Welcome back to the Hive, Lauren!

Since you were last with us, there have been two more releases in your Dragon Spirits series; for those unfamiliar, give us a little introduction to your series and what readers can expect?

Thank you so much! It’s been a while – where does the time go? Yes! My Dragon Spirits trilogy is now complete, with the finale, The Broken Sword, releasing in July 2025. 

Essentially, the series is a love letter to epic fantasy and dragons. If you love classic feeling fantasy – with bucket-loads of magic, adventure, multiple POVs, ancient artefacts, and plenty of dragons – combined with less conventional characters, messy family dynamics, underdogs, in a smaller-scale, more intimate story that gradually expands to show the wider ripples, then this could be a trilogy for you!

Your series has multiple points of view – so introduce us to your main characters! Who can we expect to meet?

There are quite a few major players in this trilogy! 

The first POV we’re introduced to belongs to Fenn, a young man who wakes up with no memory of anything bar his own name. I really like the amnesia trope, and when it’s done well it can introduce the world in a natural way. The twist with Fenn is he definitely isn’t the only one suffering from memory loss, and when a most unholy priestess informs him it’s due to being Myr-touched, aka having come into contact with the death spirits that have started reappearing in this world, the worry that Fenn might be unwittingly involved with their resurgence adds another layer of urgency to his journey.

Calidra is another of the important POV characters. She’s one half of a long-term, healthy, sapphic couple. They’re ride-or-die for each other, though Calidra is dealing with a lot of inner demons given her abusive childhood and resulting hypervigilance/straight-to-anger responses to fear and the unknown. She and her partner help Fenn find answers, while she faces who she is, what she has run from, and what she must do to grow as a person.

Master Inquisitor Torsten is on a mission to put down dissension and investigate the rumours of the Myr’s return. Conflicting with his loyalties to his queen is the dragon he’s been bonded to since he was a small boy, and the needs of that spirit over his duty to the iron crown. He cannot stand slovenliness, thieves, and anything that might diminish the strength of his uniform.

The final POV introduced in book one belongs to Apollo (who is also the protagonist of the prequel novella, The Citrine Key), a former thief whose past is quickly catching up with him. Despite putting aside a life of crime and settling down with a wife and child, there are a lot of changes in the world that might be due to something he has done (or hasn’t done, as the case may be), leading several Inquisitors to hunt him down and shake the foundations of everything he has built, and who he is.

Alongside our core group, we have a pirate-turned priestess on a journey of atonement, a former army general with deep violence simmering under his charismatic surface, and many of the people these characters still have links with. 

The roster increases with the sequels, though there are never too many POVs to get overwhelmed by!

Did you have a favourite character to write? Or was there a character that presented more challenges than the other?

Fenn’s journey was a fun one. He starts as an almost completely blank slate, though flavours of his personality bleed through when things get dire. In each book, we uncover another layer of him, until we get to the finished version who has really been with us all along!

Calidra was super cathartic to write, as so much of me is in her – although she definitely responds to things differently than I do! When it comes to fight or flight, she’ll have a knife drawn before you can blink, whereas I have more of a freeze response. She is trying to work through her deep terrors and insecurities, while being neurodivergent, and ultimately makes mistakes along the way, though who she is on the other side is quite marvellous.

As for a complete favourite, it has to be Apollo. He has the stereotypical roguish charm, his mouth gets him into as much trouble as it gets him out of, and he has very little filter with his words or actions. He has a lot less baggage than most of the other characters, which can make him easier for readers to connect with and follow his motivations. Writing him was definitely a breath of fresh air, and his plotline balances well with the others!

Your books embrace some of the classic themes of epic fantasy; free will and destiny. Tell us more about how you developed these themes?

I have always loved these themes! They can be done from so many angles – in a meta way (we readers know of X tropes, will characters follow those paths as expected, or will they be subverted?), a literal way (obeying or disobeying the godlike dragon spirits), and a metaphorical way (acting for themselves and their loved ones vs for the good of the world at large) – I wanted to explore these as much as I could across the three novels.

Looking at “what is selfish” and how that can shift based on perspective, available information or knowledge, looking at something holistically or just one part etc.

There’s a lot of focus on the expectations of people – as characters, to their families, to their world, to themselves etc., how and why they act the way they do, and especially the consequences of their choices.

Do those who own up get rewarded? Or is the world unjust and they’re punished? Is the reverse true, and those who shirk accountability get away with it?

Do you blindly follow and obey, or do you stop and question? What are the consequences of either?

Are you lost unless you walk the path put before you? Or can you forge your own through the weeds?

A lot of it is tied to becoming the “best” version of yourself, and many of the characters’ journeys are parallels of each other. Some deal with the same events in different ways to vastly different outcomes, others act in the same way and yet in a twist of fate, have different endings.

Playing with this is a lot of fun, and something I loved developing throughout the trilogy.

You list epic fantasy and Studio Ghibli as influences on your work, any authors or series in particular that inspired you?

I mentioned the last time I was here that the Final Fantasy series has been incredibly influential on me. It was my first introduction to sweeping narratives, large casts of characters (whose stories intertwined with one another), awe-inspiring worlds, and nuanced stories told within those worlds. 

