Author Interview: The Bone Roots by Gabriela Houston
- Fiction Fans
- Feb 28, 2024
- 37 min read
Updated: Jun 25
Episode 129
Release Date: February 28, 2024
Your hosts are joined by Gabriela Houston to talk about her novel The Bone Roots. They discuss beauty bias in fantasy, older female protagonists, and portrayals of healthy relationships. They also talk about Polish mythology, and the lengths people will go to to protect the people they love.
More from Gabriela:
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- 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
And I'm Sarah, and I'm so thrilled that we are welcoming back Gabriella Huston onto the podcast to talk about her latest novel, The Bone Roots.
Gabriela: 0:17
Thank you so much for inviting me on.
Sara: 0:19
It's always wonderful to have you on.
Lilly: 0:21
Well, I've had to interrupt one conversation about this book already, so let's see if we can speed through the intro questions. Starting with, of course, what's something great that happened recently?
Gabriela: 0:32
So I started recently doing, uh, I launched my own show on YouTube, the Gabriella Houston Project, where I talk to different people about storytelling and how they use it in their jobs. And I got to interview Chantal Lyons, who is a conservationist and she's a specialist in wild boar and wrote the brilliant book, The Groundbreaker, is about the reintroduction of the wild boar into England after almost like a millennia of absence. And I love wild boar. Wild boar features heavily in The Bone Roots as well. And I think that it just has such a, and it's an animal that has a particular significance to me from growing up. My grandfather who was a hunter. So it was just so exciting to talk to an actual expert who appreciates the beauty and the sort of fairy tale like aspect of those animals.
Sara: 1:26
That sounds fantastic.
Lilly: 1:27
Yeah. I love nonfiction, I don't read it often enough.
Sara: 1:31
My good thing is I went to Gallifrey 1 the other weekend, that's the annual Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles. And it was lots of fun, as always. I was particularly thrilled because they had three of the surviving cast members of Blake 7 there. And Blake 7 is
Lilly: 1:48
Not Doctor Who.
Sara: 1:50
It's not Doctor Who. There's a lot of crossover, but I think all of those actors have been in Doctor Who, too, but it's around the same time period, under budgeted British sci fi, written by Terry Nation, who was the creator of the Daleks. So lots of crossover. It was really lovely hearing them talk. The con as a whole was great.
Gabriela: 2:09
Where was Vecon held?
Sara: 2:10
It's held at the LAX Airport Marriott in Los Angeles. Not a, I mean, I have a great fondness for that hotel just because I've been going there for galley for many years, but it's not a particularly interesting location otherwise.
Gabriela: 2:26
It's incredible that like this very quirky British show has such a foothold in the states to the point of having its own sort of convention and, uh,
Sara: 2:36
It has multiple conventions and Gallifrey One is actually older than I am.
Gabriela: 2:40
which means not very old.
Lilly: 2:42
Yeah.
Gabriela: 2:43
not very old at all.
Sara: 2:46
think this was the 35th year or something.
Gabriela: 2:50
Yeah, so not very old at all. Younger than me.
Lilly: 2:52
Yeah.
Sara: 2:54
But yeah, it's been going on for a while.
Lilly: 2:56
Dude, was there a highlight? Oh, I guess you already said The Blake Seven. My good thing is that I managed to get my tulip bulbs back in the ground. I think, in time for them to sprout this year.
Sara: 3:08
Oh, good.
Lilly: 3:09
We had dug them up for yard design purposes in the fall and then didn't finish the project. So they've been in a bucket in my garage and they started sprouting and I was like, uh oh, these babies want dirt.
Sara: 3:23
I mean, at least if they were sprouting, like, they're probably fine.
Lilly: 3:27
That, yeah, they're probably fine. I mean, they're clearly not dead. It's really just a question of will we get any actual flowers.
Gabriela: 3:33
Yeah. I mean, that depends on how many squirrels you have.
Lilly: 3:36
Yeah.
Gabriela: 3:38
I was so upset. Actually, I made this bulb lasagna, it's called. Yeah. It's basically where it's, it's like this technique where you carefully layer the like different flowering sort of bulbs in a tall pot, uh, one after under the other based on when they're supposed to bloom. And, you know, I dropped some serious cash on that as well. And the next day we were all out and bit into pieces by the squirrels.
Lilly: 4:08
Oh no.
Sara: 4:09
terrible.
Gabriela: 4:10
I was so upset and I was so proud of myself as well, it's just,
Sara: 4:14
That's, that's so disappointing when that happens. I think, for me, it's not usually the squirrels these days, it's the deer. And I live in a very urban area, but we do have deer. Things will come up, they'll start to bud, the next day, no, it's all gone.
Gabriela: 4:30
wow, I was, I was going to say that doesn't sound very urban. It's just some like in my, you know, paradise garden. We get squirrels, we get Bambi, it doesn't sound fair.
Lilly: 4:40
Yeah.
Sara: 4:41
Mm hmm.
Lilly: 4:42
Alright, what's everyone drinking today?
Gabriela: 4:44
Berry tea. It's late here, so it's not, not very exciting.
Sara: 4:48
I've got a green tea.
Lilly: 4:50
I went on theme. Honey features very heavily in the book we're about to discuss.
Gabriela: 4:55
yes it does.
Lilly: 4:56
So I made a ginger honey syrup for my bubbly water.
Gabriela: 4:59
I thought for a moment you were going to say you have mute, you know, like Polish mead or something.
Lilly: 5:04
that would be better.
Sara: 5:07
I mean, I do have some mead that I could go and pour for this.
Gabriela: 5:10
You actually have made.
Sara: 5:11
actually have mead, yeah.
