Sariah Wilson is the author of the new novel A Tribute of Fire. Her many other novels include Hypnotized by Love. She lives in Utah.
Q: What inspired you to write A Tribute of Fire, and how did you create your character Lia?
A: I was writing a rom com about a girl next door type dating a movie star and there was going to be a line about her saying she felt like Cassandra, the prophetess from Greek mythology, who spoke the truth/saw the future but wasn’t ever believed.
I wanted to make sure I was using the reference correctly, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. There was a paragraph about what happened to Cassandra after the Trojan War. Cassandra (a princess of Troy) sought sanctuary in Athena’s temple.
A man named Ajax the Lesser followed her there and dragged her out of the temple and violated her. In retribution for his actions, Athena demanded that his nation, Locris, send two maidens every year to serve in her temple, but “only if they made it there alive.”
That led me to look up more about the Locrian maidens (the tribute was a real event that went on for a thousand years), and the wheels in my brain started spinning!
Lia was going to try and save her nation and stop the tribute, so I knew she had to be in a position where she could devote herself to training and had the resources to do so, and be someone who felt strongly about saving Locris. She had to be strong, loyal, and brave. Honestly, she kind of wrote herself in my head.
Q: What relationship do you see between your novel and ancient Greek mythology?
A: I consider it to be an alternate universe. I graduated with a degree in history so a lot of this book is rooted in actual ancient Greek history and culture based on my research (I’m on a first name basis with some professors of classical antiquity now!).
But there are lots of things that I’ve done that don’t come from Greek mythology or history at all. I’ve tried to put my own unique twist on it!
Q: This is your first novel in the romantasy genre--why did you decide to move into this arena, and how would you compare it with writing romance?
A: My parents were avid readers. My mother used to get subscription Harlequins by the truckload and my dad loved fantasy. So those were the two genres I grew up reading and I loved them both.
When I started writing professionally I knew I would be writing romance as people falling in love is what interested me the most. At the time there wasn’t a great deal of romance in fantasy books. Whenever I would do an interview and was asked what other genre I would write besides romance, I always said fantasy.
So when romantasy became a big hit, I was giddy! Here was my chance to combine my two great genre loves!
I typically write romantic comedies and there is a lot of work that goes into those. I have to structure them a specific way and make sure the jokes are landing (and that I haven’t already told the joke before in a different book). It’s harder.
But writing this romantasy? It didn’t feel even like work. It just flowed out of me so quickly and easily.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: I hope they have a good time and enjoy themselves—to forget about the struggles of their real lives for a few hours and get lost in my world.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m doing the edits for the second book in this series and after that’s finished, I will need to write the third book.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: A Tribute of Fire goes on sale 11/1/24!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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