During lockdown, I watched a lot of Studio Ghibli films, as much of their collection came to Netflix! I rewatched several of my favourites, and tried out new ones.

The movies struck me as being so whimsical and fantastical, with a completely different storytelling approach to the standard hero’s journey and associated tropes that’s popular in the west.

As I often feel a bit “other” (yay for being neurodiverse), the emotions of those movies hit hard, and I knew I wanted my next series to tap into that, at least in some way. The Dragon Spirits trilogy was conceived as I tried to marry my love of dragons and nature with spirits in an epic world.

Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away remain two of my all time favourite Ghibli movies – the rich magic, wonder, rules, and emotions within them are so powerful.

I love that so much of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s work features less conventional characters, focuses on camaraderie, and people being more than the sum of their parts. 

Jen Williams is also a huge inspiration – her prose, writing style, characters, and world-building are top tier, and I’ve loved her work for years. 

And of course the master of dragons that is Robin Hobb.

Of course you can’t name a series Dragon Spirits without it containing a whole lot of dragons, but who are your top three dragons from fiction?

Oooh, such a tough one! There are so many! 

I think, in no particular order, they’d have to be Toothless (How To Train Your Dragon), Bahamut (Final Fantasy), and Meleys (House of the Dragon)

The first book in the series, The Iron Crown, was a finalist in SPFBO 7 (Scoring a respectable 7 from our SPFBO team)  – congratulations! How was your experience of the competition?

Thank you! It feels like such a long time ago now, but it completely took over my life during those phase two months! 

There were long periods of waiting followed by short periods of high stress, and it really was a rollercoaster of emotion.

Honestly, making the finals opened a lot of doors for me, and fundamentally changed the trajectory of my author career. 

Firstly, I made a lot of friends (I still chat to/hang out with fellow SPFBO7 finalists Tim, Kerstin, and Holly quite regularly), secondly, it bumped me up/my books on the TBR lists of a lot of readers who then gave me a shot, and thirdly, it definitely opened the door to the TBB Press edition.

When people are looking for a new epic fantasy series (especially by an indie author, and even more so by a female author), my name crops up quite a lot now, which is just incredible. Word of mouth is the best advertising by far, and the more people that know of me and talk about me has a huge ripple effect that has really boosted my visibility and confidence. 

To be spoken of in the same breath as some of the indie author megastars and highly respected trad authors, is something I never really thought would be possible. It absolutely made the stress of phase two very worth it!

What advice would you give anyone considering entering?

It’s really hard to know what will happen in the contest each year, so ultimately my advice is to go into it not expecting much. 

One of the only guarantees is that you’ll find yourself in the same boat as 299 other authors, so lean on that as much as possible – grow your friend and peer group, support network etc.

There are amazing groups on Facebook, Discord, and other social media platforms, so grow your tribe there! Be kind, listen to the conversations, and learn from others.

So much of the contest is down to luck and timing. Having a good book is only the first step and absolutely no guarantee of anything. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a review.

If you’re incredibly lucky, you’ll be a finalist – and if that happens, you’ve essentially “won” (although it comes with its own stress!) because those ten books will be talked about more than anything else for a brief window of time.

Enjoy it as much as you can, or don’t think of it at all – whatever is more helpful to get you through!

The Iron Crown was also featured in The Broken Binding’s ‘TBB Press’ limited collector’s editions series! How did it feel to have a special edition of your book published?

It felt like I’d won the lottery! 

I mentioned being an SPFBO7 Finalist opened a lot of doors, and this was absolutely one of them. Although my “level of success” as an author was growing, I was (and am still) very small potatoes, so to be picked was an absolute dream!

With no clue how well it would be received, as the book wasn’t super well known (out of small bookish circles), to learn it sold out in four hours on general sale absolutely blew my mind. I was working at an event and burst into tears in the middle of the day!! 

It felt like things like that don’t really happen to people like me – and if a thousand people didn’t own copies, I’d have said it was an elaborate daydream that ran away from me!

Working directly with artists to ensure the illustrations came true to my vision was beyond incredible, and the finished version is of such amazing quality that I want to pinch myself every time I see it!

Opportunities like that don’t come along very often, and I’m unbelievably grateful I was able to take it when it appeared.

Can you tell us a little something about your current work(s) in progress? 

I’m currently taking a small break, so soon after releasing The Broken Sword! I have a few character epilogues that I’m writing, which will be a Patreon exclusive for those who want a little more from this world.

But my next big project will be a completely new series that I’m hoping to get out in 2026. It’s still fantasy, and it’ll still have plenty of dragons (of course!), but the setting will be much more Renaissance than medieval – think more along the lines of The First Law – with meddling heathen gods, a bird familiar, disaster babies, Matriarchies, and more ancient artefacts that are better left alone.

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

I would love readers to feel the same awe and whimsical wonder of believing in magic that we experienced as children. If they want to escape into my world and meet (some of!) the dragons, that would just be amazing.

I would also love readers who have been through childhood trauma like me to find something of hope and peace in the characters’ journeys, and those readers who haven’t experienced it to see that we exist, even if they are less enjoyable at times than your usual chosen ones.

Thank you so much for joining us today!

Thank you for having me!

The Dragon Spirits trilogy is available to order on Lauren’s website