Gabriela: 5:13
What missed opportunity then?
Sara: 5:15
I figured noon is a little too early to start drinking mead, even if it is on a Saturday.
Gabriela: 5:20
I mean, it's late here,
Lilly: 5:22
Yeah. And no one knows it's noon. We can just tell everyone it's not.
Gabriela: 5:29
but now the plan's out, so.
Lilly: 5:31
Yeah. So, other than the bone roots, What's everyone been reading lately?
Sara: 5:36
I picked up a book, well, I picked up a lot of books at Galley, but one of them is a book about David Whittaker. It is David Whittaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television by Simon Garrier. And David Whittaker was the first story editor of Doctor Who, so this is a biography of him.
Gabriela: 5:56
Exciting,
Sara: 5:57
Yeah, I started reading it on the plane home. I'm about a hundred pages in. There has been no talk about Doctor Who just yet. We haven't gotten to that point, but it's been good.
Gabriela: 6:05
interesting things happening beyond Doctor Who.
Lilly: 6:08
Yeah,
Sara: 6:08
Yes.
Gabriela: 6:09
When you asked about what everyone's reading, my mind went blank and I panicked a little bit. Like I told you before, I always panic when people ask me what I'm reading right now. But I mean, aside from The Groundbreakers, I just finished a lovely book by Laura Pearson. I have the last list of Mabel Beaumont. And it, it's a story of this octogenarian who is widowed and she decides to start looking for her childhood friend, her best friend in the world, who kind of ghosted her just before she got married to her husband. And it's such a lovely, it's so rooted, like, you know, it's a very, like, you know, small town in England kind of atmosphere, but it's just so hopeful, you know, like that there's. It's nothing is ever too, you know, it's not too late until it's over. Like, you know, it's never too late to start your life again and to sort of actually pursue what you want to do. It's just a very kind of hopeful book and I thought it was quite beautiful and it was very touching in many, I don't want to give too much away, but
Sara: 7:12
I was gonna say, calling it hopeful makes me think that she is able to find her friend rather than discovering that she's too, too late and everyone's dead.
Gabriela: 7:21
yeah, it's, it's not a miserable book. I mean, it has a lot of sort of, you know, it has some darkness and it has some sadness in it. But by and large, I think that it's just a very. Very sweet story, because people tend to think like, oh, you know, I'm in my 40s, it's too late to start this, or I'm in my 50s, you know, ah, it's like, it's over for me, you know, it's downhill from there, and it's, I like how it doesn't have to be this way, you know,
Lilly: 7:46
absolutely, yeah. I've been more of a book collector than a book consumer recently. So I've got nothing for this, unfortunately.
Gabriela: 7:56
just to be red pile, a ceiling high, yeah.
Lilly: 7:59
growing every day.
Sara: 8:01
That's what they do.
Lilly: 8:03
People can write faster than I can read.
Gabriela: 8:05
Especially collectively, yes.
Lilly: 8:06
Yeah. People as a whole. But I did read the Bone Roots, which was very good. Very stressful.
Sara: 8:14
Yeah.
Lilly: 8:15
I think Sarah and I were texting back and forth the whole time going, I am so worried for these characters.
Sara: 8:23
Like I, I loved it. It was great, but it did give me deep and abiding anxiety. Reading it
Gabriela: 8:32
Oh, I wasn't, I wasn't expecting that. I was like, I have to keep up the tension a little bit, you know.
Sara: 8:38
I, you, you did an excellent job of keeping up the tension. I, part of that might just be that I'm like really a wuss when it comes to tension, but yeah, it was great though, I mean this in a very positive way.
Gabriela: 8:51
Yes, it will give people good kind of anxiety, yeah.
Lilly: 8:56
So this book focuses on two mothers, and I think Sarah and I debated for a while whether one of them counts as the main character, or if they just share that position, and I was wondering, Gabriela, if you had an opinion on that.
Gabriela: 9:10
Certainly do, but I don't want to dictate to people how they would read it. I mean, you know, for me, it's definitely, it's a story of the two of them. Like one can't be without the other. It's so central to the plot. They're very different characters. And I think people are sometimes more prone to establish like one character as a main character depending on which one they identify with more or which one they kind of feel more sympathetic towards, which definitely was my experience after writing The Second Bell, my debut. There was like a quite a large number of people who thought this book was YA because one of the two main characters. was 19 years old. But the book was about a mother and daughter and the mother was in her mid to late 40s. And, you know, I felt like they roughly had the same amount of sort of time on the page, you know, and it was, but it was literally because people tended to navigate towards the youngest character that people tended to think that it was the daughter that was the main character. So, I think it's in the Bone Roots, the two mothers, Kada and Sladjana, are like different social class, they have very different sort of attitude to life. So yeah, I think people will sort of pick one or the other.
Sara: 10:21
I think for me, I definitely felt that Kata was the main character, at least for the first half of the book, and then they have a more equal page time. Maybe that's because I liked Kata a little bit more. I don't know.
Lilly: 10:33
But did we like Kata a little bit more because we saw more of her at the beginning?
Sara: 10:37
Yeah, I don't know.
Lilly: 10:39
Yeah.
Sara: 10:39
That's, I think, I think that's a really interesting, uh, I'll have to think about that a little bit.
Lilly: 10:43
Kata, who is either the main character of this book, or not,
Gabriela: 10:48
main character, yeah.
Lilly: 10:49
Yeah, definitely. She is also a Vedma, or a witch. And Sarah did some very light Googling.
Sara: 10:57
I read a Wikipedia page.
