PENN COLE writes magical worlds, feisty women, and angsty romance. Her debut series is ‘The Kindred’s Curse Saga’.

We talked to the author about her inspiration for the first book in the series, Spark of the Everflame.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When old secrets catch fire, everything will burn.

In a mortal world colonised by the gods and ruled over by the Descended – their cruel, magic-wielding offspring – Diem Bellator yearns to escape the insular life of her poor village.

When her mother suddenly disappears and Diem discovers a dangerous secret about her past, she seizes an unexpected opportunity to enter the dark world of Descended royalty and unlock the web of mysteries her mother left behind.

With the dying King’s handsome, enigmatic heir watching her every move, and a ruthless rebel alliance recruiting her to join the growing civil war, Diem will have to navigate the unwritten rules of love, power and politics in order to save her family – and all of mortalkind.

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Q & A with PENN COLE

Spark of the Everflame is the first book in ‘The Kindred’s Curse’ saga. What inspired it?

I grew up reading romantasy and craving books about fierce women going on epic adventures while also having these beautiful love stories, so I knew I wanted to write something similar that really centered women and the many ways and places they find their strength. I was also very moved by real-world issues such as censorship of literature, the generational effects of colonialism and systemic injustice, the role that violence plays in a fight for equality, and what obligation those of us born with a lot of privilege have to dismantle the systems that unfairly benefit us.

My hope is that people can both have a lot of fun reading about love and magic and dragons, while also grappling with these difficult issues in a way that might change how they see the world outside of the book.

What can you tell us about the Forging and its significance in your story?

In the series, the ‘Forging’ signifies the arrival of nine sibling gods and goddesses into the mortal world, which they colonised and populated with their offspring, a magic-wielding, near-immortal race of demigods known as the Descended. For the Descended, the Forging is a sacred origin story. It’s where their history begins, and it guides all their values and beliefs about how the world should be. For the mortals, the Forging is the root of all evil—the end of their freedom and the destruction of their culture. The series begins thousands of years after the Forging, allowing us to see how time has shaped this very polarised world and each group’s place within it.

What dynamics did you want to explore between Diem and Luther?

Luther is the picture of privilege: the heir to the King, blessed with enormous wealth, influence, and powerful magic. He’s the kind of guy every woman wants to be with and every man wants to be, though every choice he makes is bound by duty. Diem is his opposite in every way, raised in a poor mortal village and seemingly fated for a life of little consequence until she gets caught up in a mortal rebellion. But there is far more to each of them than it seems, and the secrets they share have the power to forever change the world around them.

For both Luther and Diem, this is a story about prejudice, healing, and the scars we carry with us, both on our skin and on our soul. It’s a journey of choosing love in a world that wants us to hate, and defying expectations in order to write our own story.

How did you go about creating the realms of Emarion?

As an American living in Europe, I was really inspired by how different each country here is, and how a short drive over a border can expose you to entirely new languages, architecture, forms of government, cultural values, and uses of wealth. I wanted to replicate that in the nine realms of Emarion, with each one having its own very distinct culture shaped by its history and values. In many ways, the people of each realm are a reflection of their magic – the ice-wielding druids of the Montios mountains are cold and stony, while the sailors of Meros are as wild as the seas they command. Though none of the realms is without its issues, I think there is much we can learn from each one, and hopefully, it is in that diversity that the people of Emarion will find their greatest strength.

Setting plays a key role in your story – what do Mortal City and Lumnos City tell us about the world of your novel?

Though quite close to each other, Lumnos City and Mortal City might as well be different worlds. One is filled with wealth and privilege, and the other is struggling to survive amid poverty, crime, and lack of opportunity. For me, especially growing up in the southern US, this is like so many places I knew where being born on the “other side of the tracks” completely shapes the course of your life, and where so many unjust systems are designed to keep money, political power, and education hoarded on one half of that divide.

Our main character, Diem, finds herself trapped between those two societies, exposed to the very best and worst of each. I think her journey reflects the one that many of us go on when we leave the places we grew up in and we are forced to reconcile what we’ve been taught with a world that is more nuanced and complicated than we once believed.

How did you come up with the Descended?

The Descended are so much fun to write, because they are extreme in every way. They take everything they do to excess, whether that’s how they rule, how they dress, or how they get their entertainment. They are eccentric, charismatic, beautiful, and supremely hateable. It’s like following a jet-setting socialite on Instagram – you might resent them for their bottomless trust fund and their lack of responsibility, but you also can’t resist watching what crazy thing they do next.

But they’re also a cautionary tale about what happens to power when it goes unchecked, especially when faith gets involved. The Descended believe that their actions, however heinous, are backed by a divine mandate, and challenging them is an act of heresy. That mindset can be incredibly dangerous, especially for those of a different faith who believe their actions are equally justified, and we see the consequences of that play out in the series.

Did you draw inspiration from any mythology to help shape this novel?

The Kindred, who are the sibling gods and goddesses that birthed the Descended, are very reminiscent of Greek and Roman mythology. I remember reading tales in school of the various deities and the antics they each got up to. Unlike in other faiths, these gods were not viewed as perfect, moral beings. They were human-like in their capricious emotions, their bad decisions, and their insatiable appetites, whether that be for lust or revenge. Likewise, the Kindred are not exactly pillars of virtue. Despite their immense power and immortality, they are as flawed as any human, and when they stick their hands into the mortal world, chaos often follows.

What are some of your favourite romantasy novels?

This is always a difficult question to answer because so many of my peers are my good friends, and choosing between them is impossible! My go-to recommendation is Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey. It was the first romantasy I ever read, and it kicked off a lifetime of my love for the genre. It’s dark, it’s sexy, it’s political, and it has some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. It championed women’s stories at a time when fantasy was a very male-dominated genre. And with the recent rise in romantasy’s popularity, it’s getting a second life – a novel written in the love interest’s POV was published last year, twenty years after the original series’ release.

What’s your favourite romance trope and why?

I am ravenous for the ‘he hates everyone but her’ trope. I just love a grumpy, brooding MMC who swears he doesn’t care about anything or anyone until a woman comes into his life and forces him to do the worst thing imaginable: feel things. I think it might come from the nurturer in me – a desire to heal and make someone a better version of themselves through love. It’s the ultimate ‘I can fix him!’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR