Co-Writing Fantasy and Having Fun With It - Tessa Gratton - Chaos & Flame / Blood & Fury Duology

Marissa chats with Tessa Gratton about her new YA fantasy, BLOOD & FURY, the sequel to CHAOS & FLAME, co-written with Justina Ireland. Also discussed: building social justice and important topics into fantasy while also making a book fun, how working on different projects concurrently can be both challenging and inspiring, creating inspiration lists (inspired by ID Lists from past guest Jennifer Lynn Barnes), the process of co-writing and editing each other, pros and cons of writing with a partner, worldbuilding, and so much more!

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Transcript

[00:12] Marissa: Hello and welcome to the Happy writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers more books to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I am your host, Marissa Meyer. Thanks so much for joining me. One thing making me happy today, the classic PB and j sandwich. Not like particularly one of my favorite foods, although I do like me some peanut butter. But just that this was one of those mornings. Remember like three weeks ago when we had that episode all about trying to strike a really healthy writing life balance? Well, this was one of those days that has tested me. And so the last few hours, just running around, trying to finish up school for the day, trying to get the house in order, my sourdough starter exploded overnight. Not like a literal explosion, but it made a huge mess all over the kitchen counter and then answering emails and trying to prepare for this interview. And just like, it's just been one of those days. And then 20 minutes ago, as I'm like, okay, gotta go get ready for this podcast. And then you have that realization that, oh, I also need to feed the children, which I admit I forget, like on a fairly regular basis, that I have to feed them like a lot, like multiple times a day. So thank heavens for peanut butter and jelly or almond butter and jelly, sunflower seed and jelly. Like any combination therein, it is a lifesaver on days like this. I am also, of course, so happy to be talking to today's guest. They're the New York Times bestselling author of the Queens of Innes, Lear and Lady Hotspur, as well as several YA series and short stories. Their most recent YA novels include strange Grace and Nightshine, as well as novels for Star the High Republic. Their newest novel, Blood and the sequel to the Chaos and Flame duology, co written with Justina Ireland, came out earlier this month. Please welcome Tessa Grattan. Hi.

[02:25] Tessa: I'm really excited to be here today.

[02:27] Marissa: Hello. Thank you so much for joining me. We were sadly not able to get Justina today. She is overwhelmed with two books coming out, which is just bonkers. So I understand that her time's at a premium, but I'm super excited to talk to you.

[02:45] Tessa: I'm really excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm excited to talk about blood and fury.

[02:51] Marissa: Yeah, no, I have loved this series. It has been so fun, so epic. Just like the fantasy that I was craving this summer or spring? Summer. It feels like summer right now because it's really warm today. No, I so enjoyed it. I'm so excited to talk to you about it.

[03:09] Tessa: I'm really glad to hear that, because that is why we wrote it, both because we wanted to have fun writing, and also we wanted to give readers something that was just as much fun as we could possibly pack in.

[03:22] Marissa: Well, it is a lot of fun. There's a lot going on. You definitely packed a lot into a two book series. But before we get into talking about the book and the new release, the first thing I actually want to hear about is your author origin story. What brought you here?

[03:39] Tessa: I have always been a writer. I've written since I was. I probably in, like, fourth or fifth grade, just writing stories down, thinking I was writing novels and that kind of thing. But it didn't occur to me when I was that young that you could be a writer as your career, like, you could make a living. That that's something people did. And so I went to school and graduate school focused on gender studies and public policy and politics with every intention of going into politics and becoming, like, a feminist lobbyist and really fighting and arguing to make the world more just. And it turned out that while I really liked studying all of that stuff and learning about it, politics is terrible, you may have noticed.

[04:37] Marissa: Why. Whatever do you mean?

