Dan Fitzgerald

Hi friend! I am chatting with Dan Fitzgerald about their latest novel, Unpainted. The last and first time I had Dan over for an interview about one of their books was about The Living Waters back in December 2021. Time flies. Unpainted is set in the same world of the Weirdwater Confluence and I adored it. Here’s a quick overview about the book before we jump into the interview.

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Hi Dan! Welcome back to Armed with A Book. I can’t believe it’s been a year and a half since I last hosted you about The Living Waters. What have you been up to?

Writing the Time Before series, which is set 2,000 years before the Maer Cycle and the Weirdwater Confluence, and writing Unpainted, along with another short romance set in the Time Before called Jagged Shard, a dungeon crawler spinoff of The Delve. In short, busy, busy, busy!

I was very excited when I first heard about Unpainted. My familiarity to The Living Waters and the fact that romantic fantasy is not my usual genre led me to add it to my TBR. You wrote it after The Isle of the Thousand Worlds, the follow up to The Living Waters. What made you want to return to Weirdwater Confluence? 

There was a lot more to the world of the painted faces that I wanted to explore. Many readers commented that they wanted to know more, and honestly I did too! I’m a bit of a worldbuilding tease, and sometimes I tease myself into writing more books! 

In my review I talked about the significance of the title for me. Why did you choose Unpainted? 

I had the idea for an arranged marriage among the painted faces, and I realized that for most of them, the only time they’d ever see someone outside their immediate family without their paint was after marriage, if they stuck to tradition. The shock of that pure nakedness seemed like an interesting concept, and Unpainted felt like a metaphor for the way we reveal most intimate selves to our spouses in a way we don’t to the rest of the world. And of course the hidden meaning of the word as revealed in the book is the cherry on the sundae. 😉 

The financial system of Anari with Pureline was intriguing to read about. Tell me more about the commerce and finance of the Painted Faces society. 

I wanted their economy to highlight the exclusivity of the real-world economy, where the rich get richer and the rest are shut out completely. Pureline currency is a limited set of original platinum bars of a certain vintage, numbered and recorded, whose number can never increase. Only families with a certain number of Pureline bars have access to the most lucrative markets, so they effectively control the economy on the continent, and nothing can ever shake their hold. Unless some mysterious financial shenanigans were to crop up and reveal corruption at the very heart of the Pureline system itself… 

Tera’s dissatisfaction with her culture and skin tone was evident. What kind of restrictive ideas does the Painted Faces community have that Tera felt bound by? 

The lighter the skin tone, the higher the social status, though there are many other factors that play into status: Pureline, family history, connections, etc. The reason they paint their faces is because their skin has become exceedingly sensitive to the sun due to centuries of essentially inbreeding for paleness. There’s an in-world history that hasn’t been revealed yet about the origin of this custom, which may be written in a future book, but for now it exists only in my head. Outside of the limited circle of the painted faces, skin tone is largely irrelevant, but within their sphere, it’s an almost sacred tradition, with quasi-religious ceremonies for annual tone assessments, as shown in The Living Waters. Needless to say, Tera (and probably every painted face) finds the custom abhorrent, but like many traditions, it is kept afloat by the power it affords those who control it. 

Beyond that, she finds the idea that marriages should be arranged by wealth, skin tone, and other forms of prestige grotesque, as would anyone, but again, systems stay in place by inertia. As an asexual person with very little romantic inclination, the idea of marriage seems bizarre in and of itself, so her apprehension going into the wedding is quite real. 

Which of the characters do you relate to the most and why? 

I relate equally to both, for different reasons, as they each have parts of me in them. Tera’s attitude toward romance is very much like mine; I find it fascinating but also quite strange and foreign. I certainly relate to Aven’s carnal enthusiasm, and to his confusion about his uneven attractions to people of different genders. When you write characters, you can’t help infusing parts of yourself into them, but they take on lives of their own as they grow on the page, so they are both you and not-you. 

I enjoyed seeing Tera and Aven’s relationship evolve in their private time. While he was easy going and wanted to please her, she had concrete ideas of what she wanted to try. In school, we are taught the basics of sex through bodily functions and that can be far removed from making a personal connection with someone. What makes for a healthy and successful marriage in your mind? How does sex support this?  

I bill the book as “consent, communication, and cuddles,” and I’ll answer your questions with this. Consent and communication are key to every relationship, whether we’re talking about sex or any other part of life, and cuddles, to the extent they are wanted by both parties, are a great way to grow closeness. I spend a lot of time in the book (too much time, one might argue) showing the characters just being with each other, reading, eating, talking, exploring their world, and of course each other’s bodies and minds. I wanted to show two people growing close, observing each other, seeing each other, a character study, if you will. Some readers might find it a little slow or claustrophobic for that reason, which I accept. But that’s what I’m after. 

Would you write a follow up story about Aven and Tera? 

They will appear as side characters in the next Weirdwater romance, which will feature Lila (Tera’s intimacy consultant) as the lead. Sylvan will also play a role in that book! 

Do you have a favorite quote from the book that you would like to share?  

Ooh so many! But I’ll share one from an intimate scene because it encapsulates the consent and communication between the two: 

“I want you to feel safe,” she said, cupping his cheeks, brushing her thumb over his plump lips.  

“I’ve never felt safer in my life.” 

There are many words used to describe romance like steamy and spicy. What do these mean to you as a romance writer? Can you share some examples of books that you found to be steamy and/or spicy? 

Ask 10 romance authors and you’ll get 10 different answers, but to me, spicy means we use frank or “vulgar” (I hate that word, hence the quotation marks) words for sex organs and steamy means we generally don’t. When in doubt, if it uses “stronger” language or has more sex scenes I’ll call it spicy, and if it uses “milder” language or has fewer scenes I’ll call it steamy. So by that definition, Unpainted is very steamy (lots of sex scenes but mostly euphemistic or mild descriptors) but not spicy. Mistakes Were Made is spicy; Daughter of No Worlds is steamy. 

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

I’d add that if people want a book with a close-up focus on an arranged marriage relationship with lots of steamy scenes and a slow-burn fantasy plot in the background, Unpainted is the book for them! If they’re looking for a more traditional romantasy experience, Wings so Soft, my owl-themed fantasy romance coming at the end of August, might be just the ticket. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and sharing with my readers. 🙂  

Thank you so much for having me! You’re a gentleperson and a scholar. 

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Thank you for hanging out with Dan and me today! We really appreciate you taking the time to read about Unpainted and hope that if you pick it up, you will let us know! Find it on Goodreads. You can connect with Dan on Twitter, Instagram and their website.