John Gwynne studied and lectured at Brighton University. He has played double bass in a rock ‘n’ roll band, packed soap in a soap factory and dug ditches for a landscaping crew. He is the author of the epic fantasy series The Faithful and the Fallen including Malice, Valour, Ruin and Wrath, the Of Blood and Bone trilogy, and the Bloodsworn Saga.

Welcome back to the Hive, John. Congratulations on the final instalment of The Bloodsworn saga. 

What can readers expect to find in The Fury of the Gods?

Thank-you, it’s wonderful to be back here. It’s a real pleasure to be talking to you about the final book of the Bloodsworn Saga. 

Hopefully The Fury of the Gods just contains more of what I try to do. Relatable characters in extremely difficult situations. I love to write about family and relationships, about love and loss, sometimes with a stiff dose of revenge thrown into the mix. And of course, giant gods and unpleasant monsters that will quite happily eat our main characters, or rip their teeth out. And the odd battle or two. 

My general rule of thumb with my books is escalation. So hopefully each book in the series will raise the stakes, and the conflicts will become larger and the tension will rise. I hope that is true of The Fury of the Gods. There is definitely more conflict and more bloodshed as the risen gods gather their forces and set out to decide who will be left standing by the final page, and our poor characters are all caught up right in the middle of this. 

How does it feel to have another series completed? 

It’s always a lovely feeling to finish a series. Seeing character arcs and the end to a story you have been nurturing in your heart and head for years is a wonderful feeling.

But writing The Fury of the Gods was like writing no other book for me, and it is impossible to talk about writing it without talking about my beautiful daughter, Harriett. 

I finished The Hunger of the Gods in April 2021, and then in September 2021 Harriett died. 

It was like stepping on a landmine, an explosion going off in my world, hurling myself and my family into a world of pain and grief, changing everything. 

For a parent, losing a child is the ultimate wrong. I retreated from the world, just focusing in on my wife and sons, Caroline, James, Ed and Will. Work, writing, research, social media, even reading, it all stopped as we tried to get through the pain of one day at a time, sometimes one moment at a time. All of us trying to hold each other up, while at the same time broken by our own grief.

That was three years ago, now, and grief is my constant companion. Things have changed. It is not that I have come through the grief, or that it lessens, I think it is more that I’ve started to learn to live with the grief and pain, learnt to function despite the pain. And slowly that pain moves from a constant, overwhelming barrage to an ebb and flow, though with no discernible rhythm. Some days are filled with dark clouds, some days the storm comes, and other days, or moments, you can see the sun. 

It was not until the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 that I sat down to try and write the The Fury of the Gods, the third and final instalment of the Bloodsworn Saga. I was anxious about it, as I had not written a word since April 2021, but once I started writing it was like the dam bursting. Going back to the world of the Bloodsworn felt like being reunited with old friends, and the words just poured out of me. It was an intense time, exhausting, draining, but also cathartic in some way. I wrote for long stretches at a time, beginning and ending in the dark, and by April 2024 The Fury of the Gods was finished. 

I think it’s important to say that just because I’ve managed to write this book it doesn’t mean that I have ‘come through’ the grief, or ‘moved on’ from the pain of losing Harriett. It doesn’t work like that, at least, not for me. It’s more like an ever-present pain that I have learned to live with, to walk alongside. Grief is more than a short, sharp shock. It is an ocean that surrounds you, with no shore in sight. My family and I have had to learn to swim through it, its presence constant, ever-felt. And at the foundation of it all, I just miss Harriett so much. Her smile that would light up a room, the mischievous twinkle in her eyes, the way she would just hold my hand. 

So, this is our life, now, learning to live without our Harriett, learning to live with grief. Learning to brace ourselves against the pain and trying to look to the good things worth living for. For me that is my wife, my children, my grand-children. My friends. And somehow I have been able to return to books. Both reading and writing.

I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you, John. Thank you for sharing this with us. 

[Editor note: Thank you for being so open about your grief John, you’ve described it in such a way that many of us will be able to apprecaite and relate to]

Is it hard to let these characters and the world of Vigrið go?

Well, some of these characters don’t make it to the end of Fury. Actually, quite a few characters don’t make it, and it is always hard to kill characters.

You seem to do it so easily though! I’m almost scared to mention my favourite characters every time I read your books because I know you’ll be cruel to them at some point! 

But whether they die or survive, with a last book in a series there is still an element of letting them go. Although I don’t like to write endings that neatly tie everything up. That doesn’t feel authentic to me. So, events would happen after the last page closes, and who knows, one day I might write about those events. 

Did you always envision how Orka, Varg and Elvar’s character arc would develop and conclude? Or did this take shape as you began writing? 

The answer to that is a bit of both. From day one of writing The Shadow of the Gods I saw a clear scene with a specific character in my head that is now the last chapter. If I told you who the character was or what the scene was it would be a pretty big spoiler, so I better not do that. 

But also, one of the characters especially had quite an organic growth, doing things that I certainly hadn’t originally imagined but that became obvious once their character started evolving. My writing usually involves being an architect and a gardener. 

