Brought
To Book THE SFX AUTHOR INTERVIEW
EMMA NEWMAN
Ahoy there! The British writer talks pirates, genre and optimism
Words by Jonathan Wright///
SOMETIMES, IT’S EASY JUST TO SAY YES. Such a moment occurred for Emma Newman when publishers Solaris came to her with an idea. Would she like to write a novel set in the world of Alexandre Dumas of The Count Of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers fame, but with added vampires and werewolves? “I was like, ‘How could I not be interested in that?’” Newman says.
So it was she began to write The Vengeance. Though other authors will also get to play in what’s being promoted as the Vampires Of Dumas sandbox, Newman says she was given “complete freedom” to do what she wanted. She chose to write a coming-of-age quest story about a girl, Morgane, who grows up having rip-roaring adventures as the daughter of a pirate captain, but finds, in a moment of tragedy, that her lineage is not as she’s been told.