Lilly: 10:59
a whole Wikipedia page. And we found that the definition of Vedma, according to Wikipedia, is traditionally a negative or evil figure in mythology. And I don't know if we trust Wikipe Is that true?
Gabriela: 11:13
Yeah, I mean, kind of, you know, I play with, uh, uh, with the Slavic folklore. I kind of, like with any folklore I sort of touch on, I kind of twist it around a little bit. I, I move things around to, to suit my fancy. Like so Wiedźma in, in Polish, this is like Anglos, Wiedźma is like Anglicized version of the word. Viejma is definitely like a hag. It's like a witch hag. But I liked that it had like negative connotations because I felt like it was so important to me to focus on the relativity of morality and the relativity of ethics in this book. And, you know, I don't think anybody can say, you know, but definitely like Kada is a, is a good character, right? And you might, you know, you might like her, you might empathize with her, but. You know, you can't say she's good. You can't necessarily say she's bad either, but there's that ambiguity there. And when people sort of look at female characters of power in folklore in general, they tend to be given a more negative aspect.
Sara: 12:11
Yeah, Kata definitely makes some choices. That's, that's for sure. One of the things that I found interesting about that different kind of take in making the Vedma, or you said it's Viedźma?
Gabriela: 12:24
In, in, in Polish. Yeah. In, in, in Polish, but I, by anglicized in the book. So it's Vedma in the book.
Sara: 12:29
okay.
Lilly: 12:30
You took pity on us.
Sara: 12:32
Yeah,
Gabriela: 12:33
Oh, it's like, it's likeŚwitosz. I tried to anglicize that. Yeah.
Sara: 12:38
but I think it's interesting changing that to a more neutral position, because I feel like you were saying, you know, the way that lore looks at women in power, it can kind of mutate the perception of acts, right? Something that is not necessarily done for Okay. Bad reasons or is not necessarily bad at all can often be kind of twisted into something negative. And I think we see that a little bit. I don't want to go into spoilers yet, but I think we see that a little bit in the bone roots as well.
Gabriela: 13:12
Yeah, I think definitely Kada is, you know, going back to whether she's the main character, she holds more information. So, you know, she is the keeper of the main secret of the book and we don't sort of find out what it is until, until the end. And I like, you know, I wanted her to own that power and like, not, not just in terms of secrets, but just in terms of not being apologetic. for it. You know, she knows she's dangerous. She doesn't try to hide it. She does a lot of good for her community. She helps people, you know, she, she does have kindness in her, but she's also not diminishing herself for the comfort of others.
Lilly: 13:50
And even at the beginning, when she has more of a neutral place in the community, which does sort of change as the book goes on, she's always sort of othered by the people that she lives near, which does make for a very interesting, like, dynamic between them, because they really rely on her, they need her, but do still kind of keep her at arm's length, which was an interesting sort of tension on top of the tension on top of the tension.
Gabriela: 14:15
Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about, there's always been people in the community and like, whether it's big or small, who by necessity were kind of on the outside, and I can sort of compare it to, slightly to like governesses, you know, in a kind of Victorian era, in a kind of Regency era, who were not servants. After all, they looked after the children of the sort of masters, but they were not family. Not quite family either. And they were kept at arm's length at both. They were kind of above the servants, but they were still sort of servants themselves. And I was thinking about those imbalances of power in this quite a bit. There's a small character, Alinka, in the book, a serving girl who, who, I don't want to get into too much detail to say, I don't want to spoil it too much. But I was thinking quite a lot about those sort of power imbalance within the family, within the household and how people would react to each other. And of course, Kada has a lot of power in herself, but she still is paid to sort of serve this community by the man who employs her, who is kind of like, you know, he, he collects sort of the taxes from community and he sort of employs her on behalf of the community. So she is still an employee for all her power.
Sara: 15:28
And there's also the, that power imbalance. In their relationship, because they do, I mean, he wants to marry her, and for a while, one of the things that added to my tension reading the book was I kept expecting that to go wrong, because she keeps refusing him, and I was like, surely he's going to be a terrible person, and, you know, there's, there's, that's going to come to a head. And I don't want to spoil things, but it doesn't quite happen that way. So I was glad about that.
Gabriela: 16:00
Yeah, I really like Gorca, I really like Kada's employer. You know, there are different kinds of romantic relationships portrayed throughout the book. Some of them are more healthy than others, but I also wanted to portray a relationship that can be genuinely supportive and I think, in terms of kind of romantic relationships being portrayed in fantasy genre and things, there's like, the toxic tropes are very rife, like, people really like reading about the slightly sort of unnerving kind of romantic partners for main characters, and, you know, while there's some of that. In the book I also wanted to show that there is like, there can be in fact, perfectly nice relationships that, you know, might have their quirks to sort of iron out, I'm not saying there's none, but I, I would like to sort of, there to be more kind of healthy relationships in fiction in general.
Sara: 16:54
And I, we're, we're going to talk about their relationship more in the spoiler section, but I will say that even though I started out reading this book not thinking that it was going to end well between the two of them, their relationship ended up being one of my favorite parts. Because, yes, they do have some kinks to iron out, like you say. But it does end up being an incredibly supportive relationship, and I loved that. They were so cute.
Lilly: 17:17
That was a spoiler, but I'll allow it. I
Sara: 17:21
That's light spoilers. Yeah,
Lilly: 17:26
how tense this book is, making everything seem ominous in a way that doesn't actually end up, like, shaking out half the time. Like, on the surface level, at the beginning of this book, Kata is just kind of running around doing cool witch stuff, which, like, could have had a cute acoustic background music and been just, like, a fun slice of life, but the whole time we're reading it dreading what will happen next.
Gabriela: 17:51
Yeah, I mean, because, you know, she is preparing, right? So even while she's doing the, you know, the cool witch stuff, there is a purpose to it. And like, so I wanted to kind of convey that she wasn't doing things haphazardly. She was doing everything very deliberately. So in every one of her actions, she was getting something else out of it. So it wasn't just that she was helping a couple who just had a baby, you know, get their little protector spirit for the house, their little domovoi. She was also getting something out of it. I also want to show that there was like a whole layer of stuff that people didn't see her dealing with. So, you know, they might see that she secured them a protective home spirit domovoi, but they didn't see the really dark stuff that she had to do in order to secure it. So maybe that's what made you nervous.
Lilly: 18:39
Yeah.
Sara: 18:41
a little bit of that too. I think also just based on the blurb at the back describing what the book was about, I think that helped keep me aware that, you know, this wasn't going to be cozy fantasy. But I think that that very deliberate quality to her actions keeps it from feeling like a cozy fantasy, even though a lot of what she does, you know, could very well be cozy. Considered cozy.
Lilly: 19:08
I'm ready for the prequel that's just, before all of this, there's just Kata running around doing fun stuff.
Gabriela: 19:14
Yes, it's just like a short story. I actually did like a short story that is like automatically like an exclusive, but I felt like, you know, trying to get subscribers for my newsletter, but when people subscribe, they get an exclusive prequel about Aunt Kashmira.
Sara: 19:29
Ooh,
Gabriela: 19:30
In her inbox, so I felt like some juicy prequels might be in order, so I did write one.
Lilly: 19:38
So Sarah and I read different formats of this book. I read the physical book, and Sarah, you read the e book, right?
Sara: 19:44
I ended up reading the e book. I do have the physical book, but I ended up reading the e book.
Lilly: 19:48
So I think this might have affected my reading more than yours, but the chapter lengths were very varied. You know, there'd be one that's half a page and then one that's pages long. And something about that kept me so off balance while I was reading the book that just sort of contributed to the whole ominous feeling of everything happening. As a reader, I was never really sure what was going to happen next, even on just like the physical book level.
Gabriela: 20:14
Yeah, it's, I think it's like, you know, people, our brains are designed to kind of pick up on the rhythm of things. And that's why when you're, you know, like if someone is tapping and then suddenly it's, it's a bit off, it jars on you. And, you know, it's, it's used to great effect in like horror movies and stuff like that. And, you know, the, the chapter length is, is also varied because you have different characters, some of which are non verbal necessarily. So you have like a kind of more impression of what's happening to sort of add to the atmosphere as well.
Sara: 20:47
Yeah, I do think that that's something that I didn't necessarily get when I was reading the e book, just because when I'm reading e books, I don't pay attention to chapter deliminators.
Gabriela: 20:57
you just read it in like one continuous sort of block of text,
Sara: 21:00
yeah. But I'll definitely have to keep aware of that when I reread the physical book. Something else that I liked that I think kind of contributes to making this book a little more emotionally fraught is that there's not really a villain, right? It's just regular, more or less regular, people with clashing motivations, but they're all sympathetic, like it's, you're not necessarily rooting for one because the other person is terrible, right?
Gabriela: 21:30
That is very deliberate. I feel like people in general, right, like to have villains or heroes in their life and, you know, usually portraying my friends. We are the good guys, right? And, you know, in, in politics, we see all the time, you know, it just depends what media you consume, you know, it depends on your particular geographical location, you know, what is convenient, you know, who is your country's ally, you know, like that. And we can suddenly explain away all kinds of horrible things. just because collectively we have agreed that we are the good guys and our group are, you know, on the right side of history and the other people are not on the right side of history for whatever reason. Just like in, in the book, like, you know, in, in real life, this is very seldom the case. Like people, you know, individually have their motivations and, you know, of course there are people who just want to hurt others, but that is such a small. You know, like when we're looking at like a cross population, sociopaths and psychopaths do not form like a large chunk of a population. So in terms of sort of the relativity, I was, I think I was interviewed on that point by someone who was saying that in kind of classic fantasy novels, you know, you, you see the hero go into the enemy camp and like kill off a bunch of guys, you know, because they're the enemies, they're the baddies, right? But what if you then wrote a chapter about. this, you know, God's grieving widow and the little boy who is like waiting for his daddy to come home. Suddenly your hero might shift somewhat, right? And so I feel like a lot of villains that we have in fiction, they're just people who are very weak for some reason, or who are, you know, villains because they choose to be in order to protect something more important to them.
Lilly: 23:14
Absolutely. Despite all of the tension we've been talking about this whole time, I wouldn't call this, you know, like a super dark book, but, you know, genre definitions can vary very broadly from person to person, so would you tell our listeners What you consider this book.
Gabriela: 23:32
That's tricky because those definitions, they are, they're mostly made up by booksellers, right? They're a way to, where do you put the book? You know, do you put it with other books with 19 year old protagonists? Do you put in a cozy section, do you put it, you know, and, and actually not, not many books fit those very rigid descriptions when you actually start reading them. This is just, you know, this is like which books roughly doesn't go in and, you know, a book has like elements of mystery. It definitely does have like elements of dark fantasy in it. But it also has elements of, you know, like family drama because you have, at its core, it's about two mothers who are trying to protect their children, right? And it has older female protagonists, so I don't know where that would go, probably drama section as well, I don't know. But it's, um, yeah, it's a mix of things, but I think most people would sort of think of it as like dark fantasy or, you know, female led fantasy, however they like to define it.
Lilly: 24:30
This is a very female centric book, for reasons that we will talk more about in the spoiler section.
