Author Interview: Big Demon Energy by Deborah Wilde
- Fiction Fans
- Feb 14, 2024
- 29 min read
Episode 127
Release Date: February 14, 2024
Your hosts speak with author Deborah Wilde about her newest urban fantasy novel, Big Demon Energy. The conversation ranged from Jewish culture to vampire mythology to three dimensional hunky love interests (with some detours into knitting, fantastical places on our earth, and complex mother figures).
Find more from Deborah here:
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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris” - Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is AI generated, please excuse the mess.
Lilly: 0:04
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.
Sara: 0:09
I'm Sarah, and I'm so pleased that today we're joined by author Deborah Wilde to talk about her novel Big Demon Energy.
Deborah: 0:17
Thank you so much for having me.
Lilly: 0:18
We will see how long I managed to not jump into talking about this book. But before we get there, what's something great that happened recently?
Deborah: 0:26
Oh well, so I love trip planning and I've been invited to go as one of the authors signing in Edinburgh at Rare in September, and I just booked my flights, and that means I get to go into hardcore trip planning.
Sara: 0:41
Oh, that's fantastic.
Deborah: 0:43
I'm so excited.
Lilly: 0:45
That sounds like so much fun.
Sara: 0:46
That really does.
Deborah: 0:48
Yeah, I'm very excited.
Lilly: 0:49
Sarah, how about you? Anything as exciting as that?
Sara: 0:52
Not as exciting as a trip to Edinburgh, but I'm very pleased with it. Regardless. I discovered, well, when I say discovered, I watched a YouTube video on a way different way to hurl, and it does not hurt my carpal tunnel as much, so I'm happy.
Deborah: 1:10
awesome.
Lilly: 1:11
That is very good.
Sara: 1:12
Yeah,
Lilly: 1:13
Should we put the link in the description for
Sara: 1:15
we can. It's a, it's a very long video and talks a lot about things that are not relevant to this new pearling method, but.
Lilly: 1:25
I am just happy that there's sunshine out today. I'm gonna be honest, I live in Seattle and so every sunny day is a good day.
Deborah: 1:33
Oh, hang on. I'm in Vancouver and it's gray. Oh dear.
Lilly: 1:37
Oh, no, I'm sorry.
Deborah: 1:40
I love Seattle. I always go visit the Fremont Troll when I come down.
Lilly: 1:44
Yes, he's delightful.
Deborah: 1:46
He really is.
Lilly: 1:48
It was so much fun. I actually went to Vancouver for the first time in September and we stayed near Stanley Park. So when we got to that part of the book, I was like, I dunno where that is.
Deborah: 1:57
That's awesome.
Lilly: 1:59
Anyway, see, I couldn't help myself. We're already talking about the book. We have two more questions. First, what's everyone drinking for this lovely recording?
Deborah: 2:07
I'm water. Just water.
Lilly: 2:09
Very healthy. That's wonderful. I'm drinking a spin on Earl Gray. It's called Dorian Gray. And I thought it was appropriately fancy. The characters do go to England and drink some tea, so I thought black tea would be a good fit for this.
Sara: 2:24
I am drinking a green tea that I bought in Japantown a couple of months ago because it is grey and rainy and it felt like a green tea kind of day.
Deborah: 2:34
Fair Green tea is lovely.
Sara: 2:36
Mm-hmm.
Lilly: 2:37
We're very firmly West Coast on this recording because there's uh, San Francisco Bay Area, and I'm just gonna brag again about that. I got all the sunshine.
Deborah: 2:45
Yes, seriously.
Sara: 2:47
But I mean, California needs the rain, so I'm not complaining.
Lilly: 2:51
No, of course.
Deborah: 2:52
And it's not actually raining in Vancouver, so it's just gray. So you know it's all okay.
Lilly: 2:57
Alright, I'll stop rubbing it in. So this is actually a book podcast, not a knitting podcast or a tea podcast. Surprise
Sara: 3:05
you wait.
Deborah: 3:06
There's knitting in my book.
Lilly: 3:08
there is.
Sara: 3:09
There is, and I loved it, and we do have a question about that later on.
Deborah: 3:13
Okay.
Lilly: 3:14
So other than Big Demon Energy, has anyone read anything good lately?
Deborah: 3:19
I just finished Iron Flame, the sequel to Fourth Wing.
Sara: 3:23
Oh yeah. How did you like it?
Deborah: 3:25
Oh my God. I loved it. And I'm not a Dragon story person generally, but I devoured fourth Wing and then I was very excited. My only thing was, at first I was scrambling to remember what had happened.'cause it'd been a few months, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. That author just knows how to keep me turning the pages as quickly as possible.
