The only miracles here are of my creation.
Without a Shadow
by H. J. Reynolds (me!)
Genre: YA Fantasy
About: Adlai Bringer remembers going to the desert market with her father: The colorful tents, the wink of gold, and her father’s shadow, black as night, as it moved of its own accord and stole whatever trinket she wanted. He called it the Shadow Game. But when one of her marks turns out to be a killer, the game turns deadly. From the desert to the Shadow World to even more unlikely places, Adlai only knows one thing for certain: her shadow is a gift worth killing for.
Thoughts
This book has been an on/off idea since 2016 and I have loved exploring this world of shadow magic and death gods and following the freaking stars. I had a blast writing it, learned so much editing it and, perfect or not, I could not be prouder of my little purple book.
It is a scary thing to have your book out in the world. There are always going to be things I wish I could change or ideas that I know I could have gone further with... But, at the same time, I'm thrilled to have this as my debut novel. The idea in my head is now in print. That. Is. Crazy.
Debut? Well, sort of. This was not the first book I ever finished writing - that one was a pirate fantasy that I really enjoyed writing but thankfully never tried to get published because I knew it wasn't ready (or rather, I wasn't ready to edit it!) but this is my second novel to ever reach The End with my keyboard. It's been through many drafts but the initial idea - the initial opening scene, is the same: A little girl in the desert with her father, stealing trinkets with their shadows.
Why did I choose shadow magic? I’ve always found shadows fascinating. Whether it was reading about Wendy sewing Peter Pan’s shadow back on, or a monster being revealed by the shadow they cast. In fiction there are so many different ways shadows add to the magic of the world and I think the same is true in the real world. Shadows are weird. Shadows move, they follow you, get fainter and darker, split off into multiples, grow long and short. They’re creepy and add to a very overactive imagination as a child. So I wanted to write a story where shadows are part of our main character’s sense of wonderment as a child, but turn into something with an edge of danger as she grows up.
Favourite character: The villain, of course (although there are a few to pick from...) Dressla, however, is the one I just loved writing. The first time I tried writing this novel, I wrote three different POVs and they were all ‘good guys’. And while I enjoyed writing in Adlai’s POV – hers is of course the most prominent voice in the novel, the book really came together once I established Dressla as a POV character. Seeing the other side of the world – the character who wasn’t born special and yet hungers for power and doesn’t worry about the morality of what she’s doing, that perspective was really interesting to me to write. Dressla is an incredibly bad feminist and certainly not a role model, but I think her perspective is uncomfortably relatable. If shadow powers were real, of course we’d research them and desire them. The way she goes about things is wrong, but her motivations are pretty in line with the readers I think – you want to know more and she is willing to do anything to get those answers.
Messaging/Themes. A lot of the characters are quite morally grey. We unfortunately live in a world where things are still often seen as quite black and white. You’re either on this side or you’re on that side. I wanted to give readers characters who aren’t easy to fit into the good guy/bad guy mold, or who you could at least understand them even if you didn’t always agree with their actions. For example, there are good reasons why shadow wielders need to be hunted, but their methods are often horrific. There are also good reasons for some of the big lies told to our main character throughout the novel, but it doesn’t change the sense of betrayal she feels each time she discovers she’s been lied to. I think it’s important to make readers question characters and not necessarily trust everything they say. And that it’s okay to both love and hate the same character because of the good and bad things that they do.
Favourite chapter: Behind the Door. I'd get into spoiler territory to talk too much about this chapter but I love how unexpected and creepy this chapter feels to me. I think it takes the reader through a lot of different emotions and stretches what we knew about the world and the characters.
Favourite chapter title: Should Have Stolen a Sock, closely followed by chapter 19 being called Eighteen. Writing chapter titles is so much fun. It feels like a little in joke as you're writing sometimes and keeps an air of goofiness going when you want to just scrap the whole damn thing. Even if you end up not using chapter titles, I think it's a fun part of the writing process.
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