The Phoenix and the Firebird – Book Excerpt

Happy Thursday, friend! I love getting co-authors together and learning about how a book came to be from their joined efforts. Today, let’s hear from Alexis Kossiakoff and Scott Forbes Crawford about their latest release, The Phoenix and the Firebird, a new addition to my TBR.

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Get to know the authors:
Alexis Kossiakoff and Scott Forbes Crawford

Welcome Alexis and Scott! Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!

Alexis: I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and was always fascinated by different cultures and distant places. My mother grew up in the foreign service, and when I was little, I loved looking at her pictures and imagining what it was like living in places like Colombia, Cuba, and Pakistan. This love for learning about other cultures led me to study anthropology, and I eventually earned a master’s degree in anthropology with a focus on Museum Studies. I ultimately decided to enter international teaching and have worked in both China and Japan. Though I didn’t pursue a career in anthropology directly, I believe my studies greatly shaped my interest in cross-cultural intersections and folklore.

Scott: I spent part of my childhood in Tokyo and later attended university in China. These experiences changed the course of my life and of course became huge influences on me as a writer – much of my work is about or set in Asia. I’m also drawn to stories about outsiders in foreign lands, such as Lucy finding her way through Chinese culture (and later, Chinese myth) in our book.  

How long did it take you to write the book, from the first idea to the last edit?

Alexis: From start to finish it was about seven years; however, it is a tricky question to answer as  there were many dormant periods in there. It wasn’t a full time focus for either one of us and we had to navigate a day job, family life, and some international moves, all of which can be a balancing act.

Scott: Yes, having a child amidst writing a book certainly slows down the progress! It also took us a few attempts to figure out just what kind of story we wanted to tell. It actually began life as a mystery novel, though we ultimately decided it wanted to be more of a fantasy adventure. This change of genre allowed us to introduce many more elements, such as Chinese and Slavic folklore, which became major parts of the narrative. 

What makes your story unique? How have your individual experiences shaped the book?

Alexis: I believe the setting and characters make the story unique. We felt it was important to share some of the rich history and culture from our experiences living in China, while also creating a setting that allows our two main characters to connect authentically. Both Lucy and Su are victims of regime change and must adjust to a new reality. The story is loosely inspired by my grandfather’s own experience of fleeing Russia and spending part of his childhood in China. For instance, Lucy’s father is modeled after my great-grandfather, who was an officer in the Czar’s army in Siberia. Lucy herself is based on my grandfather’s cousin of the same name. They lived together in China, were around the same age, and were like siblings. Unlike my grandfather’s family, who moved to the United States, Lucy’s family chose to return to Russia. I am not sure why (I wish I could have asked!), and we do not know what happened to them upon their return.

Scott: I’d say the way we blend fantasy with true family history makes our book something rather different from many novels out there. And the fact that we spent quite a chunk of our lives in China and gained some insights that way. I’ve also written two other books (one novel, one nonfiction history) focused on Chinese history, so hopefully readers will feel they are immersed in a well-researched (though also fantastical) world.   

What is it like writing a book together? Tell me about your process of working together on the story!

Alexis: I think once we figured out a system that worked best for us, it went pretty smoothly. We learned quickly that sitting side by side and composing sentences together was a recipe for divorce! Instead, we created a detailed outline together, then took turns drafting. This gave us both space and autonomy to work to each of our strengths as writers. 

Scott: It was challenging but deeply enjoyable to create a world together. We were lucky in that our talents and storytelling interests were complementary, and I think the result of that is a book unlike many others out there.    

What was the most challenging and/or rewarding part of writing a fantasy inspired by both Chinese and Russian folklore? 

Alexis: For me it was understanding various facets of all the different creatures and figuring out how they could be best put to use in the story. Some mythical creatures have more of a backstory, like Koschei the Deathless, others are more symbolic like the Taotie. I liked the challenge of mixing them, seeing where they intertwine and diverge. 

Scott: I enjoyed researching and writing about the Slavic characters and creatures. Going into this I was much more familiar with the Chinese aspects. Writing a book is a wonderful way to become knowledgeable about a new subject!  

What areas did you end up researching the most for building the world and your characters?