Sara: 3:44
Yeah, they're definitely fun books. I've been reading the first, I'm still reading the first Crescent City book by Sarah J. Moss. My goal was to read books one and two before the third one came out because I have some friends who are like super into Sarah j Maas and they're all reading book three right now, and I wanted to be able to click on their spoiler tags and discord and see what they were talking about, but I didn't. I didn't get there. So I'm still still working on book one.
Lilly: 4:11
I've been reading Big Demon Energy by Debora Wild. Yes. Oh man. This is like the exact kind of book that I love. There's like a lot of action and adventure, but also really sexy love interests. So I was, I could not put it down. Luckily I had the ebook, which meant it was never far away from me'cause it was on my phone. But I was like in between meetings at work, like, what's happening next?
Deborah: 4:33
Oh, thank you so much. That just totally made my entire weekend.
Sara: 4:38
So I know what genre I would consider this, but genre definitions do vary quite broadly from reader to reader and from person to person. What would you consider big Demon energy? I.
Deborah: 4:49
Urban fantasy. I'd say all my books are urban fantasy. Now that said, they have very heavy sub-thoughts of romance. But it's funny'cause I've, I've been talking with a lot of authors about this. I wouldn't say they're romantic because I don't think they have that sort of epic fantasy kingdom kind of aspect to it that I think romantic has to it. And I don't think they're PNR because you could pull out the romance and you would still have a fully formed urban fantasy. Fought for each book and across the entire series.
Sara: 5:18
what does PNR stand for?
Deborah: 5:20
paranormal romance.
Lilly: 5:21
Hmm. Yeah, I would agree with you. Then it felt almost like the romance was like icing on the cake in this book. Now I also eat all of the icing off of a cake, which I think tells you a lot about.
Deborah: 5:33
Me too. Which probably says how and why I am writing it like this. I do love my icing.
Lilly: 5:41
And, okay, so this is kind of a silly thing to say. Bear with me because it's very obvious, but it was so nice to finally read a vampire book that didn't just bring Christianity into it.
Deborah: 5:51
Thank you. You know it's funny, I actually stayed away from vampires for my first couple of series because I didn't think I had anything to add to the conversation and it really, it took me a while to figure out how I would want to play with them and introduce them into a world of my creating that made it relevant to me.
Lilly: 6:11
This book has so much Jewish culture in it, but was very welcoming to a reader like myself who doesn't have like a lot of background knowledge. So it's still like, and there were a couple of points in this book where I highlighted something and was like, oh, I have to look that up later. And then I didn't because within like five pages you told me what was going on. I appreciated it a lot.
Deborah: 6:31
Thank you. It's, I've worked very hard on finding the balance between, because I know I am, for many readers who are new to me, I'm going to be introducing them to mythologies that they're not familiar with. So I have spent a lot of time really trying to craft the balance of info dumping. And you know, being interesting and just being able to parse it out as needed and to know the points where I better flag this now because it's gonna start to become confusing, if that makes sense.
Lilly: 7:03
Yeah.
Sara: 7:04
and I think you did a really excellent job and you made some points about vampires and how they're based on Jewish stereotypes that I hadn't thought of before. So it was really, really well done.
Deborah: 7:16
Thank you. Thank you. I have a lot of fun with research. I do love my research.
Lilly: 7:20
I had no idea that blood wasn't kosher for some reason. That's never come up when I've been meal planning or picking a restaurant with friends.
Deborah: 7:27
Right. I mean, it's not a thing on Yelp.
Lilly: 7:30
Yeah.
Deborah: 7:31
Yeah. The blood libel is a big thing and has been historically used for propaganda against the Jews, and so it was very interesting to feed that back into the vampire mythology.
Sara: 7:41
So you write a lot of urban fantasy. I believe this is your fifth series. Can you talk a little bit about how you keep your different series feeling different and fresh?
Deborah: 7:51
So they all predominantly are set in Vancouver, but they're all very different versions of Vancouver in that some have hidden aspects to my city, or the magic system is very different in every single series I write. Some have demons or some have vampires, or some have shifters. One of them. Plus it's spin-off. So my Jezebel files, it's only humans that have magic. There's no supernatural creatures at all. So I always try to do something a little different every time I start a new series, mostly just to keep myself interested and then, you know, hopefully that spins out to the reader. But, you know, I don't wanna be bored. I don't, I don't wanna feel like I'm just retreading the same ground for myself.
Lilly: 8:30
And then you throw vampires into the mix and that opens a whole new
Deborah: 8:34
And then I throw vampires into the mix. Yeah.
Lilly: 8:36
The world in, in this book in particular felt very familiar. I mean, it does have magical elements, but there wasn't a ton of like high-tech or high-magic gadgets flying around. I mean, there was the vampire sort of bubble universe that felt very different, but that was a whole different universe. So that made sense. But otherwise, like I could definitely like see Aviva interacting with this world and I was like, yeah, I live there. That could be where our universe, it was very interesting.
Deborah: 9:03
Thank you. Yes. I don't tend to do a lot of super magical gadgets. I tend to mostly stick with. Some basic weapons that just don't tend to include guns and things, just'cause I don't know how to use them and I know I'll just get all the details wrong. So, you know, basic things, but just mostly inherent magic.'cause for me, I just like writing that. Although I will say with Aviva, her inherent magic is not offensive. It's, it's more defensive, which she manipulates and she does kind of, you know, she can. Use it to push people to an edge, but it's not like where I've had other people who can, you know, manifest their blood into a physical object or shoot lightning or something like that. Yeah.
Lilly: 9:47
I loved the magic system. In this book, there were, was it five different flames? Right. I.
Deborah: 9:51
Yes. Yeah, so it's all based on the Hanukkah flame. So Aviva is a Maccabee, which is what I call the modern Magical Police organization. That's a global organization, and they're named Maccabees because they take their name after the heroes of the Hanukkah story, but also because they're magic. Actually came from that miraculous Hanukkah flame that burned for eight days and eight nights. So each different subset of magic within this flame-based magic system is based on a property of fire.
Sara: 10:25
I loved the flame system and talking about it, I was wondering if you had a flame, what color would it be and why?
Deborah: 10:34
Oh my goodness. Well, I think it would, you'd probably want me to stay away from the red flame, which is the flame that you can just physically touch and it'll burn things up.'cause I have a feeling my quick temper would just. Cause a lot of damage and that would be bad. I think white flame, the ability to sort of power emotion could be very interesting to have to play with to make things white hot. So whether that's desire or jealousy or, I think that could be very interesting, especially as a writer, if I could somehow channel that into the books
Lilly: 11:09
I was gonna say, yeah, you kind of have that power already.
Deborah: 11:12
in my head. Thank you.
Lilly: 11:14
Playing with our emotions as readers, I would definitely go yellow Flame, which was the purification cleansing power, because then I'd never have acne again.
Deborah: 11:25
Oh yeah. See that would be a good one.
Lilly: 11:27
Yeah.
Sara: 11:28
I would definitely, I think, want the red flame because at one point in the book, Satya uses it to heat up her burrito.
Deborah: 11:38
Oh, that's the orange flame.
Sara: 11:39
Orange flame. Yes. Orange flame.
Deborah: 11:42
Pulling heat in or out of things.
Sara: 11:44
And yeah, that's what I would want because, you know, I drink so much tea. It would be nice to be able to heat it to the right temperature all the time without having to go put it in the microwave or whatever. So,
Lilly: 11:55
Or wait for it to cool down if it's too hot. Yeah.
Sara: 11:58
well, I never wait for it to cool down. I just, I just drink it hot. But yeah, it, that would, that would be a useful skill and I appreciated Satya using it in that way.'cause I was like, that's relatable.
Lilly: 12:10
Very practical. Yeah.
Deborah: 12:12
I always like reading about people who include their magic in very ordinary ways, like authors who do that. So, you know, I was thinking about, okay, how can I do that? And for Satie it was like, yeah, she's totally just gonna be sitting there and heat up her burrito'cause she doesn't wanna move, you know?
Lilly: 12:28
So at the beginning of this book, I was in the middle of trying to formulate a comment or question about how it reminded me of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and then Aviva made her first direct reference and I was like, oh, you said it so I don't have to.
Deborah: 12:42
May or may not have had a very profound influence on my life.
Lilly: 12:46
Oh, the…. Oh no. Is it a spoiler? Nevermind. I won't talk about it. One of the references I was gonna mention, I won't, I won't say anything. We'll talk about
Deborah: 12:55
Oh, okay. I think, you know, from a storytelling perspective, like as much as I love every character on Buffy and she's kick ass, and you know, it's, I love the found family and the friendships and everything, you know, when I've examined. What was done sort of thematically on a storytelling level, like the way that in the story room, they would say, okay, what is a problem that people face as teenagers? And then how do we craft the monster to represent that? You know, like, I just think that was such, there's so much to still to just learn and parse out from that series. Aside from it being incredibly entertaining.
