Interview with Jill Criswell for Kingdom of Ice and Bone
Kingdom of Ice and Bone (Frozen Sun Saga #2)
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release Date: September 22nd 2020
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Fiction
Synopsis:
Lira and Reyker have lost everything. Including each other.
Lira of Stone watched her home burn and her clan fall beneath the sword of the warlord known as the Dragon. She believes the man she loves, a warrior who defected from the Dragon s army, is dead. Alongside her exiled brother and his band of refugees, she will fight the forces that conquered her island. But the greatest danger may come from Lira herself with the blood of banished gods running through her veins, she s become a weapon, and no one is safe from the power of her wrath.
Reyker Lagorsson thought he was done being a Dragonman. That was before he saw Lira leap from a cliff and vanish into the sea. Determined to honor her memory by protecting her people, Reyker must feign loyalty to the warlord, undermine him at every turn, and seek alliances with renegade soldiers without succumbing to the battle-madness that threatens to possess him once more.
When the Fallen Ones offer Lira a chance to defeat the Dragon, her quest leads her to a place she never expected Iseneld, the warlord s homeland. Her journey into the heart of the Frozen Sun will put her on a collision course with Reyker, costing both of them more than they ever imagined, and leaving her with a terrible choice: to save their countries, she must forsake everything she loves.
Can you briefly describe KINGDOM OF ICE AND BONE, the series and its characters?
Kingdom of Ice & Bone is the sequel to Beasts of the Frozen Sun, and it picks up where the first book left off, with Lira and Reyker separated and each thinking the other is dead.Lira is a god-gifted daughter of Glasnith. She barely escaped from the vicious warlord Draki, who destroyed her village, and she owes her life to a host of vengeful gods; now, she’s struggling to control the dark powers they forced upon her.
Reyker, a warrior from Iseneld who suffers from battle-madness, was devoted to Lira after she saved his life. Now, he’s trying to find a way to protect her island from Draki, and the only way to do it is to pretend to be one of Draki’s loyal warriors.
Both Lira and Reyker are ensnared by Draki’s schemes. They find themselves in Iseneld, journeying across its frozen heart, unwittingly headed on a collision course with a monstrous goddess, and facing a terrible choice: to save their countries, they must lose each other and give up their souls to the dark gifts threatening to devour them.
Could you describe your story with emojis?
⚔️ ⛵ 🧊 🌋 🏰 ❤️ 🐉 ☠️ 💔
Who would you say is your favourite character from the story and why?
So I love Lira and Reyker, obviously, but Draki really hooked me in the sequel. He finally gets his chance to show us he’s more than the cartoon villain he pretends to be—there’s depth to him that we didn’t get to see in the first book, and I really enjoyed fleshing out his character.How did the story occur to you? Did you find inspiration anywhere? How was the process different from the 1st book?
The first book, Beasts of the Frozen Sun, was inspired by my travels in Iceland—which is the basis for the fictional country of Iseneld in the series. In Beasts, we only see Iseneld in flashbacks, but in Kingdom, our main characters finally make it there. I was able to include a lot of settings based on real places in Iceland, and that scenery was a huge inspiration.
Writing the sequel was definitely different. The first book sort of wanders, and a lot of the focus is on Lira and Reyker’s budding romance. In the sequel, the characters are separated; there’s a lot more focus on their individual missions—Lira learning to use her newly-acquired gifts, Reyker forming an alliance with a renegade army—and on their strange relationships with the warlord, Draki.
If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be?
I have a whole playlist for the book, but the song on the playlist that best captures the overall theme of the book is “Who Will Save You Now” by Les Friction. (Check out the lyrics, and that epic, movie-finale sound, and you’ll see what I mean.)If your book was going to be made into a movie, who would play your characters?
If it was being made today, this would be my dream cast:
Emma Watson as Lira
Nicholas Hoult as Reyker
Alexander Skarsgård as Draki
Bob Morley as Garreth
Torrance Coombs as Quinlan
Zazie Beetz as Zabelle
Ricky Whittle as Brokk
Elizabeth Debicki as Solvei
What drink and place do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date?
I think sitting by a fire, drinking a Black and Tan made of Guinness and Viking Gylltur, on a rainy day, in a place where you can see the gray waters of the Atlantic out the window would be just about perfect. But if you can’t make that happen, having a picture of Reynisfjara on a foggy day to look at also works.Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish KINGDOM OF ICE AND BONE?
A Goodreads reviewer called my series the love child between Juliet Marillier’s Daughter of the Forest and Adrienne Young’s Sky in the Deep, which I took as a huge compliment and feel is spot on. Juliet Marillier’s Wolf Skin was another big influence on the series. Other fantasy series I love that readers might not be familiar with are the Given duology by Mindy McGinnis and the Traitor’s Circle by Erin Beaty.
What would you say is the most difficult part of writing a book?
It depends on the book. With the first book in a series, it’s hardest for me to figure out who my characters are and what they want—where I start the book is never where the story ends up, which takes lots of revision to fix. For a sequel, the hardest part for me is tying up all the loose ends while moving the story forward. For a finale, ending things in a way that feels epic, inevitable, and satisfying can be tough. When the final book in the Frozen Sun Saga comes out next year, you all can be the judge of whether or not I pulled it off!
What’s next for you?
I’ll be finishing up edits on the finale in the Frozen Sun Saga in the next few months, and it should be out fall of 2021. Beyond that, I’ve got one finished young adult fantasy I’m hoping to get published—I like to describe it as Uglies meets Rebel of the Sands, which sounds really weird, but hopefully interesting—and another I’m halfway done writing that’s about three competitors fighting to become the next leader of their country, perfect for fans of Three Dark Crowns.
Jill Criswell is a writer of Young Adult Historical Fantasy. She was born and raised in the swamps of northeastern Florida. She earned degrees in English and Psychology and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida. Her greatest passion, besides reading and writing, is traveling the world; she’s visited fifty countries across six continents, falling in love with places like Iceland, Namibia, and Cambodia. She works as a university English teacher and lives in South Carolina, near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with her husband and daughter (who is named after a volcano in Iceland).
0 comments