might last a little while in the first Echo, but I’d fare poorly below that, and I’d probably be dead in like five minutes anywhere from about the fifth Echo down.

Just for fun, how would you pitch your book as a 1-star review?

AS: “Woke garbage. And a hollow world isn’t scientifically possible, so how well researched is this book anyways? People who are transformed to have wings and horns? Obvious pandering to the furries. And how many people, when they find out the magic in this world requires you to hold your breath during a fight, are going to pass out seeing if they can do the same? Irresponsible.”

MC: “Everyone is gay, and the main character is a mom but is supposed to somehow also be a badass swordfighter. Plus people fight in fancy dresses. Unrealistic. One Star.”

Who are the most significant women in SFF who have shaped and influenced your work? 

AS: This is merely a list of women I can only dream of aspiring to—Robin Hobb, Melanie Rawn, N.K. Jemisin (let me just say when I read The Fifth Season it was like a bomb going off in my head), Octavia Butler (forever, forever), Ursula K. LeGuin.

MC: Robin McKinley’s The Hero and the Crown lives rent-free in my head forever. I am a giant Hiromu Arakawa fangirl and learned like half of what I know about pacing, plot twists, and nuanced character moments from her classic manga Fullmetal Alchemist. There are tons of others who I’ve read and loved and learned from, but I feel like those two probably had the biggest influence on shaping the writer I am today.

If you were to have your story adapted, what medium would you choose—anime, Netflix series or feature length film? Who would you cast for your main character? 

AS: I’d choose an animated series because it would be cheaper and more likely to be made, and the visuals would be easier to manage. Hakara is half-Asian and rather young, and there just aren’t a lot of people who fit that description in Hollywood. Someone new and unknown!

MC: I feel like TLHBW is the one book I’ve written that might actually work as a movie! Though it’d also work well (maybe better?) as a short Netflix series. I’d love to see all the costumes for the fancy ball and how they change and get weirder as the party progresses through all the different layers of reality. I don’t actually know a lot of actors—I don’t watch a ton of TV or movies and when I do, I’m not usually thinking about who’s playing the characters—so I never know how to answer that question! I joked a little while ago that anytime anyone asks me about dream casting I’m going to say I’d want all roles played by Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh in different outfits, regardless of age or gender, and…actually that would be pretty amazing.

What will you be doing to celebrate your release? 

AS: I’m doing an event at my friend’s bookstore, A Seat At The Table Books, in Elk Grove, CA! I’m very much looking forward to it. Will have goodies and games, and my good friend and fellow author, Jason Denzel, has agreed to be my in-conversation partner. It’ll be a grand time.

MC: I have a release day event planned at the wonderful bookstore An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA! Usually I go out to dinner with friends to celebrate, too, because it’s always nice to have an excuse to do that.

Finally, how do you hope your readers will feel after finishing your novel?

AS: A little bit emotionally crushed—it IS a harsh world!—but ultimately hopeful. My characters are damaged people, but they’re all doing their best, and they’re finding ways to understand and care about one another.

MC: I want my readers to feel breathlessly energized, like they just got off a really good roller coaster and want to immediately get back in line to loop it again! I’ll gladly settle for satisfied and entertained, though.

Thank you so much for joining us for Women in SFF!

Thank you for having us!!!

The Gods Below is due for release 5th September 2024. You can pre-order your copy HERE

The Last Hour Between Worlds is due for release 21st November 2024. You can pre-order your copy HERE