The one I went to didn't have it. I was surprised. Because ever since ShadowFever they only always have it when it comes out. But the one I went to is near a Books a Million which worked out better since I found Fire Touched in paperback.
It probably wasn't needed to mention right now, but I imagine it will come up in the next book: Which is Dani's story.
Now you have finished, here is a Q&A from the event.
Spoiler:
Spoiler Session:
Q: The DEG talks about that maybe he wasn’t part of the Unseelie King. So who could he be?
KMM: That’s a damn good question. There is something else I planted in Feversong. Did you catch it? And I’m not answering that either. That was an open ended thing that was left deliberately opened.
Q: What part made you cry?
KMM: The scene when Dancer died. It killed me because it is so typical.
Q: Am I the only one who cried for Ryodan for what he did-pretty much sending Dani to Dancer?
KMM: I don’t know. How did you guys feel?
Q: In Iced he (Ryodan) was contemplating killing Dancer. What changed in his prospective?
KMM: I think that sometimes I strive for a bit too much verisimilitude in my writing because what I want to capture is a character who in no way is perfect. There are no perfect characters in my books. They are all flawed. We are all flawed. And just like we be like oh no I have to hold you so close to me. But, then you’re like-oh no I really love this person and I’m not good for them. I think that Ryodan is flawed. He is flawed. He tries to do his thing. He’s been alive for so long and he has seen so much and been changed by this endless existence and he, just like all of the 9, is very brutal. Living a long time makes you lose some of the…. And it almost makes you bottom line in a way. I think that he is just like any human being.
Q: Since we are talking about Ryodan, did he open the We Care to give Dani another dragon to slay?
KMM: I haven’t answered the we care issue yet and it is still pending,
Q: You left it open with no king, but it in the queen and king balance each other.
KMM: There is the scene at the end of the book when Mac looks at the mural. Those two scenes at the end, not the Cruce one, but the last two before that-I wrote in 2011. I put them into this book without changing a word. I always knew it was coming to that. I always knew where it was headed. To me it embodied my entire philosophy of choice. Of being in the orchestra or forever removing the conductor. It embodied all these approaches you can take to life and it had to wrap up in a philosophical statement at the end. But I think that the philosophical statement there is that life is very open ended. What I have said over and over again is that this book is what you choose. It’s the wolf you choose to feed. Barrons says that to Mac. He says it is not written in stone. We have choice. Maybe they become the next King and Queen. Maybe they don’t. And I wanted to leave that to you to write which way you think they go.
Q: Is there any significance to the name Yi-Yi?
KMM: Some things just come to me. Some asked me where do you come up with your names. I said cemeteries. If I’m writing Irish, I will research the areas of whatever city I’m in an I’ll go look in the Irish immigrant cemetery. And I will just walk through. I will just wander and I will make up stories in my head and I will choose names. But sometimes a name just comes to me. Barrons just came to me. It just came out of the blue. I was writing it before I even knew it. Yi-Yi came that way too. It just came right out. And I kind of look back three sentences and I’m like, oh, I wrote a name. So no significance.
Q: Where does the Silver in the ceiling of Barrons Books and Baubles go?
KMM: Guys you know I left so much open ended at the end of this book and my publisher had this bet going on at Random House about whether or not like at the end of Shadowfever I wanted to so badly write the words The End. And I stared at that page for weeks and every time I tried to write the end, it went dot, dot, dot. For now. And so the bet was is Karen going to put three dots at the end this time. I did not. I did not put three dots. That doesn’t mean that there might not be three dots. I’m not going to close the door. That I’m not 100% certain… Well I’m not going to close the door. Because I never know what the muse is going to ask of me next and I try to always honor the muse.
Q: Fiona did not like Mac form the beginning. Did she know what was on the mural?
KMM: That’s an interesting question and not one that I have pondered. But I would suspect. She was obsessed with Barrons. Utterly obsessed with him. So yeah. She was in his home his domicile. So, yeah. I would suspect.
Q; Remember when Dani is in a fugue at the end and she thinks Barrons came in and held her hand. What do you think he said to her when he was holding her hand?
KMM: Really? You think I’m going to give you Barrons words? Oh my God! I’m sorry. I love it when you ask, when you want more story. I love it when you ask questions like that because it tells me you’re really engaged in that moment and that you want more intimate detail. But, with Barrons I will often close that door and not give you it because that is who Barrons is and I try to honor his character. So I’m not going to answer that. I’m not sure I even know it in my head. Barrons has a door in my head. It closes a lot.
Q; (Comments surrounding Jo’s death)
KMM: I was wondering if you guys would get why I did that. That tied into my father again. When I was talking about that sometimes life ends right in the middle of the chapter; right in the middle of the scene. And that’s the verisimilitude that I strive for in my work. Jo had so much life ahead of her. She was in love. She was in lust. Jo to me was my every woman. She’s every one of us. We don’t start out perfect. Sometimes there is so much pressure to create the perfect heroine. I’m interested in those of us who aren’t perfect. We don’t know our talents and our strengths yet. We’re learning them. And Jo was that to me. She was very dear to me for that reason. She is also based off one of you guys. One of the Maniacs. Jo Sidhe Seer. I created her for Jo. And I hated killing her because of Jo. But, I always intended to build her to a point where she just becomes interesting and then just cut it off. Because it happens. Like it happens with Dancer. Some people don’t even get a much life as we’ve gotten. We are the lucky ones. We’re still here.
Q: Christian and Colleen. Is Colleen in Feversong and is she important to him as a sibling?