Lilly: 13:34
Absolutely, and, and there were some elements of that in this book as well. You sort of used fantasy elements like vampires and shedim, is that how to pronounce that word? Shadim.
Deborah: 13:46
I say Shadim, but you know, my Hebrew is horrible. So please, anybody who's actually speaks Hebrew, please forgive me.
Lilly: 13:53
Which is the, uh, the demons in this book are called Shadim, are used to explore real issues, real-world issues like racism and bigotry, which I thought was a very nice like metaphor.
Deborah: 14:03
I think for me, that comes from my love of Sci-Fi. And you know, I was raised on Star Trek and I read a lot of Sci-Fi. Just being able to use these quote-unquote alien races to explore real-world. I. Issues and prejudices and you know, problems. So yeah, for me that anything that becomes supernatural is fair game to explore things we're really dealing with in the here and now.
Sara: 14:29
So this is a little bit of. The change from that
Lilly: 14:34
On a lighter note.
Sara: 14:35
yeah. Kind of more serious topic, but you did mention that there's a character in this book who knits Ezra Knits, and that was one of my favorite aspects of him. What is his favorite thing to knit?
Deborah: 14:48
I think he stress knits a lot of socks. I. But like with lots of different colours and where the heels are different, coloured and the, to, you know, they match the toes. Like, I think he, he stress knits really short. Well, for him. I don't actually know how long it takes. I'm a terrible knitter. I have so much respect for people who can knit. But I think he stress knits very short things. But then if he's. Stress for a long time. Like the projects grow bigger, you know, and it'll be like, okay, now he's into, you know, maybe a blanket and then a, a complicated sweater. And then, you know, I'm not sure what his biggest project is, like if he's got like a knit, I know he did knit himself in book two. I mean, this isn't a spoiler, it's just there's a robe he's wearing and it's a knit robe. So he probably knit himself like, it's like a boxer's wrap with an oversight. So, so he was probably really stressed out for a while when he did that one.
Sara: 15:40
I love that.
Lilly: 15:41
That's like a wonderful measurement of like there, there's even a stylus. His sort of, maybe not best friend, but his companion in this book.
Deborah: 15:49
It is his
Lilly: 15:50
It is okay.
Deborah: 15:51
Yeah, yeah,
Lilly: 15:51
It mentions like, oh, is this a, is this a sock kind of stress or is this a that kind? And I was just like, that's wonderful. What a great gauge of your friend's, like emotional state.
Deborah: 16:01
Yeah, and it's, it's excellent too for him. I don't think this is a spoiler because it's, I, I think it's in the synopsis for the, like the book blurb that Ezra is a prime. He's one of the very, very, very rare born vampires. So, you know, here's this absolute pinnacle of predatory lethal vampire and you know, his go-to de-stressor is knitting. It just made me very happy to think about him doing that.
Lilly: 16:27
It makes him such a more interesting and dynamic character. I mean, obviously he's a hunky vampire, very important, but he's not just like a a two-dimensional like masculinity, cardboard cutout.
Deborah: 16:39
Yeah. And I mean, you know, sexy for me, you know, sexy is, is a person funny? You know, what interests do they have? You know, I think that that's true for all of us. You know, it's like, yeah, okay, the six pack AB or the whatever, that's fine. And you know, we enjoy those in our fictional heroes, but. We want them to feel like a rounded out person that we're going to be attracted to, not just like a photograph.'cause again, he has to sustain as the romantic lead he has to sustain. Our interest over this series is gonna be six books, so
Lilly: 17:11
Well, I think we're about to get to our spoiler conversation.
Deborah: 17:14
Oh, okay.
Lilly: 17:15
But before we do, I actually have a question for Sarah. Sarah, who should read this book.
Sara: 17:19
You should read this book if you want, mystery, adventure, sexy vampires who knit and who doesn't want all of that.
Lilly: 17:26
Yeah.
Sara: 17:26
So you should read this book.
Lilly: 17:31
The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.
Sara: 17:40
Okay, so what was your Buffy spoiler comment.
Lilly: 17:43
Oh. The Angel becoming Angelus when Buffy sleeps with him for the first time. I guess that's not really a spoiler. We knew that Ezra was her ex, but at the point in the book where we get that reference, enough has been built up about their relationship and like that was such a nice sort of like, not-slow-reveal-but-slow-build of finding out about their history that I didn't wanna just jump to. Also, he flipped on her like a switch. Guess what everyone?