[04:38] Tessa: Yeah, it's such a, you know, pure game. But I realized when I was in my second year of graduate school that I didn't like the person I was becoming. I was angry all the time, which was easy to be. The world is a really angry making place. There is just so much horrible things and people doing horrible things. But I didn't think I could sustain what I had thought would be my career and also be a good person. And I was like, well, how can I fight for justice when I'm, like, a terrible person and don't have any friends? And so I really sat down with myself, and I thought really hard about other ways I could make the world a better place. And when I asked myself how come I was so devoted to fighting injustice and to making the world better, I realized that it was two things. First of all, my parents were great, and they raised me to ask questions about that world like that. And then it was the books that I read when I was a teenager, predominantly. And I was like, well, I've always loved writing. I still love reading. I wonder if I can write the kind of books that will make future tessas who are wanting to also make the world better. And I gave myself five years to become a published author, and I set about it really systematically. And I wrote four books in those five years. Learning how to get better and better. And with the last one, I got an agent, and we sold it and haven't looked back since.

[06:33] Marissa: I love that. What a powerful motivation. Do you remember any of the books that were particularly influential to you?

[06:44] Tessa: It was almost entirely science fiction and fantasy books, mostly adult. What was considered adult books then and would also be now by writers like Ursula Le Guin and, like, even Michael Crichton and Anne Rice. Like, books that aren't. You wouldn't necessarily think, oh, these books are about social justice. But, you know, as a whole, they really made me question humanity and different worlds and different ways that the world can be. So it really was just a whole wash of books. And my parents are both big readers and especially loved science fiction history. And so those were the kind of books that were always laying around. So really, I can lay this all at the feet of all of the science fiction books published in the eighties and nineties.

[07:43] Marissa: Oh, that's so great. And it's like that whole the eighties and, like, all of the disturbance utopian. I feel like so much. Yeah, don't do this, humans.

[07:54] Tessa: Right, right.

[07:55] Marissa: So I think it's so interesting because, I mean, I agree 100%. Books do have this power, and one of the greatest things that we get from books are, you know, seeing the world through the eyes of different characters and being able to explore different, you know, ideas and all of this. And I do think they can be life changing at the same time. Earlier in this talk, you'd mentioned that with this book, with blood and fury and this duology, that you and Justina wanted to have fun with it and just, like, really enjoy the writing process. Is there any conflict there between wanting to write a book that is fun and fun for you to write versus also wanting to write something that might help change the world?

[08:38] Tessa: I, to be honest, I really have struggled with this, and I do think the answer is no, there is not conflict there. I think that we can make there be conflict. And the way that people talk about certain kind of books versus other kinds of books certainly presumes that a book can either be fun or seriously question the world. But Justina and I, both, in our solo work, really frequently grapple with pretty big topics, you know, homophobia, racism, war, all these kinds of things, and from a teenage perspective, more often than not. And so, you know, when we sat down to really decide if we were going to do this, make what would eventually become chaos and flame, we were like, okay, what do we really want to do here? Are we just emotionally exhausted from writing about these things. And then, you know, it makes it harder for me, at least when, you know, you get certain kinds of reviews and it's just like, well, you completely missed what I was trying to do. Maybe I didn't try to do it well enough. And so I guess part of my motivation was, well, all I'm trying to do in this one is that fun. So it doesn't really like reader reactions to it don't really bother me as much, which is fascinating to me and only tangential to the actual question you ask, I realize. But when Justine and I started making a list of the things we wanted to put in this, it was lots of things, like big monsters, lots of kissing, you know, a mad prince, like all of these tropes that we love and we knew we would have fun with, but we were also like war and reparations and, you know, all of these other things that are not fun topics, but we just, they're part of our natural writer imagination playground by guests. And so we are drawing on those things. And it's not that we're trying to make war fun, it's just like, how can we write an epic story about the end of a war? And, you know, things that are, you know, how, how wars can end, maybe. And so I guess we kind of really failed. I'm just making it fun in a lot of ways.

[11:20] Marissa: I don't think you failed. I think, and I thought your answer was fantastic, because I know for me personally, when I first started writing and first started having books published, I was shocked at how many readers would respond to things with things like, this changed my life or this made me look at the world in a different way, look at prejudice in a different way. All of these firsthand accounts of the power that my books were having when, like, from my perspective, I was just trying to write like a silly space opera that would be to read. And so, I mean, I think to your point that the two things are not mutually exclusive is such an important thing to recognize. Like, it can be fun, it can be exciting, it can be romantic, and it can also tackle big, important, thought provoking topics. And those two things do not have to be divided. And, in fact, I think they're probably better when they're not.