Without giving away too many spoilers, can you tell us your favourite scene from each book in The Bloodsworn saga?

That’s a hard one. When I think of Shadow of the Gods, the first scene I think of is Orka running back to her home, hearing the screams and seeing the smoke. 

For Hunger of the Gods…I’m not so sure. There were a lot of scenes I enjoyed writing. Guðvarr in the galdurman’s tower. Orka and Elvar crossing paths. Varg and the tongue-eaters, but I would probably have to say the last scene in the last chapter, involving Orka and her son, Breca.

For Fury of the Gods, well, I don’t think I can do that without dipping into spoiler territory. Let’s just say it involves a dragon, a wolf and a sharp axe. 

 Well that sounds good to me!

We’ve spoken before on your reaction to The Shadow of the Gods cover and how awed you were by Marcus Whinny’s artwork, so I have to ask how did you react when you first saw the initial cover designs for The Hunger of the Gods and The Fury of the Gods? Do you have a favourite of the three? 

I have been consistently awed by the covers for the Bloodsworn Saga. Marcus Whinney is an exceptional artist and it has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with him on the artwork for this series. Right from day one he just got the world of the Bloodsworn. Of course, the dragon, the wolf and the serpent make for eye-catching covers, but there is a lot more to Marcus’ work than that. The tone and colour palette, the way he has captured the harsh, bleak yet beautiful world of the Bloodsworn. He’s brilliant. In all honesty I can’t choose a favourite. I love them all.  

As an author of epic/quest fantasy, what draws you to writing these kinds of stories? What defines the epic fantasy genre for you?

I grew up on Tolkien and Lewis, Robert E. Howard and Moorcock. But the writers who really shaped me as a reader and a writer were Tolkien, David Gemmell and Bernard Cornwell. 

Tolkien obviously is amazing, his prose is beautiful and he was just such a genius. He brought the epic to my world. Gemmell exploded into fantasy with flawed, relatable characters which felt groundbreaking at the time, and Bernard Cornwell writes historical fiction with heart, bringing layers of authenticity and bone-crunching battle-scenes.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors who are delving into writing an epic fantasy? 

I always struggle with this, because there is no right or wrong way for a writer. Everyone finds their own way. I can say that for me I had two rules as I started writing with Malice, and they have stayed with me. 

First, to write what you want to read. Starting to write a book is not so hard. Finishing one is really hard, so it is really important that you are passionate about your story. 

And secondly, I have had a mantra through all my books. Epic and intimate. So, I try to write stories that feel epic and fantastical, but with an intimate heart. I’ve always written about themes of family and friendship, and I think I always will. 

Just for fun, if you could spend a day with one of your characters from any of your series, who would you choose and how would you spend your day? 

Ha, whilst I love my characters, I’m not sure who I would want to spend a day with. 

Definitely not Guðvarr, as he would probably get me involved in some dodgy situation and I’d end up getting killed whilst he escaped unharmed. 

I would like to spend a day with Craf the crow, but he would just use me as his slave, so I would end up spending the day finding him food. 

Probably Svik. He tells a great story, enjoys a drink and loves cheese. Yes, definitely Svik.  

Tell us about a book you have recently loved. Any hidden gems?

My favourite recent read is The Daughter’s War by Christopher Beuhlman. If a book makes me feel, then that is a five-star read for me, and The Daughter’s War made me feel in bucket-loads. The prose, the characters, the world, I loved it.

What will be next for John? Are there any upcoming projects which you can share? Can we ever expect to return to Vigrið and the Battle-Plain? 

I would definitely not say never in regard to returning to Vigrið and the Battle-Plain. It’s a world that I enjoyed writing in, and I can see more stories there. But for now it will be onto something new. I can’t say too much, as I am talking about it with my agent and publisher, but it will be inspired by mythology and history, as all my books are, and it will have my daughter Harriett at its heart. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you more about it soon. 

We all can’t wait to find out.

Are you planning anything fun to celebrate your new release?

Well, it’s a pretty busy time for me around publication day. I’ve got a UK book tour happening. On 23rd October I’ll be at Bath Waterstones with Mark Lawrence, on 24th October Leeds Waterstones with RJ Barker, and on 25th October I’ll be in London, at MCM ComiCon at 1.00pm. and then Waterstones Piccadilly in the evening with Tasha Suri and James Logan. Finally on 7th November I’ll be at Brighton Waterstones with CL Clarke. And sprinkled around these dates I’ll be doing quite a few online interviews with BookTubers. All of it will be fun, I’m sure, but also a really busy time. I think afterwards I’ll just have a few quiet days with my wife Caroline and my family.

Finally, what is the one thing you hope readers take away from your writing?

I write to entertain, and I hope to give to readers that feeling that I loved when reading, of being swept away to a new world, of caring about characters and what happened to them. Of loving and hating and laughing and crying. I hope that readers will feel those emotions whilst reading my books. That’s my hope. 

Thank you so much for joining us today!

It was my absolute pleasure, Nils. 

The Fury of the Gods is out today – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org