Deborah: 18:12
Yeah. No, that's fair. I would say that's a bit of a spoiler. Yes.'cause he does. So this is the spoiler talk. So the spoiler is, Aviva has carried this secret that she is half-demon, half-Shadim her entire life. Only her mother knows, and her mother, who is also her boss. As a Maccabee, she's the chapter director for Vancouver, has trained Aviva her entire life to keep this hidden on pain of death kind of thing. And so she has, she's kept it hidden from everyone, including her lifetime best friend. But there was one person she chose to tell and that was Ezra. And he seemed very lovely about it. The night it happened and the next morning it was, you know, scorched earth we're done. No explanation.
Sara: 18:52
I have so many questions about how that relationship ended because obviously in this book we get it from Aviva's perspective and she was very understandably, quite hurt. But we get hints that from Ezra that, you know, there's, there's more to the story than that. So I'm looking forward to learning more in books two through six.
Deborah: 19:12
Yeah, there's, there is more that comes out in book two and I'm very excited about book two. It's gonna have its early release. February 26th on my bookstore and then it goes wide on the 18th of March. But it really like, kind of blew everything up to a whole new level. And then in book three is where I've just started writing book three, and that's where Aviva starts to put together a lot more pieces about what happened.
Lilly: 19:37
I feel like we've gotten some breadcrumbs already. There were a couple of lines from Ezra and from Silas where I was like, Hmm, that's gonna come back later.
Deborah: 19:46
Yeah, some of them are deliberate, and then some of them I wrote them and I went, oh crap. I guess I need to figure out how that's.
Lilly: 19:55
Well, sort of playing off of that, were there any sort of scenes or moments in this book that surprised you as you wrote them?
Deborah: 20:01
I'm going to say yes, there probably were, but I tend to delete the books after I've written them and I move on to the next one. And now that I'm in book three, I'm like, I don't remember. If there are, I'm sure there would've been, because there's always a point at which a character. The book will surprise me. I don't think there was anything like super extreme when I was writing Big Demon Energy. Like I know I've had books where they did something and I was so angry. I literally just killed off like a main character just for a few days because I was so angry at them. And then I went back and fixed it. So they didn't, nobody did anything that bad that that angered their God that it that much.
Sara: 20:42
How different, so you might not necessarily remember this, if, as you say you, you kind of delete the book and move on.
Lilly: 20:49
Like you took the test and were like, wipe it from my memory.
Deborah: 20:52
yeah,
Sara: 20:53
but how different is the final product from the first draft? Like, did the mystery change at all as you wrote it? Did. Did your plan for the series change at all as you wrote it?
Deborah: 21:03
No. So one thing I'll say, I come from a screenwriting background. So I was a screenwriter for 12 years, so what that gave me was an amazing foundation in structure. My plots don't tend to change a lot. What will happen between, you know, my first and second. So I'll do two very major drop. So there's the first drop and then a major rewrite on it, and I will really dig into theme. And what I'm exploring with theme, so that wouldn't have been there in the first draft. And then sort of my line edits are more for where the comedic or sexy times or sexual tension moments that I can dig into.
Lilly: 21:44
We've talked about this a little bit, but Ezra, the main love interest is an ex of Aviva. So how did that choice of giving them a history. Affect the romance in this novel.
Deborah: 21:56
So with every series, I have picked a romance trope that I want to write, and I do tend to love my enemies to lovers just because I, I love the antagonism, but I thought it would be really, you know, I was thinking a lot about. Aviva, you know, she's 30. She's got some very definite career goals for herself. You know, she's quite mature and I thought it'd be very interesting to pull a second chance romance into this, into her life, so that it's not a fresh, you know, oh, I just met this dude and he's driving me crazy and I wanna kill him. It's like, this is the person who wounded her, you know, more than anybody who made her feel more raw. Who she had to pick herself up off the floor, and I thought for Aviva in particular, this would be the right way. To go is to bring her past back, to hit her in the face, especially when everything she's trying to do is to prove herself as a Maccabee so that when she does come out to the world as half demon in a world that just views all demons as unequivocally evil and says there's no way that anybody who has any demonic blood could be good because they're evil trumps any humanity. You know, she's doing all of this so she can come out so she can still, you know. Earn people's respect and make it so other people like her won't ever have to experience what she experienced. So to have the fact that it's this one person who she chose to share this secret with who's upending her life now made it almost the only choice for me in terms of the romance with Aviva. Yeah.
