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BloggingAuthors.com recently had the opportunity to interview Featured Author Sandy Lender, author of Choices Meant for Gods
Q: Your book Choices Meant for Gods is a fantasy story about a young lady on the run from a madman. When she stops running and starts fighting, she discovers she’s wrapped in centuries of prophecy. Where did you get the idea for your novel?
A: Strangely enough, it occurred to me as I was writing promotional/marketing material (read: after the book was at the printer) that Amanda Chariss, the heroine, and her wizard guardian spent the 16 years prior to the novel’s beginning moving from place to place, literally running from home to home, benefactor to benefactor in mimicry of my childhood.
Subconsciously, the idea for one of the plotlines came from my experience as a child in a military family. I was born on Homestead Air Force Base, and, even though my father completed his service by the time I entered school, we still moved frequently as I grew up. I guess it influenced me more than I realized.
The idea of the Taiman estate grew out of Anglo-Saxon mead halls and Charlotte Bronte’s Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre. Readers will find myriad Old English, Anglo-Saxon, and Bronte references speckled throughout the novel. I also take a lot of images from song lyrics, and let those fuel my imagination.
Q: Does this book have a special link to something that happened to you in your life?
A: Not consciously.
Q: Have you always been interested in fantasy? Which fantasy authors do you read?
A: I’ve always enjoyed fantasy literature. From Tolkien to Eddings to Goodkind, but Charlotte Bronte (and, oh, just listen to Edward Rochester to hear those speculative fiction elements shine through) is my favorite.
Q: Who is your favorite author and why?
A: Charlotte Bronte. That woman…I wish I had half her talent. There’s something absolutely mesmerizing about Jane Eyre. The first time I read the gothic novel, when I got to the wedding scene, and that cataclysmic revelation, I literally yelled. And then Charlotte takes us away from Thornfield for about a third or so of the novel, leaving us to believe the situation won’t be resolved!? I was livid. So many moments in that novel had me either laughing or excited or ready to throw the book out the window of a moving vehicle that I had to get myself to a library and find everything she and her sisters had written.
When I read the final page of Charlotte’s Villette, I knew I’d found the greatest writer in English literature. Hands down. It just doesn’t get any better than this: “That storm roared frenzied for seven days. It did not cease till the Atlantic was strewn with wrecks: it did not lull till the deeps had gorged their full sustenance. Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work, would he fold his wings whose waft was thunder—the tremor of whose plumes was storm….Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life.”
The hero died. That’s rich.
And Charlotte had an intriguing life as well. Her personal tragedies mirrored her work. I had the opportunity to visit Haworth Parsonage a couple years ago and as I entered her bedroom, I felt overwhelmed with sadness. It was incredibly moving for me to be in that space where she once breathed and thought about her professor in Brussels and wrote her letters to him…
Q: How many books have you written and what are the subjects?
A: I have three books completed. Choices Meant for Gods is the first fantasy novel, and it is on shelves now. The second book in the Choices trilogy is also complete and in the editing stage. I’m still working on Book III. I wrote a bizarre little paranormal romance novel that my publisher will probably raise an eyebrow over when we get through the Choices trilogy and prequel. All of these belong under the speculative fiction umbrella, but the Choices trilogy is high, epic fantasy.
Q: If you could pick out anyone to read and comment on your book, whom would you pick and why?
A: This answer should stir some controversy. I’m an enormous Duran Duran fan, and others as obsessed as I am will find cleverly concealed references to Duran “items” woven into the fabric of Choices Meant for Gods. I’d like to have John Taylor, the dashing bass player for the band, read the story and comment. I wonder how many of the references my Constantine Heger would catch…
Q: What would you like to have your readers get from this book?
A: I’ve actually prepared a press release about this subject because I hope readers catch the subtle idea that acceptance and tolerance are important, vital characteristics of “good” people. I didn’t set out to write a moral or didactic piece that would right the 21st century’s wrongs, but there is an underlying feeling in Choices Meant for Gods that characters who accept one another and who love one another despite differences of opinion, despite differences of lifestyle, despite differences of skill level with the geasa, etc., are the characters who represent right. An article about this concept/theme is posted here.
Q: Is this book part of a series? Any plans?
Choices Meant for Gods is Book I of the Choices trilogy. Book II is written and in editing. Book III is under way and my muse, Nigel Taiman, keeps me shackled to the desk… I also have a prequel to the series under way and a couple of stories that could be novellas based on the characters and history I created for the fantasy world.
Q: What is your favorite part of the book?
A: Oh my, I only get to pick one part? I’m so keen on every scene Nigel and Chariss have together… I guess I’d have to pick something heartwarming, wouldn’t I, although I was overjoyed by the action scene my publisher selected for the inside front cover flap. You know, as odd as this may sound to my readers, I think my favorite part (tonight) is the scene upon Chariss’s return to Hleo-Arcana when her dragon companion (whom no one knows visits her, by the way) lands on her balcony asking where she’s been, and she ends up falling peacefully asleep in his wings. That scene speaks volumes.
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