Sara: 24:37
So, Lily, normally you ask me this question, but I'm going to turn it around on you this time. Why should someone read this book?
Lilly: 24:45
Oh, you should read this book if you're like me, and you're the kind of person who, when you can't fall asleep and it's 2 a. m., you want to read a story that stresses you out.
Gabriela: 24:56
You're not selling it very well, you know.
Lilly: 24:58
No, it's good!
Gabriela: 25:00
Do you want more anxiety at 2am?
Lilly: 25:04
I do, though. Like, that's what I do when I can't sleep and I can't explain it, but I'm sure I'm not the only person. There's something about this book that it's such a focused stress, because I'm worried for these characters. It means I'm not worried about whatever is keeping me up at 2 a. m. I can redirect my worry. So next time you can't sleep, read this book instead. Avoid
Sara: 25:26
even if you can sleep, read this book. If you like realistic characters dealing with family dynamics in a setting full of Slavic folklore, you'll probably like this book.
Lilly: 25:39
spoilers. Skip to 4735. Now we're there. Now we're in the section where we can talk about all of the secrets.
Gabriela: 25:51
Exciting. I'm always so nervous about doing, like, Can I talk about the spoiler? You know, can I mention this character? Because if I mention him, I have to mention what role they play in the book. Gortzai.
Sara: 26:04
spoiler section is hard because there's so much that I want to say all, all the time. And, I mean, I didn't, as you pointed out, Lily, I was not entirely successful in keeping that spoiler free. Little, little bits of spoilers.
Lilly: 26:18
I don't think that ruins the reading experience.
Sara: 26:20
I don't think so. But, so, going back to the relationship, and Gabriela, I don't know how to pronounce his name correctly. Okay, because that's very different from how I was mentally pronouncing it. So.
Gabriela: 26:35
Yeah, I kind of pronounce it the Polish way as, yeah, Gorcej.
Sara: 26:39
He ended up being so much cooler than I expected. His introduction as this kind of privileged rich guy didn't really give me high hopes for him, but he's so committed to Kata, and even when she's keeping secrets from him, and he knows that she's keeping secrets from him, and she's clearly, like, gotten into some kind of dark stuff, she's lying to the villagers, he still stays committed in, in love with her, and I just, I really appreciated that relationship and how positive it was.
Gabriela: 27:15
Yeah. I think it's like some of the joy of writing older characters. So I was playing a lot with beauty bias in general. in a book. I just find it a very, you know, a fascinating topic because we seem to be kind of on a biological level programmed to ascribe positive characteristics to attractive people. And there was quite a bit written about that in the context of Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and the fact that she is kind of conventionally attractive and she is this like type of this like Attractive American woman, like white woman, and she fits into all those that kind of boxes that people take. And so even though she wasn't doing anything particularly positive, people were ascribing all those good characteristics to her like, Oh, she's a positive influence. There were those headlines like, Oh, you know, she's a positive influence on her father. Oh, she's like whispering in his ear to tell him not to do that or not to do this. And it's like, where's the evidence for that? And like her long legs are all the evidence. But for those journalists need it, clearly.
Lilly: 28:19
That's where she puts all her morals. She keeps them in her extra long legs.
Gabriela: 28:23
Yeah, basically, and I feel like, but this is such a powerful instinct. that we have, is that we also transfer it onto fictional characters. You know, you have in Leigh Bardugo's books, where you have the Darkling, who is just objectively, he is a villain under any definition of a word. He is just a murderer. He's, he's awful. He's a sociopath, right? But he is this tall, dark, you know, dark hair, flashing eyes, sort of, you know, handsome, like, you know, higher of a, um, I don't remember his name, is this, uh, you know, very handsome actor who, who sort of plays him in on the Netflix series. And people are like, you know, reading this book, we're really very vocal about their attraction to him. And there's like all this artwork about him and all that. And it's just, But he's terrible.
Sara: 29:12
He's terrible, but I can save him.
Lilly: 29:15
I was gonna say, Sarah, you got called out.
Sara: 29:18
I did get called out.
Gabriela: 29:20
So we can't quite believe it, like that, you know, he can't be all bad because he's attractive, right? So I have a couple characters in the book who are very conventionally attractive, and I wanted to play with how much are we going to let them get away with. just because they're conventionally attractive. And on the kind of flip side to that, you know, you have Gortzai who is, he's not bad looking, but he's a bit overweight. He's a bit of a hypochondriac. He, you know, he's like limping, you know, he has gout and kind of sees all of that, you know, there's less of an attractive side of him. And I was sort of thinking about like how to play with how much will people overlook his very attractive personality because of that early introduction of his kind of, of his physicality. And that was just something that was interesting to me, also like to make Kada notice him in a different way, because it wasn't like a love at first sight for her, for sure. And she had a lover as well. So it was like a gradual process for her. And like the thing that for me is really attractive in people is like intelligence, and Gorutai is very astute. So when you say that, you know, he stands by Kada, like, it's because he sees from the get go who she is. And I feel like, you know, he is perceptive enough to understand. I think he says to her at some point that, you know, it's like an idiot could see that you're dangerous. And he appreciates that side of her as well. So he wouldn't sort of fall out of love with her for displaying characteristics that attracted him to her in the first place.
Lilly: 30:52
I think another element that makes their relationship interesting is that he does come from a very privileged place of wealth. And there are a lot of assumptions in the book when they do finally get together that Kata is just using him for his money or for his position in society. And honestly, as the reader, I thought that as well. And she wasn't not.
