Anela Deen – Author of In The Jaded Grove

Hello friends! I hope you are having a nice week and after a fantastic list of indie and small press recommendations from SK, you are ready to give into a conversation with an indie author! It is my pleasure to host Anela Deen today as part of the blog tour organized by Storytellers on Tour. I have In The Jaded Grove on my TBR and rather than doing my usual – read the book and interview the author – I thought I would mix it up a bit and bring you this conversation pre-reading.

Let’s start off with learning more about In The Jaded Grove and then read on for the Q&A with Anela. There is a tour-wide giveaway happening as well so check details on how to enter at the end of the post. 🙂

About Anela Deen:

A child of two cultures, this hapa haole Hawaiian girl is currently landlocked in the Midwest. After exploring the world for a chunk of years, Anela Deen hunkered down in Minnesota and now fills her days with family, fiction, and the occasional snowstorm. With a house full of lovable toddlers, a three-legged cat, and one handsome Dutchman, she prowls the keyboard late at night while the minions sleep. Coffee? Nah, she prefers tea with a generous spoonful of sarcasm.

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Hi Anela Deen! Welcome to Armed with A Book. Let’s get started with some questions about In The Jaded Grove.

Anela Deen on In The Jaded Grove

How is In the Jaded Grove different from your other works?

It’s a portal fantasy! Being a big fan of this sub-genre, I’d always wanted to write one. I’d played around with the plot for this story for a couple of years before it finally all came together. In the Jaded Grove is also the start to a standalone fantasy series that I’m really excited about.

What sparked the idea for this book with trolls, pixies, fairies and the Fae?

Like other readers, I’ve gone through books that referred to fairies as “fae”, “faerie”, “fairy” and I wondered why there were variations on the name of these tricksy creatures. It occurred to me that it might be fun to make cousin races out of “fae” and “fairy”—while still keeping them frightening and tricksy 😊

I chose a pixie as the main hero because fairies/faeries are always the MCs and I wanted to hear from someone else. Plus, pixie wings.

What was the exciting part of writing this book?

There’s a lot of action and adventure—I love a fast-paced book—but this one also has quite a few fantastical (and terrifying) environments that I really enjoyed creating.

What was the most challenging part?

A central theme to the book is grief—how it changes us and how loss twists our lives into a future we didn’t expect. It was a theme I’d planned for the story, but one I hadn’t expected to write when the world was, and continues to be, dealing with grief on a global scale. It was hard to write characters struggling with sorrow when I’m struggling with it too.

What kind of response were you expecting from your readers for In the Jaded Grove? What has their response been like?

Expectation is a dangerous word when publishing a book. I go with ‘hoping’: I hope to give readers a trip away from the real world. I want them to meet Jessa and Simith, to care about their journey, and root for them as they try to save both their worlds and themselves.

I’ve been really happy with reader response! I love when reviews come in saying they couldn’t put it down, or they stayed up way too late reading. Reader sleep-deprivation gives me the grins.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from this book?

My stories always end with hope. That’s what I want readers to take away from the book—that life is a series of hills and valleys. Even our lowest moments pass, and joy is on the other side of grief.

Anela as a writer and reader

You write SciFi, Fantasy and Paranormal. What drew you to these genres?

I was drawn to these genres because they’re my favorite to read and watch. Always have been. They let me stretch my imagination as far as I’d like. As long as I make sure things abide by the crazy rules in my crazy worlds, I can create anything I want. It’s ridiculous fun.

Let’s do a little bit of this or that! When it comes to your writing, do you like

• Character or plot driven stories?

Character-driven, always. To my mind, if people don’t care about the characters, they won’t care about what’s going on in the plot.

• Vivid, descriptive storytelling or let the reader fill in some details?

Bit of both—vivid and descriptive where it’s called for, but don’t expect me to name every sword or describe the brocade on the curtains.

• Serious or sarcastic characters?

There’s quite a bit of dry humor in my writing. Can’t help it. I’m sarcastic by nature, however I love to pair a sarcastic character across from a serious one. There’s amazing chemistry there.

Are there any books that you would say influenced and shaped you as a writer?

There’s so many that I’m afraid to list names because I’ll leave someone out. What’s helped me develop most as a writer is not just the books I read in the past, but that I continue to read all the time—all genres and from many different voices.

If there is anything else you would like to share, please feel free to add it below! 🙂

Thank you so much for hosting me on Armed with A Book!

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There is awesome swag to be won with the International giveaway happening alongside the tour. You can participate below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for joining me and Storytellers on Tour for this interview today! Hope you enjoyed this post with Anela Deen. Connect with her on Instagram and Twitter and find her on Goodreads. Learn more about her and her books on her website. Be sure to check out the other posts on the tour – start at Mae’s Mae the Dreamer blog for a review.

Cover Image: Photo by Werner Sevenster on Unsplash