Lilly: 23:29
I really loved the, I would say probably the main character arc of this book, to me anyway, was Aviva sort of accepting her demon half and sort of feeling better about herself. There, there was a line at the end. I highlighted it.
Deborah: 23:44
Excellent.
Lilly: 23:45
I didn't simply like and tolerate my Shadim side. I relished. It was one of her comments near the end and that just made me feel very happy for her'cause it's something that she struggles with through the whole book and clearly, you know, her whole life. Just to have her sort of be more at peace with her herself and her identity, um, felt very triumphant. Even though this book has leaves a lot left for us waiting for book two.
Deborah: 24:08
Yeah, I wanted, so in my, the very first series I wrote, which was the Unlikable Demon Hunter books. The best friend is half Goblin, half Demon, and she's at a, she's younger. She's like. 2021 when it starts. So she's in a very different place with her acceptance. And then I did write a single Spin-off book where she comes to terms with that side of her. And I kind of felt like, well, okay, again, Aviva is 30, she's at a very different place in her life that there would be an acceptance. But that there's a difference between, you know, I accept this side of me, but I need to keep it tightly leashed and there's gonna be benefits. To, you know, that there's something that, there's a positive quality to her Shadeen, who she has called Cherry Bomb, the Brimstone Baroness. So, yeah, so that she has accepted Cherry and you know, and sort of made as much peace as she can with her at the beginning, but to actually acknowledge that, you know, yeah, there's actually some good qualities, and I do love this side of me with sort of the smaller journey she needed to take in this book.
Sara: 25:13
I think for me, one of the things that I liked about that arc was at the beginning, I mean even, even though she acknowledges that. Cherry bomb is her, and there's not actually a separation. It still feels like they're very separate and then that changes over the course of the novel. So I, I really appreciated that, showing that, that she is acknowledging that side of her more.
Deborah: 25:38
Thank you. Yeah. And for me, so to speak to that, it was important that she actually have a moment where. She literally is unable to feel a separation. So when she goes into Babel, which is the Vampire megacity, it's like suddenly she is like, there's no difference. She is snapped into that physical form. You know, their thinking is it's just one and the same. And so I think that was a very important experience for her that she'd never had on earth or in our reality.
Lilly: 26:06
One of the very interesting tensions of this book is Sachi her best friend and how she is so entirely on Aviva's side. I love her giving Aviva shit for clearly falling back in love with Ezra over time. That was very good, best friend moment. But still that struggle with Sachi is very anti-demon. And so that sort of tension between, I trust her with my life, but I don't trust her with this half of me. It makes it like a very complex feeling.
Deborah: 26:37
And this continues, it does start to come to a bit more of a pointed edge in book three. But you know, for me, Sachi is somebody. So you know, there are the human Maccabees who are all people with magic. And then there are the Maccabees who are vampires and there's not very many of them. Lots of them had been operatives who ended up being turned. But those people go into sort of a subsection called the Spook Squad, and they're the ones who deal with other rogue vamps and demons. And Sachi has wanted to be part of this. She's, she has a bloodthirsty edge and she's really wanted to go out and like fight demons and vamps. And for me, what's interesting is. I think is watching her struggle with this desire to do good in the world and rid the world of evil. But then it, it's easy when it's a bad vamp actor or it's a demon, you know? And I, I don't think she's ever had to consider, I. You know Infernals, the half demon humans before because they're so rare and they stay hidden, so she's never come up against that before. So this book is really the first place where her moral code and what justice and what doing good and keeping humanity safe means starts to get tested.
Sara: 27:51
I feel like it's also hard because at a certain point in their investigation where Aviva is like, no, all of the people who are being killed, who we have previously determined were. Being killed because they were so good. Like they're actually all half demons. And then she kind of, well, she doesn't walk it back, but she, she can't necessarily confirm her claim without outing herself. And so I feel like Sachi doesn't have to confront that disconnect between what she believes about Infernals versus what they have been seeing through the course of their investigation.
Deborah: 28:28
And I think had there been a moment when that all comes out that Sachi had said, you know what, oh my goodness, this completely changes my viewpoint on Infernals. And you know, oh, obviously they can be good people, but she qualifies it in the moment. You know, she says, well, okay, these ones were good, but. Like what are
Lilly: 28:46
One of the good
Deborah: 28:47
there? Yeah, exactly. It's like, okay, we had like, you know, three good ones. Oh, well, you know, so I think to Viva is just a doubling down on, yeah, I am right not to tell Sachi because this will go terrible for me if I do.