[12:18] Tessa: I think that is exactly right, that it's better when there is some of both. And I know that based on what I like to read. So it's strange to me that it was like a real learning process as a writer for me to come to understand that. Yeah. And you know, Justina and I came up with chaos and flame. We did the whole outline, and we're just starting to put the sample pages together. When we were on a retreat that turned out to be the last retreat before the world shut down for the pandemic. And so even though we conceptualized of it, when we thought, you know, everything was going to be the same old publishing and living, then all of a sudden, we were all in lockdown, and a lot of writers had to re examine our relationship with writing and publishing and publicity and, like, all these kind of things that everyone was going through. But it was really specific for writers, and it really helped Justina and I to have already started not only a project that we had promised each other we were going to keep working on, but one that was supposed to be fun. So we were supposed to, like, get into this headspace where, no, I want to do this. I don't have to do this. I'm doing it because I want to. I still love writing. I still want to publish this book. I still want to talk to my writer friends.

[13:55] Marissa: Yeah.

[13:56] Tessa: And it really helped both of us in that initial few months of lockdown.

[14:02] Marissa: Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm making assumption, an assumption that at no point in time was this the one project either of you were working on. You both also had other things in the works. Is that correct?

[14:16] Tessa: Correct. Yeah, correct.

[14:19] Marissa: Because I found that it's really helpful sometimes if you have a lot of projects, and sometimes writing is fun, sometimes it feels like a lot more work. But to have a. A side project that is kind of just pure passion and maybe doesn't have the pressures of a book contract or a deadline under it that you can kind of escape to and just play with for a little while. For me, I find that that can help then reinspire my other projects. Did you find that to be real for you as well?

[14:56] Tessa: I did. For the most part. I have always been very bad at working on different projects. At the same time, I really need, I prefer to have, you know, a chunk of weeks to devote to one project, and then I switch to a different project, whether they're very fundamentally different or similar to each other. It's just something about my creative process, but I'm trying to develop saying better habits, maybe just different habits, because also during the pandemic, a really good writer friend of mine, Adid Karam, started every day doing one writing sprint on a book that was just for him. You know, he would just. So it was just like a 20 minutes sprint first thing in the morning before he really got into the work of being a published writer and working on his contracted book. And, you know, it was just the 20 little minutes. And he said that it was so freeing. And by the end of a year, he had a full manuscript of this fun book that he, you know, that he had written on spec and just for himself. And, you know, no matter what may or may not happen with that book, it was his. And as soon as he finished that one, he started another one. And so he still does this every day. He has this little fun project, and that is this summer starting. It was supposed to start in May, but I had, you know, deadlines that messed that up. I'm going to try and start doing that where I just work for, like, 120 minutes, sprint in the morning before I do my emails on a book that is just for me and just fun and see if I can teach my brain to work on two projects at one.

[16:48] Marissa: Yeah.

[16:49] Tessa: In a, in a positive way.

[16:52] Marissa: Yeah. Well, I'll be curious. I want to hear a year from now what you think of that experiment. I would be curious.

[16:59] Tessa: Sounds good.

[17:00] Marissa: Yeah. Just like. And just as a quick side note, Adib was a guest on this podcast talking about his book, the breakup list, fairly recently. So just. We'll just throw that out there for people who are like, he sounds like a really cool smart guy. I want to go hear more about his books.

[17:16] Tessa: Yeah.

[17:19] Marissa: All right. So before we get too, too much farther off topic, would you please tell listeners, what is this duology? Chaos and flame. And now blood and fury about chaos.

[17:32] Tessa: And flame takes place in a pretty small nation that has been at war for over a hundred years. And the political system is divided into six, I think, different houses that are all ruled by a particular monster. There is dragon and Griffin and cockatrice and barghest and sphinx, and then there's the phoenix, who doesn't have their own house, but is the peacekeeper amongst all of these? And 100 years ago, the ruler of House dragon killed the spaniard, or, excuse me, the phoenix. And that was part of what set off this hundred years of war. And the book cast. And flame picks up with the two main characters. Darling, who is an assassin for house Spinks, though she was born in. Oh, am I getting this wrong? That is, she was born into House Sphinx, but she's an assassin for House Kraken. Her entire family was massacred by House dragon, and so she really wants revenge against them and believes that they should all be destroyed. And then Talon, who is the war prince for House Dragon. He is the younger brother of the current ruler of the house, and he really hates war. He's really good at it, but he thinks it's just devastating and bad and only hurts people, including his own family. Partly because his older brother is considered to be a mad prince, because he has these wild visions and has painted this one young woman who has no eyes or it looks like she has eyes, like a raging storm or, like bottomless pits or moons, that kind of thing. And he's just. Talon is really worried. And one day, Talon and darling come face to face in a fight, and Talon recognizes that darling is the girl that his brother has been painting for their whole lives. And so instead of killing her, he kidnaps her and takes her back to his older brother. And that sets off all kinds of political scheming and an attempt to stop the war.

[19:57] Marissa: All right, so it is the two books were finished at a duology, is that correct? Correct. So it's a really fun series and has so many things in it that I love as a lover of, like, the hero's journey and epic quests and great world building, like, the different countries, I guess. Do we call them countries? Territories?

[20:25] Tessa: Territories is closer.

[20:26] Marissa: Yeah, yeah. That they visit and how they all have such great personalities and, like, clearly inspired by these different mythical creatures. It's really fun. And the romance is so good. I loved, loved the romance. So, okay, so where do we want to start? So, first of all, you kind of talked about scheming about this book and coming up with it in part on a writing retreat. Where. How did this even get started?

[20:54] Tessa: Started?

[20:54] Marissa: Like, whose idea was it? Had you talked about co writing something in the past? How did the birth of this story begin?

[21:02] Tessa: Justina and I had talked about co writing something for, I don't know, somewhere around two ish years. And we put together a proposal around that time for something that never went anywhere. It didn't really click for either one of us, even though we were excited. So we're like, okay, let's try something else. And we played around with another idea, and we were leaning more and more toward an epic romantic fantasy and with, like, different monsters and things like that, but we just don't really know the story exactly what we wanted to tell. And we kept making lists of things we love and, like, okay, well, put that in. Put that in. But where's the spark? Like, we didn't have that one thing that would tie it all together and let us know, oh, this is the arc. This is it. And then I just laugh every time I tell this story because what actually happened is one morning Justina called me and I answered and she says, tess, you're never going to believe it, but I know exactly about the main character for this book. And it's because I had a dream about it.

[22:23] Marissa: I love dream stories.

[22:26] Tessa: I said, do you know who else had a dream? And then wrote a novel? Stephanie Meyer. And then she almost hung up on me. So she basically dreamed about some of the first images of darling, about her history and her being in the darkness. And that's where darling's eyes came from and her particular magic and, like, the arc of what we needed to do. And that from there, we just like, kind of spooled it all out in a lot of ways. I made Talon as a, as a foil and purposefully as a love interest for darling, but then made him his own main character. Second, basically.

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Marissa: So you've brought up this idea of making lists a couple of times. And I adore this because I keep what I call my inspirations list. It's probably like six pages long at this point. Just random things that I like in books and I like in stories and tropes that I enjoy writing and character quirks and all of this. So is this the idea of making lists of things that you wanted to include in this book? Is this something that you have done in the past? Or was it kind of Justina, something that she brought in? Where did that come from?

[24:37] Tessa: I had done it a little bit in the past, though less successfully. The idea came from Jen Lynn Barnes.

[24:47] Marissa: Oh, yeah.

[24:48] Tessa: Talk on ids.

[24:50] Marissa: Id.

[24:50] Tessa: The id list? Yes, the id list. And so I, you know, watched that talk, I don't know, eight years ago, whenever it was first made available, a long, long time ago. And I think about ids and my ids as a writer and like all that kind of stuff, I won't get too much into it, but everyone should go listen to that talk. And so when I wanted to write a book that was only fun, theoretically, only fun. I knew I needed to make a list like that and I think I probably semi bullied Justina into it. I can't really remember.

[25:29] Marissa: So you have this idea. What was the process? Did you come up with a very detailed outline? How much did you know about book two when you started writing book one? How thorough was your, your preparation work for writing this?