Gabriela: 31:12
mean, there's an element of that at the beginning, like, you know, uh, maybe not for the money per se, but the safety element of it. And I think, you know, Kada is, she's a clever player. And so she understands how the power imbalances work in that society. And she understands that her position, while one of honor, while one of respect. can become a bit precarious if she doesn't have that backing. And she, you know, when I say she was preparing for the worst case scenario, as it were, she was also taking it into consideration. And, and when Secha was displaying slightly more disturbing behaviors, she knew she needed that extra layer of protection.
Sara: 31:52
Well, Kata and Gorsai, both really pragmatic, right? They know what their goal is and they're going to do it, but not in a way that's, I mean, I don't want to say not in a way that's not harmful because sometimes it, it does lead to harm, but not in a way that's
Lilly: 32:11
Gratuitous.
Sara: 32:13
intentional and gratuitous, yeah.
Lilly: 32:16
Right, like their priority is not the villagers, but they're not going to go out of their way to hurt the villagers. They're just like collateral damage. And
Gabriela: 32:26
I think we're both devoted to the people they help, for sure, but they also understand that, you know, like, Kada will be more devoted to her daughter. And I think when people are really honest with themselves, they will see like, you know, yes, I care about this, but I care about my family more. You know, and some of this sort of pragmatism is, I think, a result of, like, agent wisdom, you know, like, when you're in your 40s, when you're in your 50s, like, you don't think the same way as you do when you're 20, unless you're an idiot who just didn't learn anything over the, like, previous 30 years, you know, so you look at those relationships a little bit differently, and it doesn't make them any less meaningful at all, but I think, you know, it's a more mature way of looking at it. It's like, it's, not trying to ignore the bad things about the person. It's like, you know, like you have this fault and this fault, but you know, that's all right. On the whole, I'm still stand by you. And I think in some ways it's more, it might not be the kind of passionate whirlwind romance that people, you know, look for in a kind of novels about like 20 year olds, but it's definitely more lasting, that attitude, I think. It's this understanding of the other person. And you know, when it comes to the. you know, like them versus the bigger sort of society. I think that brings it back to this kind of relativity of ethics and the fact that, you know, we want to feel like there are certain unchangeable rules that we set ourselves, you know, but there are certain standards of behavior we would never cross that line. We would never do this and that. And I think we need to have that kind of thought process to function in society. And I think we need to have those beliefs, but by and large, I think those beliefs fall apart pretty quickly when they stand against something you care about more. And there'll always be something you care about more. Like it's, you know, if it's your child's safety or someone else's child's safety, you know, and we hope we will never be stewed in front of a decision like that. Right. So all of those kind of rules that we think that we believe in and that are unchangeable and mutable laws of, you know, of gods and men, like this is all like, you know, I'm crossing my fingers, but I will never be tested on those. It's so relative as well, like, you know, it's across the world, there's no single thing that everybody will agree on, you know, that this is the thing that should never be done. And there will be things that most of us agree on, hopefully, right? But it's easy to see in the world how quickly, you know, on a kind of nation basis, we are happy to compromise on those, you know, like we all, generally speaking, agree on the fact that children should be protected. And look at international politics right now, you know, and there seems to be very little to zero, well, actually negative effort to kind of, to, to, to do that, you know, we tend to agree that murder is wrong, but if someone threatened your loved ones, you know. So I, I think it's not like the lack of care. It's like understanding of self and it's an understanding that this is the one person I will protect. It doesn't matter to me what I have to do to protect this person.
Lilly: 35:45
we see that instinct, right, that priority and that care sort of butting heads with our two mothers, our two main characters, our main and main and a half character, with Kata and Sajjana, and it was so interesting to watch these two women work The same goal, technically, protect my child or get my child back, but because they have such different capabilities, they went about that in very different ways. Right, like we had Kada working with her magic versus Ladyana using sort of politics and social engineering.
Gabriela: 36:22
I mean, they each understand where their power lies. And they, you know, utilize what they can. But that was something that I was really excited to write it, but it was also like emotionally difficult because, you know, like you want, you know, when the mother has a goal to keep her child safe, you want to see her succeed in keeping her child safe in general, in book. You know, that is such a, you know, even if people reading it don't have children, they generally have someone that they care about so much. This is my goal to protect this person. Right? Whether it's a very dear friend or a family member. So it's an understandable motivation. But, you know, when you have two mothers who are like, only one of them can succeed, you know from the start, you know from the blurb there's going to be a heartbreak. So I'm not like, I'm not tricking anyone here, right? It's in the first sentence of a blurb, you know, only one of them can succeed. So it had like moments where it was a bit hard to write because I do care about my characters. And yet I do terrible things to them.
Lilly: 37:22
I was gonna say, and yet.
Sara: 37:25
I mean, yes, you're 100 percent right, but the reader knows from the beginning that these two women are going to be in conflict with each other and only one of them can quote unquote win, but that ending is still so emotionally damaging. Because you want, I mean, even though you know it's not possible, at least speaking personally, like, I was still really hoping that they would both win, even though I knew that they couldn't, and that one of them was going to lose their child.
Gabriela: 37:52
I wanted to end on a slightly hopeful note. I mean, as hopeful as it gets in my book. It's basically, you know, that there is some small semblance of hope in each of the mother's lives.
Sara: 38:05
And that definitely comes through. I mean, for all that I'm saying, it was very, like, emotionally damaging.
Gabriela: 38:10
Yeah.
Lilly: 38:12
This book didn't leave me feeling bad after I read it.
Sara: 38:15
Yes, exactly.
Gabriela: 38:16
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, even though, you know, obviously like Slavjana has adopted it, like, it was a balance because children are not fungible assets, like, you cannot just replace one for the other and that'll be fine. But, you know, people learn to live with grief as well. And they adapt to living with grief.