KMM: When I set expectations for this book on my Facebook page, I said that I took the majority, if not all, of the secondary characters and I shifted them to the side of the stage because I needed to really focus on this and distill it for you guys. So he has been shifted as well as Colleen. And I did it in a way that would let me come back and create whatever I wanted to create for each character in the future.
KMM: I have two questions for you guys. Did you end the book feeling that Mac and Barrons-that you could let go of them now?
Yes!
KMM: Wonderful. Did you end the book feeling interested in Dani?
Oh yes!!
KMM: Are you guys ready for her now? Cause I don’t want to bring her out again unless I get to take her where I want to take her.
YES!!
KMM: Thank you guys. It (Iced) actually sold really well and if you look at Amazon it has more reviews than anything I’ve ever written and a phenomenally positive rating, There were a huge number of people who loved it. But I can tell you this, a very tiny minority can do such a smear job that other people refuse to touch it. Especially when you throw certain buzz words out. I guess that’s the reason I am encouraging the reviews or a the very least the intelligent pointing out of that’s not what’s in this book
Q: I was not disappointed in Dani and Ryodan because I felt he knew she was not there yet and he would destroy her.
KMM: Like he says. If she ****s me she’ll be more like me. If she ****s him, she’ll be more like him. He knows this. He has always known this. What Ryodan sees in Dani is this incredible…. You see it in his back story. They share this incredibly similar childhood. And you guys didn’t know that. See. I always know these things. See sometimes I don’t tell you these things and you think oh there’s no reason for this. But there’s a reason in my head. I just haven’t gotten to it yet. But Ryodan… She’s just amazing to him. More than he wants her for himself, he wants her to be whole and healthy and thrive. And the funny thing is- he gets love. He does get what love is. And that’s what it is. You have to want that other person to be whole and healthy and happy more than you want them for yourself.
Q; Was there a scene in the book that you absolutely did not want to write, but that your muse was telling you that you had to?
KMM: Somebody said that it was jo. But, it wasn’t Jo. It was Dancer. I loved Dancer’s character. I absolutely loved his character. I could have played with him forever. But, he had such grace under pressure and he had such a good attitude about how life is. He was such a strong young man. I would love to have continued. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future I write a character very similar to him because I was not done with him. It was hard.
Q: In the first book you could see Ryodan even guiding Mac.
KMM: The thing is, is these guys are rough around the edges. A few years back I trained with some military guys. I trained with a Russian guy and I trained with a sniper. And I got up really up close and personal look at these kind of men who are not only in the military but who are in the darkest, the most dangerous, most difficult parts of the military. They are much like my 9. They don’t always say the right thing. They don’t always do the right thing. But they have a code of honor and a code of ethics that is set in stone. They are fiercely loyal. I think you see that in a lot of our military who have faced hard combat and who have PTSD. But that doesn’t mean they are not good men at the core of it.
KMM: Did you find Dancer’s name? I finally gave you Dancer’s name.
Dancer Elias Garrick
KMM: What are those initials?
DEG
KMM: Well damn! That’s not necessarily a tid bit. Just something to chew on. It could have been an accident. It may not.
Q; We were also curious about the court. You have the 4 and 4. And you have Christian and you have Jayne. But is Jayne Unseelie?
KMM: No. I already said that (he’s Seelie). That’s what I was referencing earlier when I said take Mac’s father for example. I didn’t want to give a spoiler and say take Jayne for example. He fights the good fight. So he has eaten so much Unseelie, which way is he going? Light. He’s going to the light court.
Q: I like Mac’s lightbulb moments. Where she realizes what he has always been telling her. Like with the lion and the peacock and those kinds of things. And even when she is fighting the book and she has those light bulb moments. And it’s just like, yeah. He told you.
KMM: Thank you. It’s one of those things that I want to do as a writer. I don’t ever want to write a book where you can’t figure it out. I want you in many places to figure things out and be waiting impatiently for the characters to get there. Because it’s part of the tension that I’m trying to create.
KMM: What did you think of Mac’s battle with the Sinsar-dubh? What did you think of her battle with the psycho within when she said there is a monster inside me and she’s beautiful? Did it work for you?
Yes!
KMM: There is a monster in all of us and that moster can be absolutely beautiful.
Q: Do we get to see what happens with Lor and Mac?
KMM: That would necessitate me writing Mac in again and I’m not sure. That’s why I say they might show up for cameos because these stories are very intertwined. Mac really changed I this book. For me, she changed and transformed into the woman I always wanted her to be. That battle, with her psycho within, that refined her and made her this pure shining light and gave her all the strengths I’ve been waiting for her to achieve and now as the Seelie queen, I can envision a lot of stories of how is she going to handle the Seelie court. I could envision something in the future of maybe you get another character’s story but you get side glimpses of Mac and Barron’s battle. What’s going on in the background. How are they dealing with this. What’s happening to Cruce. So I don’t know what will come. I don’t know quite where I will go with it.
Q: Does Ryodan know about Papa Roach and his duplicity and will he take care of it?
KMM: That is part of the story that is yet unwritten. That may be coming.
Q: The powers that be that Mac went to when she decided to become Seelie Queen, do they have some connection to the 9?
KMM: You guys and your 9. We’re not going there.
KMM: Did I do you justice with it?
YES!!!!!
KMM: Did it give you the feels? Did it give you what you were hoping for? Was it satisfying?
YES!! It was emotionally exhausting.
KMM: I love to hear that. I poured so much of my heart and soul into this book. Your feedback is what I look for, honestly. No wondering whether or not it rocked your world means everything to me.
Hopefully you can get to a bookstore soon.
I was surprised. Because ever since ShadowFever they only always have it when it comes out. But the one I went to is near a Books a Million which worked out better since I found Fire Touched in paperback.
