Liselle Sambury is the author of the new young adult novel A Mastery of Monsters. Her other books include Tender Beasts.
Q: What inspired you to write A Mastery of Monsters, and how did you create your character August?
A: The novel was inspired by a few different things. The first story spark came when I was watching a music video by EXO called “Monster,” and there was a scene where they’re all sitting at this table and the music made me think of the idea of a dinner with people, and they all looked human, but actually some of them were monsters.
I considered the idea of some of those people wanting to chain up the monsters, and a girl at the table who refused to participate. Which was how I came up with that concept in addition to August as a character as someone stirring things up.
I also had, for the first novel I ever completed, written a werewolf story and decided this would be a sort of spiritual successor in that I took August’s character name and some of Virgil (the love interest’s) name and moved them over to this book. I love the idea of shifters but didn’t want to do werewolves again, so the monsters felt like a perfect alternative.
I also finished my first novel during my first year of university and so it felt apt to make Mastery a dark academia taking place at my alma mater.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I’m the sort of author who does a lot of planning before I ever start writing, and so I already knew the plot points of the story including the ending.
However, before I started planning, I had a strong idea of how I wanted the entire trilogy to play out, and those general beats have remained the same. Mostly what has changed is how the character gets from that beginning point of the novel to the end that I imagined.
Q: How did you create the world in which the novel is set?
A: Since A Mastery of Monsters is a contemporary fantasy, a lot of the world came from my real life experience attending Queen’s University and living in the city of Kingston.
I did a lot of on location research going to places that I would put in the book, and fact checking on what things had changed or stayed the same since I attended university a decade prior. I also made a point to weave in real historical facts and events.
In terms of the fantastical elements of the novel, those really began with looking at the secret society at the center of the story. I spent a lot of time imagining why this society would be involved in humans who can turn into monsters, how that would be made up, the sort of philosophies they would believe, what circumstances would make someone join, and how they would keep monsters secret, etc.
The process meant that I spent a lot of time asking myself questions about how everything would work and writing it down. In the end, I created a lot of different timelines and resource documents. This is easily the most complicated world that I have ever built, and so it took a lot of time to iron out all the details.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: I think this is my most fun novel, and so I really hope that readers will come away thinking this is the sort of fantasy that they want to read over and over again. I really put in effort to create something fast paced and addictive.
In terms of themes, I think the biggest one is really giving yourself space to mess up. To me, university was such an unexpected experience and so many of the perfect plans I created in high school didn’t work out, and that was so hard as a perfectionist.
But in hindsight, I always think about how ridiculous it is to expect someone to have their life figured out at 18. I hope that watching August’s journey can help teens give themselves some grace.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Right now, I’m working on the second book in the Mastery series, which will be coming out in 2026. I’m so excited to share it with everyone. I know that second books in a trilogy can be tough, and so I really pulled out all the stops to make it a worthy follow up to the first novel. I hope that folks will enjoy it!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If anyone is interested in getting more of an insider look at the process, I have a YouTube channel @lisellesambury where I document my journey through things like vlogs.
I have a playlist called “The Journey of A Mastery of Monsters” where you can watch me work on the book from the very beginning, to selling it, to working on edits with my editor, etc. I also provide a lot of advice for writers if there’s interest in that as well.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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