The Path Keeper Blog Tour
The Path Keeper by N.J. Simmonds
Hey everyone, I’m here today doing my part as a stop on The Path Keeper blog tour! The Path Keeper is the first book in N.J. Simmond’s Indigo Chronicles series. I was fortunate enough to get to catch up with NJ last year at YALC, and I managed to do a quick interview with her amidst all the chaos.
Also, as a special bonus feature, we’re all holding a special competition:
Read on to the end of my post to get the next letter in the phrase.
From Goodreads: What if every coincidence was a tiny miracle? What if our life was already mapped out before birth? What if someone had the power to change the path we were destined to follow?
Ella hates her new life in London, she misses Spain and she’s struggling to get over her past until she meets Zac. He has always loved her but he isn’t meant to be part of Ella’s story. Not this time. Not ever. Little does she know that his secret is the one thing that will tear them apart and will force her to live in a world that no longer makes sense, a world more dangerous than she could ever imagine.
Q and A with N.J. Simmonds
Okay, enough of me rambling, what about the interview?
So how did you come to write The Path Keeper?
When I started writing the Indigo Chronicles back in 2012, I had two young children, who were one and three years old. And they didn’t sleep. It got to the point where I needed to escape, so I started dreaming up a fantasy world. I began writing The Path Keeper as a movie in my head, which is where it stayed for about for or five months. I escaped in my head until the entire book was formed. On the commute to work, while feeding the baby. After that, I wrote on my lap with a kid on my arm, haha, and Tellytubbies in the background. When I was in the Netherlands, I had a desk and laptop, but at the start I was writing while trying to juggle my kids.
I really liked how your characters, even the ones based in the past, always seem to have a distinctly teenage feel to them, which sometimes gets a bit mislaid in YA. Is that something you were really focused on?
Thanks! When I was writing The Path Keeper, I wasn’t even aware of YA books. I discovered them quite late but when I did stumble across them, I fell in love. My patience changes reading YA, it’s just so much faster. The same can be said of fantasy series like True Blood too. I’m watching a lot of the TV version at the moment, and it’s really entrenched in the present. There’s some magical realism, some urban fantasy. But the Sookie Stackhouse books the show is based on appealed to me because of the pacing. I was up all night, couldn’t put it down. So although I didn’t know about YA until much later in the writing stage, I knew I wanted to create a story that was quick and kept readers interested.
The Path Keeper ends on a cliff-hanger, which got me so excited for book two, Son of Secrets (out May 2020). What can we expect from the next novel?
Yes, sorry about that! The second book has been ready for years! Son of Secrets gets a lot darker, and I think there’s some feminist and empowering messages in there. Also, there’s more flashbacks. This time, we’re going back to 5BC and 1613, during Europe’s biggest witch-hunt. Book two also introduces Luci, who is my very favourite character. She’s dangerous and passionate, the ultimate woman scorned.
There’s a lot of flashbacks to other countries and lives and histories in The Path Keepers. If you could time-travel, where and when would you most like to visit?
I would go back to early 1900s and fight the suffragette fight. It was such an important time for women, and it was the educated and financially able who began to demand better rights paving the way for all, but it took a very long time. Either that or the Renaissance period where my curves would be all the rage!
One of the things I’m really obsessed with at the moment is book-themed and character-themed candles. So, if you were to help make a candle for Ella and Zac, what kind of scents would you throw in there?
Ooooh I’d LOVE Zac and Ella candles. He’d be something musky and mysterious, maybe a hint of blueberry because of the Indigo bar cocktails. Ella would have a hint of Jasmine, Zac mentions her perfume has that note in the book, and something reflecting her Spanish roots…a bit of citrus maybe. She’s pretty sharp!
That sounds awesome. Besides the Indigo Chronicles, what else are you working on at the moment?
I did have plans for a YA contemporary, but I’m not sure if I’ll go there! There’s also another historical fantasy novel in the works, which will be about two sisters living in London in 1966, and will also have ties to the present-day too.
Okay, quick last question: since we originally did this Q and A at YALC 2018, I was wondering which literary figure, or species etc, would you love to try your hand at cos-playing?
I’d like to go as a feisty ilyrian. Tight leathers, swords and working bat wings. Plus I look great in black.
The Path Keeper is out soon, on May 28th. If you want to purchase a copy, you can do so here:
UK Amazon: https://amzn.to/301FjrT
US Amazon: https://amzn.to/2H96xFr
Waterstones: http://bit.ly/2DUnUb6
B&N: http://bit.ly/2vJoVht
Thanks so much for reading my stop on the blog tour, everyone. If you want to know where to head next, here’s the list of the whole tour 😀
