An interview with Author Jess Lourey by Cheryl G. (Poncer)

Cheryl: Congratulations on the release of your new book and thank you for coming back for another interview with us, we are so glad to have you have agreed to join us again!

I thoroughly enjoyed your new book, The Toadhouse Trilogy: Book One. I am someone who has never read fantasy books, but having read your Murder of the Month series, I am a huge fan of your writing. I thought this book would be an opportunity for my first foray into this genre. And I was completely drawn in from the first sentence, “The sky is the color of blueberries and cream”. Your descriptive style of writing is such a great fit for Fantasy writing. 

Jess: Thank you! I know how many amazing books you have on your to-be-read pile, and I really appreciate being pushed to the top of it. 🙂

Cheryl: Young Adult Fantasy is not your usual genre, where did this story come from?

Jess: I grew up reading mysteries and fantasy, and both of them feel like comfort food for the brain to me. The specific The idea for the The Toadhouse Trilogy came from the alchemy of these three things: 1) reading Cornelia Funke‘s Inkheart series, Mary Pope Osborne‘s Magic Treehouse series, and Suzanne Collins‘ The Hunger Games series, 2) a sense that I was shortchanging myself by not reading the classics outside of college, and 3) raising two amazing kids, an older sister and her younger brother. All three factors were rolling around in my life the same year, and I had a thought: what if a sister and brother one day realized they’d been living in fiction all along, and they had to travel into their favorite classics to save themselves? That idea snowballed, and from it, The Toadhouse Trilogy was born. Books are magic.

Cheryl: Was it a difficult transition switching from writing for adults with a sense of humor, to writing for a young audience?

Jess: Less so than I thought it would be. Kids are smart, a lot smarter than some of us old broads. 🙂

Cheryl: Your protagonist, Aine is quite an amazing young woman. She is strong and independent, with a bit of naivety and cynicism tossed in to make her absolutely believable. Was she harder to create than your other leading lady, Mira James, from your Murder of the Month series?  

Jess: Absolutely harder! What a great question. See, I based Mira on me, sort of a bionic (in both failures and successes) version of me, and so when I’m not sure where to take her, I just look around. Aine, however, is her own person. She’s got a little of my daughter in her, but otherwise, she’s created out of whole cloth. It took me two massive rewrites to stop trying to control her and just follow her through the story.

Cheryl: You reference some great classic literature in your story. And your characters get to interact with characters from these classics. How did you choose what stories they visit? Do you have a personal favorite among the stories they visit?

Jess: The short answer is that I chose only books published before 1926, which means they’re in the public domain and I won’t get sued for using them. The long answer is that I chose books that I always wished I had read, or read and loved, and looked for ways to weave them into my plot. I end up absolutely loving every one I use—otherwise I wouldn’t let them into the Toadhouse—but my favorite in the first book is actually Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s a clever story about the duality of humans, but also, Stevenson’s version never says exactly how Mr. Hyde dies. I got to capitalize on that in my story by writing the “real” ending.

Cheryl: Is there a story you would like to visit?

Jess: Truthfully, I want to visit EVERY story with a few rules: I don’t get tortured or die in them, and I get to leave when I want. What a better reality for a writer and a sociologist than to be able to REALLY ACTUALLY enter books? Sigh. I tell you what. The Toadhouse Trilogy is my love letter to fiction.

Cheryl: Tell us a bit about Gilgamesh. Like the ancient king of Uruk he is named for, will he ever be “brought to peace”?

Jess:  Gorgeous question. Gilgamesh is believed by many to be the first book ever written, which is why I chose him as the pilot through stories. He’s also a haunted man who has to live with the most painful of mistakes. He’s complex, and I’m not sure if peace is in his future. I do know that he and Aine begin to fall hard for each other, though, and I have mixed feelings about that.

Cheryl: The other characters in the book, Gloriana, Spencer, Tru and Mondegreen, how did you come to decide on their names?

Jess: I gave all the fairies names that are actually literary terms (Mondegreen, Kenning, Tone). The rest of the characters’ names are based on literary figures or actual authors, and you’ll have to read through to the end of the trilogy to find out who is whom. 😉

Cheryl: Literary terms? Can you expound on this a bit?

Jess: See, this answer might make me sound smarter than I am. I Googled “literary terms” and arrived at an awesome list of words, many of which I was reading for the first time (this, despite a Master’s degree in English. For example, a kenning is a usually compound and abstract term used in place of a single noun. This is an example from the Free Online Dictionary: “for example, storm of swords is a kenning for battle.” Great word, right? So, I made Kenning the name of a fairy in Toadhouse, and gave all the rest of the fairies literary terms for names that also match their personalities. You’ll have to read the whole trilogy to find out why fairies have names that are also literary terms. 🙂

Cheryl: And parts two and three? Are they in the works? Will Aine still retain her starring role? Will Gilgamesh return?

Jess: Gilgamesh, Aine, and her brother Spenser will be in all three books, and Aine will retain her starring role. Like many of us, though, she has some hard decisions to make, decisions that will forever alter her relationship with Gilgamesh and Spenser.

Cheryl: This is the first book that you have self-published, can you tell us a bit about that process and what you did to make this a successful self-published book?

Jess: Eek. Yes, this is my first self-publishing adventure, and I’m not sure yet if it’s a success. All the major publishing houses loved my concept for this book, and once they read it, they also said they loved the plot and characters. However, to a house, they said they couldn’t get teens interested in classic literature and so couldn’t publish the book. I loved it too much to let it die, so I hired two professional editors (a content editor and a copyeditor), a professional interior designer, a professional cover designer, and a professional web designer. $6000 later, I feel like I have a book that is worth people’s time and money. It’s been out for a month, and it’s gotten great reviews but only sold around 200 copies. If you catch me at a weak moment,  I’ll tell you that some days I feel like I spent my entire savings on a pawful of magic beans.

Excellent question! 🙂 Readers can please support indie book sales by “liking” the book on its sales page and posting reviews wherever they hang out. Word of mouth is also a tremendous tool. A fairy gets its wings every time a reader spreads the good word about a book, and better yet, it means a writer is closer to being able to afford to keep on writing.

Cheryl: Did your research on fairies for this book provide you with any unexpected results?

Jess: Fairies play a very major role in The Toadhouse Trilogy, and I loved researching them. Katharine Briggs’ research into fairy folklore has been a great resource, and I just love the magic of them, and their rules, which are consistent throughout most of literature.

Cheryl: Have you met any fairies in real life? Are you yourself a fairy?

Jess: I do believe in the supernatural, and I hope someday to meet a fairy. If it has happened already, though, I’m afraid I missed it. I’ll do a better job keeping my eyes open!

Jess Lourey is the author of The Toadhouse Trilogy: Book One, the first in a young adult series that celebrates the danger and excitement of reading. She also writes the critically-acclaimed Murder-by-Month Mysteries for adults with a sense of humor. She’s been teaching writing and sociology at the college level since 1998. When not gardening, writing, or hanging out with her wonderful kids and dorky dog, you can find her reading, watching SyFy-channel original movies, and dreaming big.

This is Jess Lourey’s second interview with us here on the PBS Blog. You can read her interview with us about her Murder of the Month series here: Link

Find out more about Jess Lourey by visiting her website at www.jesslourey.com/toadhouse/index.html, visiting her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jess.lourey, or emailing her at jesslourey@yahoo.com.

Three lucky members who comment on this blog will win a copy of The Toadhouse Trilogy: Book One.

A winner will be chosen at random. Good Luck!