Summer Book Club with L. E. Sterling & Michelle Miles

I’m excited to share with you something really fun today. I’d like to introduce you to L.E Sterling! She and I had a recent conversation about books and writing. I think you’ll love her and her books! Check out the interview!

LE: Do you have a favorite summer reading spot?

MM: I usually read at night. That’s kind of my wind down. I have a thing for expensive sheets (laughs) and good bedding. I like to climb in my bed and read on my Kindle. I also read paperbacks, hardbacks, whatever.

LE: Do you have a weekend spot?

MM: Yes, sometimes I do. It’s another living area upstairs where I have a settee. I like to sit there to read and chill out.

LE: That sounds lovely! My favorite spot in the summer is a deck right off of our bedroom and our living room. We’ve just got some patio furniture this year. I sit in the chair with the umbrella up, and I have my little table with my water and my tea, and it’s like the happiest spot on earth.

MM: I love outdoor spaces. Wait, where do you live?

LE: I live just south of Montreal in Quebec, Canada.

MM: Well, I’m in Texas. It’s hot, so I don’t go outside in the summer! But we do have outdoor spaces that we really like to use in the spring and fall.

LE: What are the best books you’ve read this summer? How many books do you typically read a summer?

MM: (Pulling out her Goodreads app) My reading goal for the year was ten books, and I’ve already met that. Right now I’m reading a book called Illusion of Stars (by Sarah Marie Page). It’s a young adult fantasy.

I also read The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox this summer. It’s a very good gothic, witchy kind of romance set in England. It’s very good. I really want to read her other books now. And then I just finished a book called The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith.

LE: Oh, I’ve heard of that one! I love the sound of these!

MM: The Vine Witch was pretty good. It’s about a vineyard, of course, in France. It’s a historical with a light romance, where their witches help grow the grapes and make the best vintage ever. And there’s some mystery and a murder and just all kinds of things and lots of magic. It was really good.

LE: That sounds like fun. I just finished Bride by Ali Hazelwood. It was incredible! One of my favorite books of the year! I also enjoyed Heartless Hunter – and I loved Earl’s Trip, by Jenny Holiday, even though it isn’t in the genre I publish in. (it’s a Regency romance).

Do you read a certain genre of books or do you travel outside of your lane?

MM: I definitely travel outside. I primarily look for Young Adult fantasy books. I love those! I’ve read Holly Black, I’ve read Sarah J. Maas, Karen Marie Moning, Gena Showalter. Those are more paranormal romances, adult fiction. But I also just like to look for things that are different, that are fantasy, that have magic, that are light romance. I’m on a light romance kick right now.

LE: That’s so nice. And I’m really wondering if there is anyone left on earth that hasn’t read Sarah J. Maas, honestly. I finished the Crescent City series this summer, as well.

MM: (Laughs) Right? Well, I have to be honest and say I’ve only read the Throne of Glass series. I haven’t read A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) yet. It’s on my TBR list.

LE: A Court of Thorn and Roses blew my mind. And then I read the first book in the Crescent City series, and my mind literally melted. By the end of the second book, I thought, oh my God, she has rewritten all of the rules of fiction! I am so impressed! I actually had started reading her Throne of Glass series and I was like, meh. Not as good as her other series. But that’s sacrilege. It’s like telling a Swiftie that Taylor Swift is no good.

MM: I really do want to read the Crescent City series. You only have so many hours in the day.

LE: Exactly. But I recommend it. Don’t you think that the best thing to do as a writer is read widely? I mean, why stick to your lane?

MM: Oh, absolutely! I think that’s how you get more insight into what other people are writing, how they write. It really helps you recognize what is good fiction and not good fiction. I absolutely think it helps you as a writer because you can see what other people are doing and how they’re doing it and what makes good storytelling.

LE: I absolutely agree. What kind of books or characters are your favorite to write? I’m always curious—do you have a set thing? Or do you just go off, like, ‘oh, I love this idea, I love this idea.’