Alexis: I focused more on the White Russians in China, building on stories my grandfather told about living in the cities of Harbin and Hankou (now Wuhan). A lot of the story is inspired by true events, for example, during this time it was not uncommon for Chinese warlords to employ (and sometimes kidnap) Russian soldiers and officers to train or serve in their armies. One of the warlords we modelled the Taotie was named Zhang Zhong Chang, nicknamed the “Dogmeat General.” He had Cossack bodyguards and spoke Russian. We found that sometimes delving into history that fact was even stranger than fiction. 

Scott: More of the Chinese aspects fell to me, I suppose. My earlier writing had mostly explored ancient and medieval China, so researching the 1920s was new to me. But working on a comparatively modern setting meant Alexis and I could actually walk the same streets our characters do. We often took “research walks” around old Beijing neighborhoods. Although we’d passed through those places many times, when you are there to collect material, somehow so many details you’d missed before become visible.  

Who would enjoy reading your book? 

Alexis:  The story can be appreciated on different levels. The plot moves quickly and there is a lot of action, but if you are interested in history and folklore, you’ll find a lot in there, too. 

Scott: We worked hard to fill our story with many different flavors and textures. You will find chases, martial arts battles, and fearsome creatures, but also discussions of Chinese poetry and the emotional costs of life as a refugee. So I believe many types of readers, especially adventurous ones, will enjoy this.    

While it is a Middle Grade novel, we’ve been lucky that a number of adults have commented that it is an enjoyable read for them, too. I say a good story is a good story, no matter which age it is primarily pitched to.    

What’s something you hope readers would take away from it?

Alexis:  I hope the personalities and experiences of the characters create a bridge for readers to connect with the setting and historical milieu. If the book sparks someone’s curiosity to learn more about its elements—be it culture, history, or mythical creatures—I’ll be delighted.

Scott: I would like readers to take away the value of cross-cultural exploration and connection, especially through friendships. And perhaps to see the resilience of our characters, who are living through a time of great upheaval, and find some inspiration to take on the challenges in their own lives. But most of all, I just want readers to be transported on a grand adventure. 

Do you have a favourite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?

Alexis: Personally, my favorite scene is when Vlad dances around the fire. It’s the first time Lucy truly sees him as someone she can connect with on a personal level. She must grapple with her preconceived notions of him and come to accept both his brutality and humanity as equally true.

Scott: It almost feels like a betrayal of our characters to choose just one! But let’s see if I can keep it under control…. There is a scene in which Lucy and Su pledge their devotion to each other as friends which I still find moving even after rereading it many times. Another sequence in which Su does battle with a terrifying monster also comes to mind. And the excerpt we’ve chosen is definitely a favorite of mine. I love all the interactions between our main characters and Vlad, a figure who is sometimes a gangster, sometimes a gentleman, and at other times something else altogether….  

Have you already started working on another book together?

Alexis: We are working on a book set on the ancient Silk Road with a focus on Central Asian perspectives vs. those from China and Europe. We discovered a richness and diversity of societies that are often overlooked in literature. 

Scott: That project is an exciting one for us. It will follow a young woman who in the midst of uncovering her past discovers a conspiracy at the heart of it. Many twists and turns await her! And developing a story in an entirely different setting is a real pleasure and a way to keep things fresh.   

If you could give a shout out to someone(s) who has helped in your writer journey, please feel free to mention them below!

Alexis:It is so hard to narrow down the list! If I were to choose one person, it would be my grandfather Alexander (Kossy). It was not only the stories he told about his childhood in China, but his insistence that I always nurture my creative side. 

Scott: We have received so much support from other authors who kindly read our book and gave awesome blurbs: the novelist behind the Broadway smash Wicked Gregory Maguire, Abi Elphinstone (Sky Song), Paul French (Midnight in Peking), Kristen Loesch (The Last Russian Doll), Alice Poon (The Heavenly Sword), Susan Blumberg-Kason (Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon), Emma Pass (ACID), and Viki Holmes (Girls’ Adventure Stories of Long Ago). I’d like to thank all of them for their generosity.  

Where can readers find you on the Internet?

Please visit scottforbescrawford.com for more about The Phoenix and the Firebird as well as other projects. Sign up for this Substack newsletter and visit us on Facebook as well. 

