Featured Interview With S.J. Hartland
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m an Australian journalist who grew up in tropical north Queensland. It’s cyclone-prone and hot all year around. In contrast, I now live on the Darling Downs, Queensland. It’s high up and cold, which is tricky for a north Queenslander who thinks the next ice age is upon us if the temperature drops below 30 degrees celsius.
I’m a fencer, with a keen interest in medieval history, and I’ve thus spent too many holidays wandering around obscure castles all over the world.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I remember my mother reading Treasure Island to me when I was about five and impatiently finding the book later so I could finish it.
My love for fantasy started with the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, progressing to amazing books like Dune and of course Game of Thrones. I was an early reader of GOT and at the time wondered why I was writing fantasy, when GRR was creating such an amazing world.
But a line from an author in a Queensland Writers Centre magazine resonated (and, sorry to that author, I can’t remember who said it), but it was along the lines of, you write the book that only you can write.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love fantasy; everyone from GRR to Mark Lawrence. Recently, I devoured the Captive Prince series by C.S. Pacat. It’s deliciously dark and rather steamy.
I also really enjoy a good adventure story (The Count of Monte Cristo is a favourite) and a good thriller.
Gregg Hurwitz hooked me on his character Evan Smoak on the very first page of Orphan X. The second in the series, The Nowhere Man, is never leaving my house (no, you can’t borrow it!!) In an ideal world, Gregg would write an Orphan X book a month so I could permanently live in Evan’s world. There’s such a wonderful vulnerability to his character.
I lived rather than read Stephan Grundy’s Rhinegold and love to death Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The 19th Bladesman is about a young warrior, Kaell, whose duty is to die young. But fate has something far more lethal in mind.
If Kaell breaks, the kingdom breaks with him. And prophecy says the 19th Bladesman will break.
When a banished god escapes his centuries-old prison, even Kaell’s lord, Val Arques, can protect the young warrior from the dark prophecy awaiting him. For Val has a dangerous secret…
It’s a story of betrayal, of dark plots, dark magic and characters with even darker secrets.
Yet within the battles, the ambushes, the scheming and machinations as lords, kings, queens, gods and priestesses all fight for power, at its heart, The 19th Bladesman is about fatherhood.
It’s the first in the Shadow Sword series (the second book, The Last Seer King, comes out in July).
It’s set in a world of poetry and song, but also bloodshed, treachery and betrayal, with complex, conflicted characters.
I wrote the first three books together over about a decade. The fourth is at the first-draft stage.
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