Book Tour Q&A: Skylark in the Fog by Helyna L. Clove
- Fiction Fans
- Jul 23, 2023
- 9 min read
Today we're taking part in the book tour organized by Escapist Book Company for Skylark in the Fog by Helyna L. Clove! Continue reading for the book blurb and a Q&A with the author.
About the book
So when the universe falls to pieces, it doesn’t mean your life has to, right? That comes later.
Jeane Blake, captain of the spaceship Skylark, makes her living by looting dead worlds, planets fallen prey to naturally occurring wormhole-like rifts plaguing the cosmos. She survives the only way she knows how: avoiding commitment and arguing with her dead foster father's ghost. But when her crew stumbles upon an alien device that could collapse the wormhole network and wipe out all sentient life, they catch the hungry eyes of the Union, a tyrannical empire hunting the sinister tech.
As she flees the Union’s brainwashed agents, Jeane is forced to take on a shady mission and gets stuck assisting the runaway monarch of a technocrat planet. Queen Maura Tholis is seeking the aid of an interstellar resistance to reclaim her war-torn world, with another trouble-magnet device as her bargaining chip: a glove that allows her to command AI systems. Jeane couldn’t care less about the whole deal, but things become personal when the Union annexes the place she calls home. And it might be her fault.
Reluctant to become weapons in the hands of power-hungry militants and desperate rebels, smuggler and queen join forces. But to save their homes, they must redefine themselves, work with the enemy, and face personal traumas they’d buried long ago—and only stars know which challenge might break them in the end.
On to the interview...!
Thank you so much for joining us for this Q&A! We’ll start off with one of our standard podcast opening questions–tell us something great that’s happened recently.
Hi! It’s great to be here! A good thing, let’s see…I finally invested in doing my first writer's retreat the end of this summer! You know the one. Going out into nature, somewhat isolated, no devices, only thoughts. I'm excited. I haven't been alone with myself for more than an afternoon or two in a long while now. I'm taking a new book idea with me too, and who knows what might happen?
What are you currently reading or what’s up next on your TBR? What made you pick up this book?
I'm re-reading my copy of The Silmarillion by Tolkien very slowly throughout the year. It's fun and I've never actually read it in English before. I just finished the first novella in the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. I always saw the hype about it and it made me curious. It was good; I always love a robot-human character. Additionally, I also started an ARC of the second installment of the Inner Universe series by Natalie Kelda. Flying ships and mysterious galaxies in a space fantasy setting—I loved the first book.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to start writing?
I’m Helyna, Hungarian by birth, currently living in the UK. My day job is astrophysicist, I’m studying the intricacies of how stars are born in our galaxy and beyond. I have loved to read ever since I was able to. My parents had a small library room in my childhood house and were sure to direct me to their age-appropriate favourites when I asked for it. But storytelling in every form (movies, shows, video games) have attracted me through the years. My first writing attempts were thinly veiled self-insert fanfic mash-ups where I basically made friends with characters from my favourite media then went on adventures with them. Occasionally, I had more original ideas too, but only a few finished novellas or short books until 2012. Then, with the help of my sister (also a writer) I found NaNoWriMo and the community around that gave me a huge boost of inspiration and productivity. It took me some time to believe I can actually finish a coherent book and my stories are worth telling but now writing is something I definitely won't give up on.
How do you spend your free time when you’re not reading or writing? Do you have any hobbies or interests that you can talk to us about?
My job is also a passion of mine, so there's that, I love space and science a lot. I also love video games, D&D, and trying out various small crafts. Cross-stitching is one current favourite, but I have a wooden dragon 3D-puzzle statue that still waits for me to assemble it, and a paint-by-numbers kit (I’d love to paint but I can’t do it without help). Most of my days also revolve around my cat, Puddle, and her shenanigans.
Who are your favorite current writers and who are your greatest influences?
I got introduced to some of the big science-fiction names like Asimov, Clarke, Lem, or Philip K. Dick pretty early on, and although I don't see them as an example in everything, their books inevitably influenced a lot about how I see especially sci-fi. My current favourites (gosh, there's a lot, how to choose, how to choose) are mostly indie authors since I've been submerged in this sphere for a while now, but I'll list a few traditional published authors as well. Let’s see. Kerstin Hall can write anything and I will read it, Cat Rector is excellent at breaking my heart on many levels, I can't wait for the next Iron Widow book by Xiran Jay Zhao, Sean Browning is the next Douglas Adams, and although I haven't read everything from them, Ann Leckie, China Mieville, and N.K. Jemisin are so so so great that I can't not mention them.
What are your favorite types of stories? Of characters?
I love what people call found family stories. Where a diverse assembly of characters meet in adversities and then become ride-or-die friends. I love it when they are older, perhaps, in their twenties and thirties even, don't have their lives together, and have a bunch of baggage to cope with, and they help each other to live through that. I love extensive worldbuilding and sprawling words I need to learn and figure out with the characters. I love my grimdark, but I love hope more, and especially when it's in all the shades of bittersweet.
How much do you plan when you write? What’s your writing process like?