Lilly: 38:38
So as we mentioned, you know, this book is about two mothers trying to protect their daughters, very female centric, right? We're looking at, you know, women characters having plots that have nothing to do with ro I mean, there is romance in the book, but the plot is not about romance, I would say. This novel manages to do that without making Men the villain, which I think is something that's a very lazy thing that happens a lot when you want to write a girl power book, you just make men suck. But I would say all of the male characters in
Gabriela: 39:11
Well, some of them suck. Let's be,
Lilly: 39:13
oh sure, yeah. People suck. That just happens. And not just Gorsai, but we have several other male characters in this book that I liked quite a bit. Mikhail, I was particularly impressed by. He's introduced as sort of a boy toy love interest for Sladjana. And he ends up being really great.
Gabriela: 39:36
I like to sort of think that people can surprise you, like, if you give them a chance sometimes, you know. And the thing that you first see about a person, you first hear about the person, but it's not all they are. And obviously, like, you know, Mikhail is Gorsei's son, so some of the good from his father must have rubbed off on him.
Lilly: 39:55
There's also Enog? Is that how
Gabriela: 39:58
Enoch, yeah, the wild boar god.
Lilly: 40:01
yeah, the, the lover that Kata leaves, I think he was probably the most, I had the most mixed feelings about him as, as a love interest,
Gabriela: 40:11
the beauty bias comes into play with Ina.
Lilly: 40:14
but he also is a good boyfriend, like,
Sara: 40:18
I was gonna say it kind of felt like you were talking about earlier about stable relationships when you're older versus kind of more wild relationships when you're younger and that's kind of what that choice between Enoch and Gorsei felt like. Like, Enoch is more the relationship you have in your 20s where it's very about the physical attraction that you feel, and then as you mature you want something a little more stable and lasting.
Gabriela: 40:42
Yeah, I mean, you know, Kada is for many, many reasons, she's not a trusting person, right? Like, she can't be. And she doesn't trust enough. And I think, you know, at first like you're supposed to like feel like you're just being so unfair to this really hot guy, you know, like, just why don't you open up to him? So yeah, he's a great boyfriend. Sure. Like, you know, except for the massive betrayal. But
Lilly: 41:08
ah, that comes after she dumps him though.
Gabriela: 41:10
yeah, so yeah. Let's rationalize it away. Yeah, sure.
Lilly: 41:15
Well, she knows it's coming, right? That's part of why she ends up leaving him, is because she knows he's not truly committed to her. But it's a little more complex than that, because at the um, the festival scene, when Kada sort of has a, a breakdown moment, Inag is there for her. He's not just there for fun times. I don't know, I, I supported her leaving him, but I also didn't hate him.
Gabriela: 41:40
Yeah.
Lilly: 41:40
And he was, he was an interesting
Gabriela: 41:42
No, I'm glad. I'm glad. Like, you know, it's very, they all have their motivations. And, you know, when we talk about like, what do you care about more? And like, you know, he has his loyalty to, you know, his mother, the top dog, the greatest goddess in the land, you know, so it would, you know, it would be hard to expect him to sort of betray his mom for a fling, but ex fling. I think in terms of, you know, like Kada is definitely smart to understand that about him.
Sara: 42:08
I did cheer for her when she just, like, kills him though. Not because I didn't like him, but because I appreciated how committed she was to her goal of protecting Setje, which, I mean, we've talked about that, but it was just a really, I don't know, it felt like the culmination of seeing her determination come out in her actions.
Gabriela: 42:29
Yeah, I don't know if it was clear to Enoch that she would choose her daughter because I'm not sure that he understood that whole kind of, he thought, well, like, well, you can just give her back, right? So I'm not sure, like, you know, he would understand that level of commitment, but it was the only choice she could make. Most mothers I know put in that same position, they would do the exact same thing. My ex boyfriend or my child? Hmm.
Sara: 42:56
Hard question.
Gabriela: 42:58
I
Lilly: 42:58
Okay. I am so conflicted over. the townspeople and their reactions to Kata and Secha. Because, like, on one hand, I would judge them for turning so quickly on these women who have done nothing but help them for years and live among them in harmony. But then, also, they were right. So, that's a coincidence. You can't just mob every woman who doesn't solve all your problems with magic.
Gabriela: 43:26
mean, you know, she didn't really do much to them, you know, like the one guy that she didn't help them find was already in the ground, so, you know, what do you expect her to do? Sometimes, you know, we want people to behave a certain way, but like, for me, you know, when I'm writing a book, like it's important for me to be truthful, like how would people react. And people in big groups tend to react adversely to things we don't understand and things we can't control. And I think that is the mob mentality and it doesn't matter, you know, it's like, and you see it all over like, you know, Bosnia Herzegovina, you know, like Yugoslavia, you know, neighbors who they have lived together, you know, Palestine before, you know, before formation of Israel, like, you know, but people who lived as neighbors, as friends, for centuries, you know, and you introduce another factor in, and suddenly they will turn so viciously on each other. And it's always surprising. It's always surprising, but it's just how people in groups seem to operate. And it's something that is quite difficult to understand from a rational point of view, but, and it's something that as humanity at large, we have not yet learned how to control.
Lilly: 44:37
And in this case, they're being egged on by someone who benefits from the conflict and It's LaDiana here, but yeah, she doesn't help.
Gabriela: 44:46
Yeah. I mean, there's always an instigator and they always have a good reason, you know. Yeah. They think they have a good reason, at least.
Sara: 44:52
Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like this would have been the end result even without Sladjana. She just kind of accelerates things a little bit.