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Book Excerpt from
The Phoenix and the Firebird

Chapter 7: The Gamble

I waited, watching. Gamblers came and gamblers went, along with their fortunes. The doorman never strayed from his post and I made sure to stay hidden from his sight behind a large column. A horse-drawn wagon, stuffed with wooden crates, turned the corner and pulled up in front of the casino. The Chinese peasant driving waved to the doorman. I strained to hear the conversation, but fortunately, both men’s voices did not dip below a yell.

“I got everything he asked for,” the driver said.

“You’re certain?”

“I think so. Want me to unload it here?”

“No, it stays in the wagon. And put it around back.”

“How do I get there?”

“Turn down the second hutong on the right.”

“Over there?”

“No, no, that one dead-ends. The other one.” Grumbling, the doorman came down the stairs and walked up to the driver. If ever I had a chance, it was now. As he pointed out the directions, I bolted from my spot, going wide of the wagon, and then crept along the street back towards the entrance. Just before the doorman turned, I raced up the stairs and plunged into the casino.

I had to chop through the low-hanging, smoky air, thick as a blizzard on the steppes. Men, Chinese and foreign, leered like devils at their games of chance. What an assortment of deadbeats, each looking more desperate and untrustworthy than the next. Some sat at tables covered in green felt. Others played cards and rolled dice. The click-clacking was the sound of colorful mahjong tiles being slammed onto the tables by excited players. It was a game a little like cards, which sometimes people played in the streets, too. I walked over towards the back, where several men huddled around a table enclosed by walls, like a miniature arena. Two crickets wrestled at the center of the felt battleground, while the men gathered around, yelled frenziedly and placed bets with each other. The fight went on several moments, until one cricket surrendered and the winner stalked to the corner, beating its wings in victory. The owner of the defeated cricket shoved it into a tiny rattan basket in his shirt pocket and stomped off.

There was no sign of Vlad the Deathless, though along the back wall I spotted a narrow flight of stairs leading to the second floor. My only hope was that he might be up there. I pushed my way over, climbed the first step—then a hand heavy as a block of stone fell on my shoulder.

“Lost, are we?” asked the doorman. A wide face framed his fierce eyes. He began ushering me towards the door. I stopped and felt his grip tighten as I turned towards him. “Sir, I need to speak with Vlad!” I pleaded. “It’s very important!”

He paused for a moment, gave me what I thought was a pitying look—and shoved me in the direction of the door. I dug my heels into the floor, once again. “Come on, little girl, you can walk out—or I’ll throw you out.” He put his hand on my back and pushed, which felt like a bulldozer driving me forward.

“All right, all right,” I said, walking toward the door until I felt his hand move away from me—then I spun and dashed back for the stairs. He lunged, grabbing a bit of my jacket, but I twisted and got free of him. Diving under a long card table, I crawled across the gamblers’ feet, peering out and seeing the doorman’s tree-trunk legs running to the end of the table nearest the back stairs, I suppose because he guessed I would come there. Instead I crawled out on the side, getting to my feet as he hurried to intercept me. I spied an empty chair nearby so I sprang onto it then landed on a mahjong table, scattering the tiles every which way as I ran across, leaving an echo of angry voices behind me.

From that table I leaped into the cricket-fighting arena and almost lost my balance when I landed because I had to make an awkward move so I didn’t squash any of those tiny insect warriors. The gamblers were in an uproar, and the doorman was trying to push them aside to reach me when I jumped down and darted up the stairs. The doorman’s heavy footsteps pounded right behind me.

I reached the office door and just as I gripped the knob, a gigantic arm closed around me. It was like being wrapped in the arms of a bear. “Let me go! Let me go, please! I must speak to Vlad!” Ignoring my screams of protest, the doorman hauled me back down the stairs.

“What’s all this infernal ruckus?” a voice boomed at the top of the stairs.

I squirmed in the doorman’s arms and gazed up at a sleek, elegant figure in a dapper gray suit and gleaming black shoes. The Deathless. We stood there for a moment, gazing at each other, unsure who was the more surprised. He looked past me to the gamblers gathered at the foot of the stairs, some chirping at me in surprise, others irate I’d ruined their hands at the tables, but all were staring up at us, awaiting his judgment of me. He frowned a moment, then grinned so subtly, if I’d blinked at that moment, I’d have missed it.