MM: I’m a little of both, but all of my books have an action adventure-type twist, because I grew up on Indiana Jones as you can see (pointing to Indiana Jones poster in background) and Star Wars. I just love those types of stories of high adventure. There’s always a romance. I’ve written everything from sweet to spicy, and there’s usually magic.

LE: What are you writing now?

MM: I’m writing fairytale retellings. There’s always magic in it. There’s a sweet romance. They’re young adults. And in these types of stories, the characters are always kind of an underdog. And I really like Alpha males (laughs).

LE: Yes! I hope Alpha males never go out of style, to be honest. Do you find that when you’re writing something—a particular project like your fairytale retellings, for instance—you sort of gravitate towards that kind of book for pleasure reading?

MM: You know, I think I do. I’ve been seeking out those kind of books to read, and that’s how I found the two witch books that I read.

LE: Do you have a summer-versus-winter writing routine? Do your writing routines differ over the seasons?

MM: I’ve really tried to force myself to stay in a consistent writing mode. I used to not write as much during the summer. December was also usually lost because I’m so busy with the holidays. But, for the last year and a half, I’ve been consistently writing almost every day. It feels good!

LE: Right? It’s like flexing a muscle. Or training for a long distance run kind of thing. You have to keep at it! How many books do you have loaded on your Kindle at present? And how many do you take on vacation? Do you take your Kindle as well as physical books?

MM: I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many are on my Kindle – sixty plus, probably. And yes, if we’re on a leisurely vacation, like if we’re not going to be hitting tons of places, I will probably take my Kindle on vacation just to have some downtime at night and slow the brain down. I wouldn’t take a physical book, unless I was in the middle of a physical book, you know, reading a paperback or whatever. We are traveling to Scotland next month and not checking bags. We’re trying to keep our space available for clothes, so I probably won’t pack a physical book, just for the sake of space.

LE: Plus, you know, I heard this wild rumor that Scotland has bookstores! I’m learning to pare myself down. I have a Kobo and I have like, maybe 200 books on it—about fifty of which I haven’t read. But I also would typically pack two or three paperbacks—just in case.

I started thinking that was a little extreme, so I finally whittled my way down to: okay, I can have one paperback or I can have my Kobo, I can’t have both. These days my Kobo is winning, because I don’t know what would I do if I had no choice in books to read.

MM: (laughs). Exactly. It’s like, ‘oh I’m bored with this one. Let’s go see what else I have.’

LE: You mentioned you’re going to Scotland. Is that your dream vacation?

MM: Yeah, we were supposed to go in 2020, and that didn’t work out. We’re finally rescheduling that trip, Edinburgh, Inverness and Isle of Sky. I kind of have a thing for castles, so my husband’s calling this trip “Castle Mania.” I’m trying to cram as many castle tours as I can into ten days.

LE: Can we expect then that you’re going to start penning some Highlander time-traveling magic books in the near future?

MM: Yes. I am writing a three-book series for (publisher) Dragonblade that will be out next fall. I’m almost done with the first book. It is a Highlander Time travel series set in 14th century Scotland. The heroines are modern and go back in time.

LE: What can you say about the fairytale book you have coming out?

MM: I have a new fairytale series – I have ten books planned – and I launched the first book on July 9th. It’s a Cinderella Christmas fairytale retelling called Once Upon a Midnight Clear. The main character is Ella, who is gifted glass slippers from her fairy godmother. And she’s whisked off to the ball where she meets a person that she doesn’t realize is a prince from the Christmas realm of Rovenheim. She forgets the time and doesn’t take the magic shoes off before the last stroke of midnight and is transported into Rovenheim, and then the prince has to go get her.

LE: You’ve really turned that on its head with the Christmas realm! What other tactics do you use to keep fairy tale retellings fresh?

MM: First, I go read the original Grim fairy tales. Some of them are very, very dark. Then I just kind of try to think outside the box: what would make this different? How can I use the same elements from the familiar fairytales, like the glass slippers and the ball, and the midnight, and the magic and all of that? How can I use that in a different way?