Gabriela: 45:01
Yeah, I think it's her presence was a trigger for a lot of those things, wasn't it? Because the, the child that she sort of adopted is a factor in what happens. And yeah, because it just kind of gives the hope to her daughter, but this can sort of find a conclusion that is more beneficial to her. I don't know. If Sladjana hadn't arrived at the wedding, maybe, maybe it wouldn't have gone that way. It's hard to say. didn't write it that way, so I can't tell you.
Lilly: 45:30
So when you were writing this book, how different is this final version from the first draft? Did you always sort of have this plot progression in your mind or did it change as you were writing it?
Gabriela: 45:41
It's not very different. I tend to write very clean first drafts. So, obviously there's like little things tweaked, like, you know, here's where you get editorial notes, you know, like the pacing might be off somewhere, but you have to fix, or that you need to amp up the stakes in one scene. This is pretty much how I wrote it. I'm a panther, as they say. So what I sold the book on some of it, like the blurb was quite different to the book I wrote. I, I wrote like an impression of a fox that goes through the, the, the, the fox fief, the, the, the child fief, you know, this sort of terrifying presence in the lives of those two, two women. But I kind of discovered what was happening as I went along and that's, that tends to be how I write. And then I kind of like, between halfway, sorry, third of the way in and halfway in, I tend to come up with a plan for the rest of the book.
Sara: 46:34
What would you like readers to take away from this book?
Gabriela: 46:37
First of all, I hope they're entertained. It's always my answer. I really, you know, I want people to just enjoy the process of reading this book. I never wanted to be one of those books that you kind of, that pains you to get through and then you're like, you're glad you did. Like, I want people to enjoy reading the books. But I suppose the, the two things is like, I hope people see the, that older female protagonists can be really interesting to read about and write. I think they bring in a lot. that has been kind of missing from the genre for a long time. I think older female protagonists have never been given enough space in genre fiction and they very much deserve it. The big theme about how one person's hero is another person's villain and that we are all prepared to do terrible things for people we care about. So maybe judging people less.
Lilly: 47:30
Thank
Gabriela: 47:31
Oh, that would be nice, isn't it? If we judged people less.
Lilly: 47:38
you so much for joining us to talk about this amazing book. I think this was one of those books that after I finished it, I had to just like sit and close my eyes and think for a minute. I couldn't like move on immediately to the next thing.
Gabriela: 47:49
it was 2 a. m. so
Lilly: 47:53
but I didn't fall asleep. I had to think about the book.
Sara: 47:56
Yeah, no, it's, it's definitely one of those books that you want to sit with a little bit afterwards. Right? Because it's, it's excellent. And there's so much to digest about it. Yeah, it was a really fun read for all that, you know, it made me anxious, but yeah, I loved it.
Gabriela: 48:14
Thank you so much, it means a lot.
Lilly: 48:16
Well, at the beginning, you mentioned a little bit that you've launched a new project on YouTube.
Gabriela: 48:20
Oh yes.
Lilly: 48:21
you tell us a little bit about what you're working on right now?
Gabriela: 48:24
Oh, so this is a project that basically it's all about me having fun, really. It's called the Gabriela Houston Project, so it's easy to sort of, it's both on Spotify and YouTube and it's basically about storytelling in all its forms. Because I, I strongly believe that everybody utilizes storytelling in their everyday life and most jobs have an element of storytelling into it, whether we realize or not. So I basically invite the most interesting people that will give me an hour of a life. And they're like researchers and historians and, you know, geneticists and writers of course, and artists and conservationists and, and all those really. Fascinating people. I had one, you know, like cult survivor, you know, and all of those people, storytelling is so intrinsically linked to what they do. And it's, you know, whether it's how they communicate what they do to the outside world, whether it's how they, you know, like tailor their findings or their life to sort of make it understandable to people. So that's the show. So it's basically a lot of really interesting people talking about how they use storytelling in their lives.
Lilly: 49:36
Awesome, I can't wait to check it out.
Sara: 49:37
Yeah, that, that sounds excellent.
Gabriela: 49:40
Thank you. Uh, basically it's fun for me. It's all those people who would like, they're just way too busy to respond to a random stranger on the internet. But if I say, I have a show I want to invite you on, sometimes, sometimes if they're particularly kind, they say yes. And then I can ask them all the questions that are swirling around my mind. It's such a privilege and it's such a luxury.
Sara: 50:06
So you've said that that is on YouTube, Spotify, places where podcasts live. But where can you be found on the internet for people to follow you and buy your books?
Gabriela: 50:16
So I'm on GabriellaHouston. com, very easy to find me. So you basically, like I am on social media, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram and threads and Facebook more recently, but you know, obviously I have an email that people can reach me on, on my website,
Sara: 50:31
And if they subscribe to your email list, they get a prequel
Gabriela: 50:36
exclusive short story, yes, exclusive short story. And I also send like a newsletter with, you know. Sometimes I put in whatever I fancy, so it's like sometimes writing tips, sometimes like I'm going to put in a recipe for cheese, Polish cheesecake, and this one, you know, it's just random, random things I put in there. And obviously news and links to events and all that.
Lilly: 50:59
Awesome. Well, thank you so much again. This has been wonderful. Always love talking to you. Always love reading your books, even when they make me cry.
Gabriela: 51:08
Oh, it feels so psychotic to say it makes me glad when people cry reading my books, but thank you so much. It's such a privilege really.
Sara: 51:19
Well, it's, I mean, our pleasure. It really is.
Lilly: 51:26
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Sara: 51:31
Come disagree with us. We are on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.
Lilly: 51:42
If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
Sara: 51:51
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find our show notes and a lot of other nonsense.
Lilly: 51:56
Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!