[25:47] Tessa: We did a really brief outline initially when we were working out the story, and then wrote just based on that, the first, maybe like 70 pages, whatever we ended up going out with to sell it, the sample pages for our proposal. And it's really like the first mini act of the book. And we didn't really have more of an outline at that point. But then as part of writing the synopsis, in order to hopefully sell it, we made a much more detailed chapter outline and then turned that into a synopsis together. And that synopsis was really long and really detailed. But it was only for book one and for book two. We basically ignored it until we had to write it, which I don't recommend. So, um, yeah, we said it's, there's going to be a book too, because obviously if anyone has read chaos and flame, it ends on a pretty big cliffhanger. And that was always the goal. That was one of the first things we decided on after, uh, Justina figured out darling. We were like, well, this is where this book has to end. And we were like, yay, cliffhanger. Because neither one of us are particularly cliffhangery writing writers. We both write a lot of standalones, honestly, and so you can't do that in a standalone. So we were very excited to have a sequel so that we could be as like, shocking and fun as possible with the ending of book one. But then we were very hand wavy about what would happen in book two until we had to outline it. We divided it. Justina wrote Darling and I wrote Talon. And so it was very straightforward, not like, so Justina and I have written some Star wars books together also, and those are not just two narrators, so it gets a lot more complicated. Also, for Star wars reasons, it gets more complicated. But with chaos and flame, it was just the two of us. We really could simplify it as much as we wanted to. And she would write a darling chapter and then send it to me, and I would read through that and write a Talon chapter, send it back to her, and we just passed it back and forth like that until we had a full draft. Every once in a while, one of us would say, like, I would say Justina, I'm going to edit this kiss because it needs to be sexier. And Justina would say, tessa, I'm going to edit this action because it doesn't make any sense. So we did edit each other's chapters in some ways like that, but for the most part, we didn't have to.

[28:45] Marissa: So is it fair to say that if someone's listening and they're working on the first book of a duology, would one piece of advice be, like, maybe think a little bit about the next book?

[28:57] Tessa: I think that less about the plot, but I am not the kind of writer who thinks about the plot until, like, the third draft because I'm a terrible monster. I only care about relationships and world. But I would say if you're working on book one of anything, that you should definitely think about the ramifications of your world building and the, you know, how that all works and what you might want to do in book two before it's in print.

[29:34] Marissa: Yeah. Were there some things that ended up in book one that you. Sounds like you maybe had some regrets. You're like, wow, that really complicated things for us later.

[29:45] Tessa: Yeah, there were a couple of things that. It's not that we needed to, like, retcon anything, but there are. There was, like, two things in blood and fury where we both worked really hard to come up with a plausible explanation for why what happened could happen, because it's what we wanted to happen. So, you know, like, if we weren't so fixated on, no, we're only gonna do things we want in these books, we probably could have come up with easier solutions. You know, we wanted a giant monster at the end of blood and fury. I hope it's not a spoiler. There's a lot of monsters, and, you know, we. So we had to be like, oh, how can this happen? Because didn't we say this was the only way for this to happen in book one? Oh, curse. But the good thing about, like, characters uncovering secret histories is you can do a lot with a secret history.

[30:47] Marissa: Yeah. Sometimes it works for you, and sometimes it works against you. Sometimes, like, hey, remember that throwaway line I had in book one? It has just given me the perfect, like, foreshadowed this perfect thing that I had no idea I was going to do until now.

[30:59] Tessa: Exactly.

[31:00] Marissa: Sometimes you're like, oh, I wish I would have written this prophecy a little bit different.

[31:05] Tessa: Oh, God, prophecies are the worst prophecies.

[31:08] Marissa: I know I haven't written, like, straight prophecies, but I've done a lot of like curses in this sort of thing. And it's like once you explain how the magic works or how it gets broken or fixed or whatever, then you're like, now I have to actually do that.

[31:22] Tessa: Yep.

[31:24] Marissa: So you've both, you've now, of course, co written and worked as a team. You of course, have also written standalones or. Yeah, standalone but solo work, done your own work. Pros and cons. Like, what are some things that you really liked about working with a partner? And were there any drawbacks to it?

