Cold Sanctuary centers on a pair on the run after they are accused of a crime they did not commit, as they separate: one joins forces with a highwayman, and the other seeks refuge among pacifist monks. What is the most rewarding aspect of writing a series?

Well, the Jake and Emilya threads are only two of ten, so Cold Sanctuary far from focuses on just those two characters. That said, Jake and Emilya are definitely the two most-loved characters amongst readers – but the storylines of the other eight characters are every bit as important, and I know that a number of readers are already excited as they are seeing signs of storylines converging – which a handful do before the end of this series. However, it is in the sequel to The Nessemiah that many threads will converge!

As to the most rewarding aspect of writing a series, it has to be the reward for patience and discipline. You have to get the pace right from beginning to end. Never rush. Slowly build the story, build your characters, build the authenticity of their world and their homes, and above all, make people love your cast, hate them, and even weep for them. If you do this, readers will genuinely miss your characters and pine for them when the book or series is finished. Other authors have certainly done that to me, and people have told me that The Nessemiah books have had the same effect on them, too.

I must also mention that written praise is rewarding, as well. It is a wonderful moment when all of your hard work is endorsed by the comments that you receive, especially when from true epic fantasy readers. There is no feeling to match someone praising the depth of your characters or the authenticity of your world-building; or, indeed, referring to you as “a master storyteller” as Literary Titan has here – and as have a number of others, too, for which I am deeply honoured.

Jake and Emilya spend much of the novel apart, moving through very different environments. Why was it important to separate them physically in this installment?

If you put yourself into the position of the hunted, it just makes sense to split them up. The move has the effect of drawing away Prince Magnus from Emilya and Elyse – and I must confess, it gave me the opportunity to have some fun with the roguish Harry Black and his two sidekicks, Swede and Turnip! Of course, what starts off as high jinks soon becomes much more serious.

And then on the other hand, the Emilya side of the story significantly brings on her relationship with her surrogate mother, Elyse, and that still remains the favourite relationship that I have built in The Nessemiah. It also presented the opportunity to put them both into the apparently peaceful setting at Kifsel Place Monastery – but with a permanent undertone of something being not quite right about it – culminating in the shocking ending to Cold Sanctuary, which I know has deeply affected a number of readers!

The looming presence of Nessemi creates a sense of inevitability. Did you think of it as a war, a prophecy, or something more existential?

I agree that Nessemi creates a sense of inevitability; that was always its intention, and that is why it is deliberately brought out into the open (for the reader) around three-quarters of the way through Book One (The Strains of Malice). Interestingly, there is an element of prophecy about Nessemi that comes later in the series – as in it was foretold – but there is certainly no element of war! And clearly, a two-mile-wide asteroid on an unavoidable collision course with Planet Thera is indeed rather existential!

Of course, by the end of Book Two, the general public of Thera are not yet aware of their approaching doom – that comes towards the end of Book Three – at which point, every human story that readers are invested in takes a completely different turn, as people react in very different ways; all culminating in a spectacular end to Book Four and the perfect conclusion towards everything that I have been slowly building towards. But who will live and who will die?

Finally, for those who haven’t worked it out yet, Nessemi is an anagram of Nemesis – the Greek goddess of divine retribution!

As the series progresses, do you find the world surprising you, or is the long arc already mapped in detail?

There are a few occasional surprises, where storylines take you down routes you weren’t expecting. And that is always a joy. But overall, I mapped everything out right at the beginning when I started writing this series six years ago!

I actually share how I went about this process in the companion book to the series, which was released last month – called Decoding the Hidden World of Thera. The book obviously reveals all of the series’ secrets as well – this after a Goodreads reader spotted that Thera was an anagram of Earth and the supercontinent Epanaga was an anagram of Pangaea! But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Every placename and coastline is a mirror of somewhere on Earth, whilst numerous characters are based on famous historical people – all revealed in Decoding the Hidden World of Thera!

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