Lilly: 29:01
And I'm very interested to see in further books more from Michael Aviva's mother.'cause I really can't tell what her deal is at this point.
Deborah: 29:12
My editor keeps giving me that note, even in book two. She's like, I don't know. And she goes, I love this. I have no idea. Yeah. It um, trust me, you will, that whole, what is Michael up to really starts to come out as well in book two. Yeah. It, it, it's there. I promise you will get more of that.
Lilly: 29:27
in in particular because when Aviva brings up that all of these very good people were half-demon, her mother is just handwaves it away entirely. It's just like, eh, it doesn't matter. And I was like, oh, stab me in the gut. Harsh.
Deborah: 29:43
You know, and I think too, again, there is a balancing act for Michael. You know, on the one hand she is a director of a Maccabee chapter, and it is her job to make sure people are safe. And common thinking is that most infernals are not good. And even with her own daughter, she has tried to keep that part of Aviva suppressed and controlled, and here's the training to control her. And here's how you. You manage that. You know, she's never accepted it as a part of Aviva. And I think the flip side of that is, you know, here's a woman who had a one night stand, and then suddenly, you know, most infernals are not carried to term. And so she suddenly finds out that the person that you know, she. A got knocked up by, but B, he was a demon, you know? And so her sense of betrayal and how much has Aviva been living kind of with the trauma of Michael's own sense of betrayal from that whole event.
Sara: 30:40
It is funny because in the very beginning of the story, I definitely felt like Aviva's first-person perspective meant that we were. Seeing Michael in an unnecessarily negative light, like there was a lot going on there that Aviva just couldn't recognize because she was coming to terms with herself and, and with the way that she'd been raised, where Michael was actually doing her best. But as the story progressed, I became less and less sure of that. And I like, yeah, I, I have a lot of questions about Michael too.
Deborah: 31:13
I think there's an aspect of Michael's definitely covering her own butt too.
Sara: 31:17
Yeah.
Deborah: 31:17
again, she doesn't wanna buck the system and buck the conventional wisdom and risk everything. She's done for herself. And there's also, you know, even if she is doing certain things for the right reasons, I mean, she's doing them out of fear. She's not saying, okay, we're gonna find the courage to bring you all of you, or bring your whole half-shadim side into the light and find the resources and support and the way to change thinking. Even her maternal protective instincts, which she definitely has are, this is how I keep you safe. We hide it, and if it helps me in the process, that's not a bad thing either.
Lilly: 31:55
It definitely feels like she wants to work within the system, whereas Aviva wants to change the system.
Deborah: 32:01
Yeah, Michael doesn't wanna change the system. Michael rooted out corruption in the system, but it was still, you know, it was still sort of through, I'm gonna say official means like it wasn't something that was so outside the box thinking like Infernals are good or could be good. You know, it was still root out the corruption from within, probably through official means and investigations and all of that.
Lilly: 32:22
We need to do things more by the book,
Deborah: 32:24
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Lilly: 32:27
One of the things I really loved, there's a very complex relationship between Aviva and Ezra, of course, given their history. But it felt like one of the things they really not necessarily bonded over but had in common and made me feel as a reader, like I can totally see these two people having a partnership is how upset they get when people accuse them of just like riding their parents' coattails. There's a few times in this book where, where someone says like, oh, it's, you know, you're only here because of nepotism. And they both bristle so much at that. If it was like, yeah, I could totally see them having that in common and, and having a, a deeper relationship and not just being very attracted to each other, I.
Deborah: 33:08
I find in dealing with writing a Second Chance Romance, those commonalities. Especially in where it pertains to self-perception and how they move through the world become even more important to me than if they had just met on this case for the first time. You know, because there has to be something that the reader is recognizing as so genuine in their connection that it can overcome all the hurt feelings of the past six years.
Lilly: 33:38
Absolutely. Yeah. They can't just both be really hot. Right. They have
Deborah: 33:42
Yeah. Or you know, oh, we both like this kind of music. It's like, no, there has to be some very, very, it can be superficial. There has to be, you know, some really fundamental truths about the two of them that connect them, that readers can go, oh, okay, I get this. Yeah. And I'll root for this because it feels real.
Lilly: 33:59
One thing that we only get hints of that I'm very excited, that I feel like is coming are some of the side romances.
Deborah: 34:08
I do love my side romances.
Lilly: 34:11
We were just barely teased in this book. Now you don't have to spoil anything, but can you tell us maybe what we have to look forward to later in the series?
Deborah: 34:20
Oh, I will say that Silas and Darsh are going to take you on a wild ride.