[31:44] Tessa: Well, the most obvious pro is it is literally half the work. So, you know, you divide and conquer when it comes to even things like copy edits, you know, of certain things came from our publisher and I was in between deadlines, but Justina was traveling. I could just do it and vice versa. You know, we did that. It was great, you know, and the amount of drafting. And also Justina and I work really well together when it comes to bouncing ideas off of each other. And we both are, we're both good at different things. Like, we're good at some of the same basic things, but, you know, we each have our strengths and weaknesses and we really balance each other out in that way, which is so important. And it just made it so seamless. Let's see, console similar, you know, like, you can't just do whatever you want. And sometimes scheduling is a little bit of a problem, especially because, like you mentioned, we both have, always have other projects going on and, you know, last year was a little bit nightmarish because the books that we were writing in competition with blood and fury, we were also writing together. So it was just, it got just really like maybe kind of a little messy where we're just like, oh, my God, what are we even doing anymore? Why did we agree to do this? I don't even want to talk to you for a week.

[33:22] Marissa: It was supposed to be so much fun. Exactly.

[33:26] Tessa: And, you know, that is really, that happened because we enjoyed it so much. We agreed to do a lot together in a little amount of time. And let's see. Oh, you know, I think my favorite pro was when I was struggling. I could just think, okay, this next paragraph, I'm just going to see if I can make Justina laugh or, you know, I want to see if I can get a reaction from her. And so it was really nice to actually have a really specific audience instead of, you know, getting overwhelmed with, I don't, I don't even know if people are going to like this. I don't know if it's going to work, is this going to mess something up in the sequel? Like that kind of thing, I could really fall back on. Okay. But this was our mission. I want to make sure that this chapter, Justina has a fun time reading it. And so that was really great to have that to fall back on on a rough day.

[34:24] Marissa: Yeah, no, I like that. And, I mean, I can see how that sort of mentality could work, even if one isn't working with a co writer, like, you know, just trying to go into chapter and thinking, okay, I want to make the reader laugh, or I want to make the reader swoon, or I want to make myself laugh or swoon, you know? Yeah. Just like a good way to approach writing on any given day, definitely. All right, so I do want to touch, at least briefly on world building before we move on to our bonus round, because it is a really fun world, but relatively complicated for a two book series we've mentioned there's territories, there's this big war that's been going on, lots of different factions, allies, political intrigue, magic systems, prophecy. There's these, what you call boons, which are essentially like little superpowers that some people have and some people don't, and some people's. Their boons are complicated. So, world building, how much work did the two of you do together, creating the world versus how much of it kind of developed as you were writing, but then kind of adjacent to that? Who kept track of it all? How did you keep track of it all?

[35:37] Tessa: Well, we put the big pieces in place when we were initially brainstorming the project at that writing retreat, like the different kinds of houses and what the magic, how that was going to work with the boons and, you know, picked boons for a couple of important characters and just some general, like, okay, well, you know, house Dragon is in the north, so they're, you know, they have. They have mountains and it's cold, and, you know, that will affect who they are as a people. And then house Sphinx is in the south, and it's a. A little bit arid, almost deserty. So that'll affect this, like, big pieces like that we put in. We had a. I think it was a Google Doc that we could both add to just for those big things. And then really all the details happened while we were writing, and we would sometimes fill in names and details into that Google Doc, but somewhere around halfway through the drafting process, we both stopped doing that. Though at that point, most of the world building was at least shallowly in place, and yeah, we just kind of tried to let ourselves have fun with it and do the like. Yes and yes. And. Which I think is why it ended up so complicated, because we both. We both love world building and love adding little details like that. And, you know, Justina did a little bit more with the boons, and I did a little bit more with the Drakes, which are the. The war Drakes and the different kinds of dragons that they have. And then we both just. Whichever one of us was writing the chapter where the main characters got to house Griffin would write, would make up everything about House Griffin, essentially. And then whoever wrote the chapter when they got to house Barghest would make up most of the details about house Barguest, around those big points that we had initially invented. So it was very fluid and dynamic. And I will say, when it came to revisions, we basically didn't change the plot at all. And, like, the main character arcs, none of that changed. What we really had to do was smooth out the arrows in the world. Building like this points to this. And this is why it's important, like, queuing for readers. Here's details you should pay attention to. Here are details that are just pretty because it's nice that the Drakes have feathers, you know, like that kind of thing. And so that's what we did. The most revising was the world. And, you know, like I said, justine and I both love big world books. So it was pretty inevitable that chaos and flame and blood and fury would have a big world. We tried to curtail that into slices instead, that hint at how big the world actually is, instead of really letting ourselves dig into exploring all of those little details.

