Welcome to YA Books Central’s “Indie Superstars” column. This monthly event will spotlight the best and brightest of the indie community.
You don’t want to miss out on these talented authors!
This week we’re interviewing Sarah M. Cradit, Author of The Raven and the Rush.
Caitlin Haines: Can you tell us a little about The Raven and The Rush?
Sarah M. Cradit: Sure! I think the first important thing to know is that The Raven and the Rush is the first in a series of fantasy romance standalones that are interconnected by setting. They all take place in my Kingdom of the White Sea universe, across different timelines and regions. Each story in this series features a different romantic trope- arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, fated love, and so on. I have around ten books planned at this time, but who knows where it will go?
Raven, specifically, is a forbidden love tale. Neither Rhosyn nor Evra were born to be heirs and leaders, but circumstances thrust them both into this very role—and neither want it. Evra’s quest is to save the realm he grudgingly inherited, and Rhosyn’s is to save herself from a fate that seems worse than death to her. Those two quests intersect in an unexpected way, a way that has both of their goals shifting as they both race against time and fate.
The book came out in December and is available everywhere. The Sylvan and the Sand, an enemies to lovers arranged marriage story, comes out May 10th.
Caitlin: Where did the inspiration come from?
Sarah: My Kingdom of the White Sea world came with a ridiculous amount of worldbuilding. Most fantasy authors will say that what you see on the page is just the tip of that iceberg, and that’s so true. I had more stories to tell, and I decided what I wanted to tell were the love stories that had shaped the kingdom, in big and small ways.
Caitlin: If you could have any form of magic, what would it be and why?
Sarah: If I was in a fantasy story myself, I’d want the ability to be some kind of a healer cleric, because you ALWAYS need a healer. In real life, I’d love to time travel. Not to change the past, but to witness it as it happened, traveling through my favorite eras in history to see how well reality matched imagination. Then again, I’d never get another thing done if I had that gift.
Caitlin: Who is your favorite character in this book and why? What about in the whole series?
Sarah: It would be too easy for me to say Evra or Rhosyn, so I’m going to give some love to my favorite side character: Oswin Frost. He’s gruff and hardened, which would make you think he’s a certain kind of man, and you’d be wrong. He’s also warm, and family-centric, and is the only person in his region who stops to think about how Rhosyn’s life is affecting her. He is her surrogate father because her own cares nothing for her. Oswin’s love and concern for Rhosyn is one of the most pure relationships I’ve written in this world. We all deserve an Oswin in our lives.
Caitlin: If you were thrown into this fantasy world, what role would you like to play? Would you be a hero, side character, etc.?
Sarah: I think I’d be studying magic at the Consortium of the Sepulchre in the skies. I’d have ambitions for the high office there, but be completely and blissfully out of touch with everything happening in the kingdom.
Caitlin: What’s one thing you have to have while writing (music, quiet, snacks, coffee, etc.)?
Sarah: I’m a solitude writer, so I can’t write in a Starbucks like some authors can. The best writing environment for me is early morning, alone in my office (pugs at my feet), with a focus app running in the background (my favorite is brain.fm).
Caitlin: This series is comprised of several standalones, correct? Can you give us a hint at what’s to come next? Without spoiling anything, how are the stories connected?
Sarah: They’re all connected by the kingdom, but readers will begin to recognize names from both the trilogy and other books in this series. There are a lot of little connecting pieces that are fun to find. And though I haven’t announced the second five set of books in the series (that would be a spoiler), those will be even more familiar and beloved to those who have read the first five.
Meet Sarah M. Cradit
Sarah is the USA Today and International Bestselling Author of over forty contemporary and epic fantasy stories, and the creator of the Kingdom of the White Sea and Saga of Crimson & Clover universes.
Born a geek, Sarah spends her time crafting rich and multilayered worlds, obsessing over history, playing her retribution paladin (and sometimes destruction warlock), and settling provocative Tolkien debates, such as why the Great Eagles are not Gandalf’s personal taxi service. Passionate about travel, she’s been to over twenty countries collecting sparks of inspiration, and is always planning her next adventure.
Sarah and her husband live in a beautiful corner of SE Pennsylvania with their three tiny benevolent pug dictators.
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Giveaway
One raven. One boy. One destiny.
From theUSA Today Bestselling Author of Kingdom of the White Sea comes a new series of standalone fantasy romance tales set in the same vibrant world: The Book of All Things. Escape into this story of duty and forbidden love weaving together a fate bigger than man, bigger than magic.
Evrathedyn Blackrook whiles his days away at university, blissfully oblivious to the horrors afflicting his homeland. He escapes into dusty books, content as a second son.
Rhosynora Ravenwood spends her sleepless nights fantasizing of ways to escape her icy, suffocating dynasty. To flee her birthright is to invite a traitor’s penance. To stay is another kind of death.
But time and fate have a way of mending all mistakes.
Evra soon finds himself the new Lord Blackrook. His inheritance is a plague-ridden land, the pyres from his late father’s campaign against magic still smoldering.
His realm’s future in the balance, he travels beyond his borders to a remote northern hamlet, where he meets Rhosyn. The spark between them is immediate; the suspicion even stronger. In Rhosyn, Evra sees her rare magic as the perfect answer to his troubles. In Evra, Rhosyn sees everything wrong with the depraved world of men.
But Evra is out of options. And Rhosyn is out of time.
As they resist the undeniable, forbidden bond growing between them, Evra’s dawning horror of Rhosyn’s fate brings him to an impossible choice.
His home, or her?
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