StanleyWheeler

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Interview with JMD Reid

Author of

Above the Storm

and more

Please tell me a little about your current work in progress.

I’m working on What Masks Hide, a five book fantasy series that’s set in my Jewel Machine Universe. It’s a companion series to Secret of the Jewels, running parallel to it with some minor connective tissues. They compliment each other but neither is necessary to understand the other.

What Mask Hides follows Lady Foonauri, a young noblewoman who has become disaffected by her pursuit of powerful men. It has led to two men she loved being destroyed and her living far from her home.

She is approached by the enigmatic Onyx and is offered to join a group of thieves called the Cracked Gems who broke the rules to save the world one small crime at a time.

Will she find meaning taking control of her life?

Where did you get the idea for this book or series?

Like Secret of the Jewels, What Mask Hides comes out of a short story I wrote called Dual. It is about Taim, a young prince who, after finding one of his palace officers sexually assaulting his fiancé, challenges the man to a duel. Everyone thinks he’s going to lose. So does Taim, but he’ll he hopes the truth will prevail.

Only an earthquake struck and drops him and his opponent into the earth. Taim and Obhin have to help each other to survive and in the process talk about Foonauri, the main character of What Masks Hides. What Taim took as a sexual assault was actually an adulterous affair while Obhin, who had known Foonauri since childhood, had been told that Taim was forcing Foonauri to marry him.

The two men realize that Foonauri has lied to them. Taim is able to let go, but not Obhin. In the end, he kills Taim. I always wondered what happened to Obhin and Foonauri after that. I saw their relationship failing.

So I conceived two series, Secret of the Jewels following Obhin two years later as a broken man, and Foonauri as she faces her complicity in the tragedy and her own guilt and quest for redemption.

Do you write in more than one genre?

No. Just Fantasy.

Tell me about something that you believe makes your writing unique or worthy of attention.

My characters. I strive for comples and realistic characters and relationships. I want their personalities to drive their choice and thus the plot. I make you care for them and root for them as they face their trials (and there will be trials).

Is there anything about your personal history or personality that manifests strongly in your writing?

As a disillusioned romantic (aka a cynic) I find myself rooting for my characters to find love. Not the wild, crazy, passionat love, but that quiet companionship. The relationship that survive once the fires die. That support each other and are partners in life.

What else would be helpful for readers to know about you?

I love fantasy. The books of my youth from Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad, Death Gate Cycle, The Wheel of Time, The Shannara Books, Dune, and more all made me want to invent my own worlds. Tell my own stories.

Excluding your own work, what underrated author or book would you recommend that more people read? Why?

R. Scott Bakker if you want to see philosophy baked into fantasy and an unflinching look at the truth of humanity and not the romantic version we like to pretend that we are.

Which of your books do you most highly recommend? Why?

Above the Storm starts off my epic fantasy series The Storm Below. It’s my first book and one I am proud of. It is a military/epic fantasy that chronicles Ary and Chaylene, to farm youths, through their military service and to their confrontation with a Dark Goddess to decide the fate of the world.