Forging Silver Into Stars, one of our favorite titles ever made book, is Brigid Kemmerer’s return to the worlds of Emberfall and Syhl Shallow, and for fans of the first trilogy, it will feel just like coming home. The book, which is out today, shifts the focus to Tycho of Rillisk, but doesn’t forget about the characters that came before or the stories that it had already set up. Fangirlish had a chance to talk to Kemmerer about the book, returning to this world, and what makes her characters special, and what better time to share that interview with all of you than today, with Forging Silver Into Stars finally out in the world.
“I really wanted to write a spin off series,” Kemmerer shared, adding that she had to work with her editor to figure out how to “write it in a way that people who haven’t read the first trilogy could still read it, but that people coming back to the world would still enjoy it.” Since this not a prequel, however, there are spoilers for the Cursebreaker trilogy in this new one, that part couldn’t be helped. Know that before you pick up the book.
Forging Silver Into Stars follows Tycho of Rillisk, a character familiar to fans of the Cursebreakers trilogy, and one that sort of took over, as Kemmerer was writing. “When I first put him on the page in A Heart So Fierce and Broken, I didn’t expect him to end up being as big a character as he turned out to be,” she shared with us, adding that she loves him dearly, and she’s very happy with how he turned out.
The plan for him was originally different, though but – no spoilers here! – the character just took his own path, as good characters often do. And though some of the choices made by various characters leading to where we are we can be categorized questionable; they all culminate in the story Kemmerer is trying to tell in Forging Silver Into Stars. “I love my characters,” she told us, “And I love seeing people grow and change and make mistakes,” which includes characters – yes, even the villains.
It’s about connection, and about your readers caring, of course, Kemmerer shared. At least, that’s the intent. “You want your readers to sort of connect, even to the villains because that means you created a good character.” Plus, writing nice characters all the time isn’t as fun – or realistic. “I love complicated, messy people, and I love writing characters who are complicated and messy, and I think that we all struggle with the worst parts of ourselves.”
This is true of the characters we already knew, and the new ones, something Kemmerer takes seriously. “I love developing new characters, finding new ways to torture new people,” she shared, before truly going into what that means, as a writer and for the reader. “No one wants to read a boring book,” she explained, “if everyone’s getting along. I’m not doing my job.”
Sometimes there’s a plan to that, but often there’s a combination of a plan – or a goal, and the realities of publishing and writing and life. This is what happened with the Cursebreakers trilogy, where Kemmerer admits she knew the first book, and a vague idea of where she hoped the rest of the books might go. And once the first book was sold, she wrote a synopsis for books two and three. The exact same thing happened for this second trilogy. But that doesn’t mean the synopsis she wrote for herself is written in stone, or that things won’t change as she writers them.
Things have, after all, already changed as Kemmerer works on the first draft of the sequel to Forging Silver Into Stars. She’s also found a new favorite character – often the one she’s writing in the moment. And, perhaps, new ships? “I would say that 90% of the time I know who’s going to end up with whom. Sometimes my characters surprise me, though, sometimes they surprise me.“
But the surprise is always about plot, the characters or the ships, not about the level of research Kemmerer puts into her writing – particularly into trauma, which this book deals with head on. “I do a tremendous amount of research for any books that I write, and I’ve written several contemporary YA novels which also deal with a ton of trauma. And it’s no different when I come to my fantasy novels,” she told us. “I’ve worked with psychologists, pediatricians, I do a lot of online research.”
“So, creating Tycho’s character and what he went through when he was young and what he had to deal with and just putting him on the page and (seeing) how he would behave around either other young men or young women and how he would handle himself in a romantic relationship” was a challenge, but one Kemmerer tied to make as authentic as possible and “as healing as possible.”
“I try to present my characters in such a way that teenagers, adults, anyone of any age who has endured a situation like that can see themselves in that character and teenagers and adults who haven’t found themselves in a situation like that can find empathy for those kinds of situations with people who might be in their lives .“
And if that isn’t one of the best lessons we can get from fiction, then what is?
Forging Silver Into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer is available today, wherever books are sold. You can check out the synopsis below:
When ancient magic tests a newfound love, a dark fate beckons . . .
Magic has been banished in the land of Syhl Shallow for as long as best friends Jax and Callyn can remember. They once loved the stories of the powerful magesmiths and mythical scravers who could conjure fire or control ice, but now they’ve learned that magic only leads to danger: magic is what killed Callyn’s parents, leaving her alone to raise her younger sister. Magic never helped Jax, whose leg was crushed in an accident that his father has been punishing him for ever since. Magic won’t save either of them when the tax collector comes calling, threatening to take their homes if they can’t pay what they owe.
Meanwhile, Jax and Callyn are astonished to learn magic has returned to Syhl Shallow — in the form of a magesmith who’s now married to their queen. Now, the people of Syhl Shallow are expected to allow dangerous magic in their midst, and no one is happy about it.
When a stranger rides into town offering Jax and Callyn silver in exchange for holding secret messages for an anti-magic faction, the choice is obvious — even if it means they may be aiding in a plot to destroy their new king. It’s a risk they’re both willing to take. That is, until another visitor arrives: handsome Lord Tycho, the King’s Courier, the man who’s been tasked with discovering who’s conspiring against the throne.
Suddenly, Jax and Callyn find themselves embroiled in a world of shifting alliances, dangerous flirtations, and ancient magic . . . where even the deepest loyalties will be tested.