[38:59] Marissa: No. And that makes sense because, of course, we're only getting to glimpse it through the eyes of these characters. So you can only take in so much at once. It definitely has that feel that not only is it expansive, but there's also a long history here, and you kind of just pick up on that through the narration. And it was really, really well done. I so enjoyed it.

[39:19] Tessa: I would continue to read in this world.

[39:22] Marissa: Maybe there'll be more someday.

[39:24] Tessa: Maybe someday.

[39:25] Marissa: All right, are you ready for our bonus round?

[39:29] Tessa: Yes.

[39:31] Marissa: What book makes you happy?

[39:33] Tessa: The best of all possible worlds by Karen Ward. It is a science fiction, a pretty slim science fiction novel that came out several years ago. I'm not. I can't remember when, but it is. It starts off with this intergalactic tragedy where basically a whole planet gets destroyed and it kills the whole people who live there. And so the only survivors are the people who were off world at the time. So it creates this huge galactic diaspora. And so it starts with this horrible thing. But then the story itself is about a handful of these survivors coming to another planet where they know that a long time ago, people from their home world came and joined in different communities and married in or created their own little nations and that kind of thing. And they're basically on this long road trip around the planet to find the remnants of their culture, to see if they can rebuild their own specific community. And it's really, it's nicely paced, and it has one of the sweetest, like, gentlest romances threaded through that when, like, that moment where the romance really comes together. I just, like, had to put the book down and just sit in my feelings, which were so overwhelmingly, like, happy. I was just so happy about how that romance happened and how Karen Lord is a genius writer. She writes exquisitely in this really delicate way. And so she deals with lots of hard things and lots of joyful things with this really, like, delicate hand. And so it's just like, I don't know. I always feel like I'm coming home when I'm reading this book about an alien world with all kinds of weird alien stuff.

[41:43] Marissa: Oh, my gosh. You really just sold that book. I will.

[41:46] Tessa: It's amazing. Everyone should read it.

[41:49] Marissa: What are you working on next?

[41:52] Tessa: I am currently revising a solo project. It is an adult epic fantasy trilogy. The first book is called the Mercy Makers, and it will come out next year from orbit. I'm very excited about it. I've been working on the world for, like 3013 years, and it is about a young woman who is a prodigy with this dangerous, forbidden magic called human architecture. And so she's a criminal because what she does is illegal. And she is drawn in to the intrigue of the imperial palace and basically has to not only survive, but get what she wants. And it really is about power and sex and how that influences both good and bad, like politics and imperialism and things like that. It's a really sexy book, if I do say so myself.

[42:57] Marissa: Oh, my gosh. That sounds so fun. Epic and sexy.

[43:01] Tessa: Yes.

[43:03] Marissa: Lastly, where can people find you?

[43:06] Tessa: I am on my website@tessagratin.com. Dot. I'm also occasionally on Twitter essagratin, though that is not the best place to find me. That would be Instagram, and I am Essa Gratton on Instagram, and I'm most active there.

[43:27] Marissa: Awesome. Tessa, thank you so much for joining me.

[43:30] Tessa: Oh, thank you for having me. It's been delightful.

[43:32] Marissa: Readers. Definitely check out this epic duology, chaos and flame, and, it seems, sequel blood and fury. Of course, we encourage you to support your local indie bookstore, but if you don't have a local indie, you can check out our affiliate store@bookshop.org, shop. Marissa Meyer next week I will be chatting with Alexine Farrell Fulmouth about her new Ya romcom 12th night. Please follow us on Instagram happywriterpodcast. And don't forget to leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. Also, check out our merchandise on etsy, Instagram and teepublic. Until next time, stay inspired, keep writing, and whatever life throws at you today, I hope that now you're feeling a little bit happier.