My next book is a retelling of Snow White. Rather than living with the dwarves, she lives with elves and she has elemental magic, so she has to reclaim her throne from the Evil Queen. The third book, coming out (in September), is Sleeping Beauty. It’s about Rosamund, who runs away from home because she doesn’t want to get married to the prince that she’s betrothed to, whom she’s never met. And as she is traveling through the woods, she happens to meet a man who is really the prince from the realm she’s supposed to marry. It’s a little a story of hidden identity.

LE: Do you think then that one of the hardest things about these fairytale retellings is the marketing?

MM: I think it is a challenge to really stand out from the crowd. There are a ton of retellings out there. What I have learned is, people are hungry for those types of stories. They’re looking for fairytale retellings that are sweet romances. I think you just have to tap into that.

LE: What do you think your readers would say is their favorite thing about your books?

MM: They really love the world building. I try really hard to make sure when I’m writing a fantasy that the world building elements are there and they’re apparent, but at the same time I don’t beat the reader over the head with them. I like to let them infer things, to make up their own mind about what things are and how they look and how they appear, but gives them that sort of atmospheric feeling of you’re in a Christmas realm. What does that look like? And then, definitely, the twists and turns that I throw at readers, and I try to keep those foreshadowing moments in there. So even though they may not be surprised, they’re still surprised.

LE: I’d like to think my readers would say the same things about my books. Hugely intricate worlds, lots of action. How many books a year do you put out, typically?

MM: I try to do two to three. This year I did four, and it was a lot, plus a box set. I’d finish one, I’d start the next one while I was editing the first one, and just kind of keep that cadence going. That’s how I was able to write four books from last June 1st until, I think I finished the draft of the fourth book at the end of April. I planned out how I was going to release them, and I knew I wanted to do kind of a rapid back-to-back release of these four books because I’m launching myself into a new genre, young adult fantasy. I wanted to make sure that readers could expect more from me and they were gonna get it. It was a lot of strategic thinking about how I was gonna do this.

LE: I can’t wait to read them.

MM: Thank you! I’m fascinated by the fact that you have a creative writing degree and you’re a PhD. That is incredible to me. I don’t have the fortitude for that. Tell me about your thesis on magical representation.

LE: Well, lifelong obsession with fantasy. And I was taking a class with this fantastic professor at McGill University (where I did my PhD) where we studied The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag, which features a tarot reader. I did an essay on the tarot in that novel, and he was like, this is fabulous. You should do it for your PhD.

So, I ended up focusing on postmodern literature, which often involves everything from the 17th century onward, because postmodernists really love to look at the past. For this thesis I studied everything from texts written in the 15th and 16th centuries—texts on cabinets of curiosity—to the very end of postmodern literature, because it all ties together.

Each chapter examined a type of body, a type of representation that suggests the magical. I did chapters on magicians and tarot readers, automatons, voodoo loas (spirits), monstrous bodies. Witches fell under that chapter, because some of the witches in the books I studied filed their teeth into sharp points. I just loved it so much.

I had already published my first book and I was working on a second, which was an urban fantasy set in Montreal and in the underworld (a retelling of Pluto and Persephone’s story). And I just thought, okay, this is where I’m going, I found my path at last. And now I can use all of this PhD research as I write books!

MM: That is amazing. I also understand that you taught vampire literature.

LE: Vampires are fascinating. A lot of the research I did for the freaks chapter of my thesis looked at vampire tales, like Elizabeth Bathory, who supposedly was a 16^th century serial killer who bathed in young virgin’s blood. (Oh my gosh, your readers are going to think I’m crazy.)

I started the course with the very first vampire story, which was a novella written by a doctor named John William Polidori. During the summer of 1816, which was called the “year of no summer” due to a volcanic eruption that year, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley, her cousin Claire and one Dr. John Polidori rented a chateau in the French countryside. They challenged each other to write a story. Mary Shelley developed Frankenstein from this event, and John Polidori wrote what is widely regarded as the first vampire tale, called, “The Vampyre.”

MM: Wow, that is fascinating.

LE: From there, you have Bram Stoker and Ann Rice. I also taught Twilight because I was obsessed with it. I taught Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a visual text. It was the one class that I was certain all of my college students (including the male students) actually read the books, so I won that year.