Lilly: 34:28
was hoping you'd say that.
Deborah: 34:29
Yeah, there's, um, so in book two, when you read book two, you may think, oh, there's not as much side romance, but there is a character. We don't see Silas in book two, so that's why he comes back in book three. But there's a character who's introduced in Book two, who Aviva has some history with, but has decided would be perfect for Sachi. So I had to sort of layer. That in. So things will kick up. Romance-wise, for the side romances in book three, I had to layer some stuff in in book two. But yeah, Doris and Silas, I have, I have big plans for them.
Lilly: 35:05
Amazing. I cannot wait.
Sara: 35:08
very excited.
Lilly: 35:09
How fast now, how fast were you planning on writing the rest of the series? Can I, when, when can I expect these?
Deborah: 35:16
So, uh, book three will be out this year for sure. I'm hoping book four will be out this year and then wrapping it up next year, five and 6,
Sara: 35:26
two books a year. That's quite impressive. Three books
Deborah: 35:28
books a year.
Sara: 35:29
That's quite impressive.
Deborah: 35:31
Thank you. Thank you. I actually write slow compared to all my other indie author friends. I'm a very slow writer, but it is the process that works for me. So I'm like, I am just. That's good. That's, that's where I'm gonna stay. It keeps me from getting, I, I ca I had a bad burnout in the past year and it's like, okay, I just need to be really mindful of making sure I am. Seeing friends and leaving my living room. Otherwise it's just, there's nothing there to draw from. So yeah, the three books, I'm like, that's a very good schedule. I pace it out Well, it works for my editor, which is important to me.'cause we've worked together on, this is our 21st book now, so I value that collaboration so highly. Yeah, so it's like all those factors. But yes, three books. That's my long winded way of saying three books.
Lilly: 36:17
Well, I'm excited.
Deborah: 36:19
Thank you.
Lilly: 36:20
I think that's about all the questions we had. As we wrap up, is there something that you would like readers to take away from this book?
Deborah: 36:28
I think I want readers to. Be able. So here's the thing, when I was a kid, you know, I was a reader girl. Like I'm sure many people listening to this podcast and, but as a Jewish kid, I never saw myself in the pages of any books unless it was Holocaust stories essentially. And those are very important stories. But I was drawn to fantasy and I was like, where is the Jewish kid going through that wardrobe? Or, you know, it just, she didn't exist. So I think. If, if people read my books and come away, even though it might be a different magic system or world building or mythology than they're used to, but they come away feeling like they recognize themselves in it. That means everything to me.
Lilly: 37:14
Fantastic. Thank you so much.
Deborah: 37:16
you. This was a blast.
Lilly: 37:18
Oh, I'm so glad. I loved reading this book and love talking to you about it.
Deborah: 37:22
Thank you very much.
Sara: 37:23
Yeah, this, this has been just a wonderful, wonderful time.
Deborah: 37:27
I had a really good time and I really appreciate you guys inviting me on.
Sara: 37:30
Before we let you go, you've talked a little bit about current projects. You said that book two is being released on your website later this month and going wide in March. But where can you be found on the internet so people can, who are listening, can keep track of your release dates and buy your books and support you?
Deborah: 37:48
So the two best places are if you go to DeBoraWildBooks.com that has all my books in all the formats, and that's where you'll get the early releases and you know, you can sign up and you'll be notified of sales or promo codes or, you know, I try to do. There's also content, uh, like there's bundles that are cheaper and they're only available there as opposed to the other retailers. So that's a really good place for all mice. My books if you wanna hang out with me. I have a Facebook group called DeBora's Wild Ones, and it is the best group of people. I don't know that I would've survived the pandemic without that bunch. They are snarky and pop culture loving and utterly fabulous. So if that's you, please come find us. Otherwise, I have a Facebook author page, just DeBora Wild on Facebook. Debora Wild on Facebook.
Lilly: 38:33
Thank you again so much. This has been a blast and I can't wait for book two.
Deborah: 38:38
Thank you very
Sara: 38:39
I actually had not realized the book two wasn't out yet, and now I'm really sad because I really wanna read it,
Deborah: 38:45
Yes.
Sara: 38:51
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Lilly: 38:54
Come disagree with us. We are on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod. At Gmail.com.
Sara: 39:06
If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
Lilly: 39:14
We also have a Patreon where you can support us. And find our show notes and a lot of other nonsense.
Sara: 39:21
Thanks again for listening and Mayor Villains always be defeated.
Lilly: 39:25
Bye.