I plan a lot—I can't start writing until I have at least the skeleton of the story and what I want it all to lead to. I don't necessarily need to know the ending, but I have to have a feeling for it. I usually outline a few things, and I like to have most of the action planned out at least until the midpoint when I start writing, along with the characters and their inner journeys (this also helps to see whether the idea will hold in my brain…some stuff just fizzles out after a while). That is not to say these things cannot change while writing, and they could also morph in later revisions. But it has also been a pattern that my first drafts do not change very significantly after they are done. No big plot rehauls or deleting/adding important characters or plotlines, usually. After I’m done with the first draft and revisions, I usually alternate grammar, “make it prettier”, and “hmm I probably need to add this little info too” edits. And then when I can’t look at it anymore, it goes to betas.
Is this your first book? If so, what lessons have you learned from writing it? If not, what lessons did you learn from writing earlier books that you brought into this one?
Skylark in the Fog is my first published book, and my first book in the sense of, even if I finished stuff before, those will probably never see the light of day, or only after a 95% rehaul. But probably not, to be honest. So, the first thing it taught me is probably that I can write a book, I can finish one, and especially something so important to me as Skylark was and is. And that while writing is a lonely craft, I shouldn’t be afraid of seeking community and feedback because without that, it’s much much harder. It also taught me that what I’d been afraid of before, that I don’t have more stories in me, is not true.
How much of yourself do you write into your stories?
A lot. In some ways, it is very transparent, in others, I myself only notice after careful examination. Every book I write is about something that’s personally intriguing to me, be it a character aspect, a theme, or a setting. And even though I try not to have my characters all echo my own thoughts, I’m pretty sure my opinions, hopes, dreams, and fears come through them very often.
What comes first to you when you’re writing, the world, the characters, or the storyline?
The world comes first, some big concept about the setting of the story, and the characters usually come with it, if not fully formed but at least the foundations of them. The beginnings of their storylines are thus built into them, but it takes quite some time for me to have a proper feel of them usually. Takes probably writing half a book! But when that happens, I will know their whole storyline too (even if I make some smaller modifications later).
They say to never judge a book by its cover, but a cover is still a marketing tool that helps sell books. Can you tell us about the idea behind the cover of your book?
I’d be happy if people judged my book by its cover, the cover is extraordinary! I made the first attempts at covers for Skylark during 2012-2015, I think, for when I wrote the book during NaNoWriMos. The images always featured space, and a bird, or some kind of shiny, weird interstellar cloud. Because, you know, Skylark is a ship but also a bird, the story is set in space, and in-universe, there are these very characteristic shiny tears in spacetime one has to deal with that are full of strange fog. So when publishing was finally in sight, that was the concept I took to Harkalé Linaï, my cover artist. And I guess she just looked into my mind somehow and managed to create the exact image I always wanted for the book real. She’s amazing.
Describe your book in 3 adjectives.
Hopeful, expansive, action-filled.
Can you tell us a little bit about your characters? What are your favorite kinds of characters to write?
A common thing across most of the characters I write is that even if they are in their twenties or thirties, they have a lot of baggage, trauma or at the very least, unfinished business that they’re still struggling with. Finding home, safety, and their own self in a wild world is usually an important process for all of them. They are dealing with stuff, for better or worse, and it’s not even certain whether they’d be finished with dealing with them by the end of the book, or ever, at all. Nevertheless, they have to go on, they have to do things, save their loved ones, save the world, live their lives, whatever. And they usually help each other in this, as a good found family should.
In your opinion, what kind of reader would like this book?
You’ll like Skylark in the Fog if you enjoy expansive, sliiightly scientific (I never go full hard sci-fi but there’s traces of it) worlds populated by many distinct characters and factions and whatnot. I have many-many stories of this universe that didn’t make it into the book but I hope it comes across how alive and dynamic the setting is in my head. You’ll also like Skylark in the Fog if you enjoy characters having outer conflicts (shootouts, brawls, touch-and-go escape sequences) but inner ones too (dealing with childhood stuff, parental conflicts, mental health issues like anxiety, cPTSD, depression, and such). Or if you like some bffs adventuring through space. And AIs/robots that don’t suck—well, sometimes, but they suck in an interesting way!
What would you like readers to take away from this book?
Hope for the future. Hope for themselves. A tiny beam of light in this big empty thing we’re in. And I hope they have some fun. And if I can make you shed some happy or sad tears for my characters, I already won.
Is there anything you can tell us about any current projects you’re working on?
I’m working on a fantasy duology for which I’m planning to release the first book some time next year. It’s a darker story, full of wild magic and revenge and angst, and it’s about a woman dealing with agency, identity, and trauma. But there’s love in it, don’t you worry! I also have a paranormal horror in the works, Supernatural X Ghostbusters style but with Eastern European-inspired lore. I’m also planning a serial-like sci-fi story which I will not say much about but I’m very excited to worldbuild for it and start writing!
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions for us! Do you have any parting thoughts or comments you’d like to leave for our readers?
Thanks so much for this interview, it was my first real one! I have really not much more to say. I'm grateful to everyone who’s interested in my work. If you decide to read Skylark in the Fog and you like it, please take the time to write a review of it online. I cannot overstate how important those are for indie authors. Also, be kind, and keep on keeping on.
And finally, where can you be found on the internet if our readers want to hear more from you?
I've got a nice linktree page which gathers all my current important links, I'll plop it here at the end. My website is a bit static for now, but regarding social media, I'm mostly active on Twitter. I keep up with my Goodreads account if you want to know about my current reads, and I post bonus stuff onto my ko-fi whenever I have them. From time to time I realize I have an instagram account too.
Here's a hub for you to start with: linktr.ee/helynalclove
