Every evil imaginable but hope as well: An interview with YA urban fantasy writer Nancy Richardson Fischer

Today I'm talking with Nancy Richardson Fischer about her YA urban fantasy, Pandora's Key.

Nancy has had an extensive freelance writing career in which she's written everything from sports biographies to a Star Wars Junior Jedi Knight Trilogy for LucasFilm, making Pandora's Key not her first foray into the world of YA writing.

Nancy is also giving away an eBook copy of her book. If you're interested, just leave a comment and a contact e-mail address. I'll pick a winner at random in two weeks.

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1) Tell us about your book.

Pandora's Key is a YA urban fantasy that revolves around a young girl's realization that she's the descendant of Pandora, the first woman created by the Greek Gods,and that she's both a pawn in the Gods' revenge against Pandora, and a deadly game of acquisition by men and women who will stop at nothing to acquirePandora's original box. Here's a bit more about the story:

When everything you believed about yourself is a lie, how do you unlock the truth…

Evangeline Theopolis has nightmares about the violent deaths of women she has never met. Her single mother, Olivia, suffers delusions she can’t hide. And Malledy, a brilliant young man, may have a disease that will leave him paralyzed and insane. Their lives are about to collide.

On Evangeline’s 16th birthday her mother gives her a necklace with an antique keycharm—a family heirloom, though no one knows what the key unlocks. Everything changes. Her mom is hospitalized. Her godmother attempts murder. An ancient Order tries to kill Evangeline, and a lethal sect to kidnap her.

Nothing makes sense—especially Evangeline’s own face, which has morphed from geeky to eerily stunning; the ancient key that feels strangely alive against her skin;and the magical abilities she begins to possess. Evangeline must use her wits andsupernatural powers to fight her deadly adversaries and discover her true identity. But can she accept who she really is and save the world?

2) What inspired this book?


I love Greek mythology and, in particular, the myth of Pandora. Add to that my love of fantasy, magical realism, and the young adult genre (which is insanely creative)and I knew I wanted to attempt a YA urban fantasy of my own. From there, I let my imagination take over, started to tell myself stories, until I was finally ready to start writing. I began with a screenplay version of Pandora's Key - to figure out all the elements of the story - and then set my sights on writing the novel.

3) YA Urban Fantasy is popular right now. What sets your book apart from others?

First, I'm thrilled that YA urban fantasy is so popular! In a world of reality TV, which I find pretty darn depressing, it's encouraging that both young adults and adults want to read fantasy and are willing to let their imaginations soar.

What sets Pandora's Key apart from other fantasies is that it's very much a story of magical realism - meaning that it's deeply grounded in reality with magical elements so it feels... believable. In addition, I rewrote the myth of Pandora and brought the story to the present so that the myth and characters are accessible to readers.

All that aside, Pandora's Key is a non-stop, action packed ride with empathetic, layered characters and a twisted plot that is intricate and full of big surprises BUT can be figured out by careful readers (because I hate reading books with big reveals that are impossible to figure out)!

4) Tell us about your lead.

Evangeline is... average, at least at the start of Pandora's Key. She's a pretty typical sixteen-year-old girl. She's waiting to fall in love; she's hoping she doesn't get taller or her feet bigger; she thinks her mouth is too wide and her eyes too bulbous; and she doesn't quite fit into her own skin. Plus she wishes she was as smart and pretty as her popular best friend. And then everything changes for Evangeline when she's given an antique key by her mother and her entire world falls apart.

A lot of teenagers would crumble and look to friends and adults to help them make sense of their world, and that's where Evangeline differs. She realizes that if she doesn't play the hero in her own life's story she will lose everyone she loves. So, despite that fact that she's terrified, she rises to the challenge and discovers that she's tougher and more fierce than she ever imagined.

5) The original Pandora legend has been interpreted many ways, some rather chilling: an explanation for evil, an excuse for misogyny, et cetera. Did any particular interpretation of the original myth influence you when you thought of this novel?

The myth of Pandora as an excuse for misogyny probably influenced me most. The first woman getting the rap for releasing all the evils in the world? Come on! Totally unfair, right? But I have to say, from that starting point I tried not to read too many more interpretations of the myth because I knew I was going to turn it on its headand I wanted my own interpretation of what happened when Pandora was sent down to earth with a golden box (or urn) fashioned by the Gods and housing the Furies to be original. Hopefully I gave the myth a breath of fresh air and effectively brought it to the present day and gave new fans of Greek mythology a desire to learn more about the Greek myths that have influenced so many books and movies.