MM: (Laughs). That’s great. And you’re getting those people into that genre, too. We need more fantasy readers! Tell me about your books. What are you writing?

LE: My first seven or eight books are all Young Adult. The first one was set in the eighties and the early two-thousands. After that, I made my break into fantasy with Pluto’s Gate. Then I published a three-book series with Entangled Teen, the True Born Trilogy. It’s set in a future where a global pandemic has segregated society, and there are these True Borns, who are born with genetic variations—genetic devolution with animal DNA—that protect them from the plague. This was all before the pandemic, of course! The books revolve around these twin girls whose DNA might hold the secret to ending the plague. That’s what the whole series is about. The twins end up working with the True Borns, whose leader is Nolan Storm, a fantastical, demigod-like figure with antlers. There are also shifters. And romance!

MM: Those sounds fantastic.

LE: The next book, A Glamour of Blood, is a spinoff in the same world about a woman who is functionally blind except that she can see true born genetic variations. Her best friend is a cat man, a True Born, and they’re on the run from the leader of the True Borns who is going to kill them, while at the same time they are on the hunt for some missing street children.

MM: What do you have coming up?

LES: On October 21, Entangled Teen is coming out with Starling’s Weave. It’s my first break into full-on Romantasy. It’s about a girl who grows up in a very cloistered mage society but she has no magic. It’s a society on the verge of ecological collapse, because the magic that runs the world is failing. The heroine thinks she can save everything if she finds a story about a missing magical relic. The love interest in the book is a pirate who kidnaps her and forces her on his mission, which is actually turns out to be the same mission, in the end.

MM: Fun! Sounds fantastic.

LE: I hope so. Like you, I’m really big into action adventure. I have a lot of fight scenes in my books, and I hope I do justice to them.

MM: Those are hard! So, what was the very first fantasy book that you ever read that made you want to write fantasy?

LE: I believe it was Sherry S. Tepper’s Gate to Women’s Country. I bought it when I was eleven and still have the book. Oh – and all of Ann McCaffrey. How about you?

MM: I have a book that I read when I was a preteen called The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip. It was about a girl who lived in isolation, but she could converse with these fantastic creatures that surrounded her. It was just such a fascinating peek into this kind of isolated world with this woman who had magic and she could talk to these creatures. Like, she had a lion and all kinds of things. I still have it. My husband tracked down a first edition for me for Christmas one year.

LE: That’s amazing! And isn’t it funny that we both held on to those books.

ABOUT L.E. STERLING

Originally hailing from Parry Sound, Ontario, L.E. Sterling spent most of her summers roaming across Canada in a van, inspiring her writing career. True Born, first in the True Born trilogy, was recognized with the 2017 Athena Award® in Young Adult Literature (paranormal) from the Young Adult chapter of the RWA. She lives in Quebec, Canada. Visit her website at www.le-sterling.com.

Find her around the web!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Truth is more dangerous than fiction…in this exhilarating upper YA fantasy that will capture fans of Shadow And Bone and Dark Water Daughter

In ancient times, the Elder Wrights breathed their magic into the fabric of the seven seas. Now what was once an ocean of plenty is slowly becoming a sea of death, and the Talin—a race of hidden mages—are beginning to starve.

And for the first time ever, one of their own has no magic.

Ostracized by her own people, Nieve is certain that the old stories hide a missing piece of the puzzle. It’s just a matter of unlocking the secret.

But when a stranger comes sailing into their harbor, Nieve’s world is suddenly blown wide open. Now she’s sailing on the seven seas—with a too-charming, swashbuckling pirate, a group of strange misfits, and a woman who claims to be one of the Elder Wrights.

It’s like Nieve is living one of the stories she’s always loved…only now, she’s weaving a legend of her own.

Except that the old tales don’t mention those journeys that end in tragedy, a king’s calculated interference, or a world poised on the tides of death.

And they certainly don’t mention mutineers with a talent for stealing a girl’s heart…and lying all the while.

Releasing October 21, 2024 from Entangled Teen