Happy Thursday, friend! Today I am chatting with author Karen A,. Wyle about her upcoming novel, Far From Mortal Realms: A Novel of Humans and Fae. I am looking forward to making time for this one! Let’s welcome Karen and learn about this story.
Get to know the author: Karen A. Wyle
Hi Karen! Welcome to Armed with A Book. Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!
I was born a Connecticut Yankee, moved to California at age eight, bounced up and down the state and then back and forth across the country, and landed in Bloomington, Indiana in 1989. I’ve lived there ever since. I no longer know how to drive on freeways, though I do it if I must during visits to my younger daughter in Los Angeles.
My childhood ambition was to be the youngest ever published novelist. While I was writing my first (attempt at a) novel at age ten, I was mortified to learn that some British upstart had beaten me to the goal at age nine. After trying again at age fourteen, and then writing poetry and a couple of short stories, I essentially gave up on writing and on my identity as a writer toward the end of my time in college. I became a lawyer instead, which had the serendipitous result of teaching me how to write easily and in quantity. In my thirties, expecting my first child, I started writing picture book manuscripts. When that first child began their senior year of high school, they undertook to write a novel during National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo or NaNo). When they did the same the following year, I joined them – and the rest may not be history, but it does add up to thirteen novels, four picture books, and one nonfiction resource. Five of those novels, both near-future SF and my upcoming fantasy novel, draw on my expertise as a lawyer.
As a novelist, my brand is “thoughtful and compassionate fiction.” I tend to focus on often-intertwined themes of family, communication, the impossibility of controlling events, and/or the persistence of unfinished business.
What inspired you to write this book?
For many years, I’ve enjoyed trying to imagine what I would do if I encountered a wish-granting magical being such as a genie or faerie. I try to come up with wishes so airtight that even a mischievous or malicious supernatural being couldn’t turn them against me. I’m not sure I’ve ever fully succeeded – but at some point it occurred to me that if the Fair Folk are, as often supposed, the sort of beings that love trapping humans with overlooked loopholes, any human determined to deal with them would do better with a lawyer’s assistance.
How long did it take you to write this book, from the first idea to the last edit?
I wrote the rough draft during NaNoWriMo in November 2022. I reread and revised and edited from January through August. I sent the book to beta readers in May 2023, received responses in June and July, and made so many changes thereafter that I wished I had the time to find a whole new crop of beta readers for the resulting version.
What makes your story unique?
I venture to say that there are few if any fantasy novels in which two lawyers are the main characters (other than, possibly, urban fantasies with a noir flavor).
Who would enjoy reading your book?
I’m hoping that at least some fantasy readers who enjoy stories of the Fair Folk will enjoy my lawyer-heavy take on the topic, and that some lawyers will be intrigued by an unusual setting for a story with lawyer characters. In addition, there are a few invaluable folks out there who will at least start reading almost anything I write.
What is something you have learned on your author journey so far?
Helping readers find your books is both essential and VERY difficult.
What’s the best piece of advice you have received related to writing?
The best advice I’ve received is not to take anyone’s advice or any “rule” as gospel. Find your own writing process – and then, if at some point it stops working for you, put it aside and try another one.
If you could give a shout out to someone(s) who has helped in your writer journey, please feel free to mention them below!
Chuck Wendig recently put out a book titled Gentle Writing Advice: How to Be a Writer Without Destroying Yourself. It was that book that helped me focus on the niggling dissatisfaction I’d been feeling with my process for writing novels. I’m now planning to try something new for my next one.
And then there’s the man whose name I either never learned or soon forgot, my seatmate on an airplane sometime around 2009. I somehow got to telling him various anecdotes from my life, how I had yearned to be a novelist and had then abandoned that ambition. In an attempt to justify having left writing fiction behind, I said something about how I “couldn’t tell stories.” He just looked at me and lifted an eyebrow, silently pointing out that I’d just been telling him one story after another, apparently without boring him to tears. I dedicated my first novel to him.
Where can readers find you on the Internet?
This is the place to add all your relevant social links.
Here are my social media links, roughly in order of the frequency of my posts: Twitter, Facebook, blog (Looking Around), Instagram: Instagram.
Far From Mortal Realms
Fantasy
Negotiating with the Fair Folk is a tightrope walk over deadly perils. And even the most skilled can misstep.
The many wondrous realms the Fair Folk inhabit offer tempting opportunities for mortals hoping to benefit from faerie magic. But making bargains with the Fair Folk is a dangerous business, for the fae have a habit of leaving loopholes to snare the unwary. Father-and-daughter lawyers Abe and Adira have made a career out of helping their fellow humans reach such agreements safely.