6) Your book recently won an award. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Pandora's Key won the 2012 IndieReader Discovery Award for YA Fiction. I was really happy to win, of course (and it was incredibly cool that the winners were announced at this year's Book Expo of America), but also very grateful to be acknowledged. Indie authors live in a world where they must take a leap of faith that their book is indeed good enough to publish, and then wait to see if anyone out in the real world agrees. The silence can feel deafening at times - and I count so much on readers, reviewers and bloggers to keep me going - so to be acknowledged by IndieReader felt... wonderful.

7) This is a trilogy. Can you give us a bit of insight into the sequels?

Sure! Book Two, The Key to Tartarus, has already been written and edited and will be published this Fall. You can read an excerpt on my website: http://www.nancyrichardsonfischer.com (click COMING SOON).

The Key to Tartarus is much darker than Pandora's Key, which feels appropriate since the first book ended on a heavy but hopeful note. In a world where anything can happen; where there are forces bent on possessing the key and box... happily ever after isn't a given. In Book Two Evangeline is forced to discover the depth of her powers, descend into the Underworld, and rescue the people she loves from the inescapable prison that is Tartarus. Along the way, she must battle both her own personal demons and shocking obstacles that threaten her friends, her future, andher sanity.

Book Three is in the works, but Evangeline's world is constantly changing and until you know whether she survives Book Two, I don't want to provide any spoilers!!

*J.A., I just want to add a BIG thank you for hosting Pandora's Key and taking the time to interview me. And thanks to all the readers who have written to let me know how much they love Evangeline and Pandora's Key. Your support means the worldand all of you are the reason I keep telling stories:-)

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Thanks, Nancy.

If you'd like to read more from Nancy, please check her webpage out:  http://www.nancyrichardsonfischer.com.

Remember to leave a comment with an e-mail address for your chance to win a copy of Pandora's Key.

Pandora's Key is available for purchase at Amazon in electronic and physical formats.

Magical Mondays #7: Courtship's for losers, just use a spell: Ancient Greek Love Magic

Welcome to my seventh Magical Monday. In these segments, I'll be briefly discussing various magical traditions, creatures, and elements that people have been believed in (or continue to believed in) throughout history. Eventually, I may also move onto depictions that appear only in novels, but there's plenty of historical material to keep me busy for a while.

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Magic, ultimately, is about control: control of the world, control of yourself, control of the spirits, maybe even control of the gods. Think about the last bit. A ritual offering is an attempt to placate--to control. There are many reasons to seek the control: power, protection, wealth, ambition--or love.


Love is a bit hard to pin down. It means many things and has meant many things to various cultures throughout history.


To the ancient Greeks, the concept of love could be broadly divided into four basic categories. To simplify things tremendously these are agápe (deep self-sacrificing love, spiritual love), eros (more wild passion, longing, attraction), philia (the love of one's friends and also basic affection), and storge (familial love). There is a bit more nuance than that, but those are a good approximation.


So, if you're an ancient Greek wandering around and want to generate a love "spell", the first question to ask is what kind of love is it that you're attempting to invoke. The mechanism of invoking the magic are going to vary by the type, as are the gods you are going to attempt to request some aid from. The rich ancient pantheon included numerous gods, but an aspiring love mage wouldn't necessary just call out to one of the gods with a domain that involves love and/or relationships. It was often more about what the intent of the spell was: enhancement of emotion, manipulation of emotion, et cetera.


Evidence suggests the often, the type of magic that many male aspiring toward mystical love aid would invoke would be more eros-based, in other words, lust magic. This magic might be channeled through sympathetic techniques (i.e., the use of figures and effigies that represent the target). They could call upon the power of love deities  like Eros and Aphrodite or others less obvious, such as Pan (nature) and Hecate, who broadly (and simplistically) speaking is a goddess of magic. 


What's really curious is the techniques used (other than incantations, which are fairly standard) They might prick the effigy. Now, these days, this is the kind of thing we might associated with some sort of stereotypical voodoo doll (now that's a huge misnomer in a lot of ways, but we'll leave that discussion for another day). The point wasn't to harm the woman but instead create lust wounds, of a sort, to fill her with eros. 


The prospective lover might also attempt to channel the love god Eros more directly as well by creating a wax statue that would then embody the spirit of the god. Again, the idea in this scenario was to create an irresistible passion. Other techniques might include lead tablets that were inscribed with a sort of binding curse. Many of these eros-based spells were, in a sense, a type of curse.


Now, this is not to say that women would never use eros-based love "curses", but more often they were associated with philia-based magic that was designed to bring the man toward them to connect on a more basic affection level. They might also call on Aphrodite, but as opposed to the eros-based magic, they wouldn't call on someone like Hecate or Pan, but rather someone like the moon goddess, Selene.


The way the magic was focused in a different way. Though they might make use of incantations, usually they would create something that the man could be directly exposed to, such as something they could spread on his clothing or create an elixir he could consume either directly (your basic 'love' potion) in his food or drink.


For a particularly tragic take on this sort of agape/philia-based love magic, the legends concerning the death of Heracles/Hercules. He died when his wife, Deianira, concerned about him straying, gave him a chiton (a kind of tunic). The clothing was stained with the blood of a centaur Heracles had killed years earlier using poisoned hydra blood-tipped arrows. As a result, the centaur blood itself was also poisoned. The centaur, prior to his death, had convinced that his poison-soaked clothing contained a magic that would help her rekindle his love. Years later when Deianira becomes concerned about Heracles wandering, so gives him the cloak. It starts burning away his skin and, to end his suffering, he ends up building his own funeral pyre, which a friend then lights.


Though that is a legendary story, it is reflective of the idea of giving a man something to bring him back, rather than to incite controllable passion in him. I also should note that though the Heracles story is legend, there are multiple references to these kinds of spells in different sources. While we can never be sure how many men or women actually attempted this type of magic, it is referenced enough that it seems fairly clearly the magic wasn't particularly fringe.


Normally, in all my historical or magical segments, I rely on a variety of sources online and offline, including my own personal knowledge (of course that also is, in turns gathered from a variety of online and offline sources). This article, however, was almost entirely sourced from one book, so I'm going to give a direct shout out to University of Chicago classics professor Christopher Farone. He's written a number of books on ancient Greek magical thought. In particular, the material in this article was gathered from his interesting (though somewhat uninspired in regards to title) book, Ancient Greek Love Magic. If you want to explore this magic in extreme detail, along with the sociological implications for gender relations in ancient Greece, check out the book. I will note his prose style is a bit turgid at times, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Fantasy with a Greek Twist: Author Interview-Parrisha Martelly

Today, I'm talking with Parrisha Martelly, author of the YA paranormal fantasy, Fox.

1) Tell us about your book.

Every year, Pandora's Box calls out to one corrupted being on the planet and drives its victim, named the Chosen, to insanity until they open the box. If they don't open it by January 1st of the next year, they die. Fox centers around a group called The House of Lords, whose job is to protect this artifact from the Chosen who seek to open it. In the story, this year’s Chosen has captured the Leader of The House of Lords, and his daughter, Fox, goes on a journey to find him.

2) It's 2011, yet stories with links to ancient Greek mythology still resonate with readers. Why do you think this is?

I think Greek mythology holds an air of intrigue. It contains fascinating people, mythical creatures, legends, and heros. Sometimes, it’s nice to have an escape from what we deem the “norm”. Fox contains light Greek mythology that becomes more prominent as the series goes on.

3) Your story mixes both elements of different types of supernatural beings and elements. How did you go about doing your world building?

World building was particularly difficult. It’s very important to be consistent within your own world and to understand what is and isn’t possible. It took a lot of brainstorming. I had to decide on things that wouldn’t seem to be a big deal, but would have had a huge impact on how the story played out. For example, is there electricity? How would electricity impact other aspects of the world? The world itself went through a variety of changes before I was finally able to settle on the environment that I wanted to create.

4) Fantasy, by its very nature, involves the unreal. What do you think is most important in getting a reader to suspend disbelief and accept such settings?

There are a couple of things that are important in this regard. First, I think having realistic characters is key. We may not be able to understand a character’s life (I can’t even imagine protecting an object that could cause the ultimate destruction of the world!), but we can identify and empathize with emotion. I think staying consistent within the world that you have built is critical.

5) When you wrote this book were planning on a sequel?

I wrote this book over the course of four years. I wasn’t intending to write a sequel at first, but over time, I realized that it would take more than one book to tell this story. I wanted the reader to see the characters develop through different points in their lives.

6) What was your inspiration for this book?


One night, I was sitting on my bed with my new laptop and exploring different applications. I opened up Microsoft Word, intent on writing a poem, but ended up writing a scene between two men, Levictious and Smitten. Levictious had just found his old friend Smitten, who had been in hiding, and tried to coax Smitten for information on the man he was running from. This man was said to have unspeakable power and had never been seen by the eyes of man. That scene is not in the novel today, but it was the idea that sparked the rest of the story.

7) What inspired you to write? 

Reading good books probably helped spark my imagination. Writing exercises in school, particularly telling stories, was always fun to me. Both of my grandfathers were writers, so I think I inherited their passion for writing. :)

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Thanks, Parrisha.

Check Parrisha's book out at Amazon or visit her at her web site at http://www.parrishamartelly.com/.

She's on blog tour this week, so if you're interested in seeing more from her, please check out her schedule at http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/631404.