Abe and Adira know the rules for dealing with Fair Folk: don’t reveal your true name, don’t say thank you, don’t accept gifts, don’t eat fae food, don’t tell even the slightest of lies . . . . Oh, and always, no matter the provocation, be unfailingly polite.
A moment of carelessness, a brief lapse, and a professional defender of mortal interests may be in dire need of rescue.
Content notes: TW: separation of parent and child
Book Excerpt from
Far From Mortal Realms
Context: The self-styled “Viscount of Bloomington” is a faerie who often acts as a go-between between lawyers Abe and Adira (father and daughter) and various other fae. He has arrived unexpectedly.
The viscount took the offered chair, throwing its long coattails behind it as it did so. it smirked at Adira and said, “Do pardon me, fair lady, and you, good sir, for my unheralded appearance, but I have become aware of an urgent situation in which your unequaled skills may be all that stand between a hapless mortal and a regrettable fate.”
Adira fetched legal pads for Dad and for herself as Dad said, “We would of course like to hear about this situation. Please go on.”
From the recesses of its cape, the viscount conjured a heavily gilded box of snuff and took a pinch. “I am perhaps being precipitate. Have you ever involved yourself in what we may call criminal trials among my people?”
A mere few minutes ago, Adira had been contemplating with pleasure and longing the idea of Dad’s leftover baked goods, and then a big bowl of hot soup at the nearest coffee shop. Now her stomach cramped with something more like cold. “No, we haven’t taken on any cases of that kind.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Actually, not that long after I began this practice, I did handle such a matter. The details, of course, are confidential, and the memory is not one I often revisit.” Adira glanced over at him to see his expression uncharacteristically bleak.
The viscount nodded. “Ah, I see. That would be before you and I began our association, would it not? I should apologize for reviving such unhappy recollections. Perhaps I should say no more of the unfortunate boy of whom I planned to speak.”
Adira had never entirely trusted the viscount, and she trusted it even less now. She opened her mouth to concur, just as Dad said, “No, please go on.” From his tone, he had similar reservations, but his professional conscience appeared more active, at the moment, than any sense of self-preservation.
The viscount sat back, with the air of one about to embark on an engrossing story. “Has either of you ever visited our realm of infinite ice?”
“I have, for one case,” Dad replied. “It’s a truly marvelous sight, with mountains like daggers and a frozen lake stretching off to the horizon, and icicles hanging from every surface, and the trees unbowed by those icicles, and the sunlight – when there is any – glinting off it all.”
“Indeed, a lovely sight. It is equally lovely in moonlight – yes, day and night do follow each other there, much as in your environs. And there are also moonless nights, where only those with adequate vision may find their way unhindered. There is one other fact, unsurprising once one considers the matter, which you must understand. Fire of any kind is strictly – oh, most strictly – forbidden throughout this realm, with the sole and rare exception of certain ceremonial uses of which I must not speak. Can you, now, begin to guess what must have occurred to require your assistance?”
Adira looked intently at the viscount. “You mentioned a boy. He came there on some errand and then made a fire?”
The viscount examined its polished fingernails and sighed. “That is almost correct. This boy – sixteen years old, I believe – had no errand, and indeed, to hear him tell it, he had no idea he had crossed the boundary between a mortal and a faerie realm. He was wandering home from his sweetheart’s house, no doubt filled with fond thoughts of her charms, and blundered into the ice realm. Naturally, since he did not belong there, he had no idea how to get where he did belong, and could scarcely see where he was in fact going. So he found a fallen branch – ”
Surprising, that a branch had fallen from one of those unbowed trees.
“ – and, using some supplies he had with him, contrived to turn it into a torch, the better to find his way. Naturally, he attracted attention, and has been detained pending the administrative proceeding that will see him consigned to the ice.”
Dad scribbled a few notes, possibly to buy time, before he asked quietly, “Please explain just what that entails.”
The viscount produced a tight-lipped smile. “My dear counselor, the phrase is both literal and descriptive. He will be immersed in the lake, pursuant to a spell that will prevent him from drowning or from requiring sustenance, with a patch above him enchanted to remain clear so that he may contemplate the world he will never be allowed to reenter. This clear area of ice will also allow passersby to see him, and whatever anguished expression he may have, and so be reminded of the price of such folly.”
Adira had little occasion to regret her vivid visual imagination, but she did at this moment. In fact, she jumped to her feet, excused herself in brief and incoherent fashion, and rushed from the room, walking as fast as she could to the bathroom in case she had to vomit. Staring into the mirror only reminded her of that boy, who might soon be staring up at a sheet of impenetrable glass . . . .
Interested?
Find this book on Goodreads, IndieStoryGeek and Amazon . This one is on my TBR!
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