“It is all right, Chen. This little bird has simply strayed too far from her nest,” he said in his flawless Chinese. “Let her go.” The muscleman released me. Switching seamlessly back to Russian, Vlad said, “Well, come on now. After the trouble you’ve gone to seeing me, it would be very impolite to not offer you tea.”

Vlad beckoned me up. Instantly I felt like I’d traveled thousands of miles, and back in time. The rich aroma of black tea and antique mustiness, with a hint of frankincense, scented the air. On the wall hung religious icons adjacent to oil paintings of the Russian countryside. A huge samovar for making tea was almost a twin of the one I had growing up, decorated in an elaborate mosaic pattern and standing nobly in a corner. This room was the closest place to my homeland I had seen since I’d left.

“Though I’m intrigued and perhaps, impressed with your nerve, I daresay working my customers up into a froth is not exactly excellent for business.”

His Russian was surprisingly courtly. It was the sort of language I expected of characters in my storybooks, easily understandable to me yet still conjuring a far-off time of castles and wintry rides in a troika, a Russian sleigh. Certainly not the tone of speech I expected of a gangster.

Vlad sat down behind his large wooden desk and lit a long cigarette. He looked almost like a dragon as the smoke drifted around his scarred face. Somehow, he appeared a tad older than at the train station, like he’d aged three years in a day. Perhaps he, too, had heavier thoughts ever since then.

“Please, sit.” He motioned me towards a plush sofa, then selected two tea glasses from a shelf. He dropped a cherry in each and filled them with steaming tea from the samovar. When he presented the drink on a silver tray, I saw the glasses bore etchings of dramatic forest scenes.

The tea was a perfect concoction of bitter and sweet. “This tastes just like home!” I blurted.

“That’s because it is Russian tea! Every week I have it delivered from Moscow. Even in times of war, a gentleman needs proper tea.” I wasn’t particularly sold on the gentleman part, though I did enjoy the tea.

“But the war is over, my father told me so.”

“Don’t fool yourself. It is never over. War has no home. It just slips from place to place like a traveling salesman peddling an endless supply of misery.”

A silence settled as we sipped our tea.

“Hmm.” Vlad leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. He motioned to the large painting behind him showing a fearsome wolf in a woodland. “What do you think when you look at that creature?”

I supposed this was some kind of test, and I spoke hesitantly. “Well, at first I think he looks a bit scary because he is baring his teeth. But he is also… beautiful. He reminds me of the wolf from the story of Prince Ivan and the Firebird. At first, he is unkind because he kills Prince Ivan’s poor horse, but then he allows the prince to ride him, and even rescues him from trouble.”

He favored me with an enigmatic smile. “Yes indeed, the Firebird!”

“You know that story?”

“Intimately. As does every true Russian.”

I drew out my feather. “Then you would know this?”

“Where did you find that?” Vlad suddenly bolted upright and stared as if hypnotized at the feather. “You must tell me everything.”

I told him the whole story, from seeing him at the train station, to the consultation with the fortune teller. He reached for another cigarette. “Ah, yes, I remember you now. I thought you looked familiar. I was understandably distracted by the abduction of my horse, who was making the trip from Russia to join me. But I fail to see why you are in need of my assistance.” After lighting another cigarette, he leaned back in his chair once again, his beady eyes still cemented to the feather.

“I’ve heard you know where the warlord lives. The Taotie.”

“That I may. A rough sense, anyhow. Though he has an army, with cannons, guns and thousands of cut-throats. I wouldn’t recommend a social call.”

Hearing now the same sort of warning from Vlad as from Su, I felt a temptation to just shrink away in defeat. Of course, there was nothing that I, a twelve-year-old refugee in a foreign land, could do about my father’s abduction by a notorious warlord. But all the same, there was something else gathering in my soul, my love for Papa twinned with outrage that he could be taken from me—that could not be denied.

“You must understand, sir, that my father, he is all I have left now. For three years we have been apart.”

Vlad looked indifferent. “In my time I’ve heard many sad tales.”

“Help me, sir. Help someone from your part of the world.”

“I shall tell you something, a piece of wisdom: sometimes it is wisest to accept what Fate has wrought.”

At that I wanted to slap him. “Do you think I can actually let my father be a prisoner of that horrible man? And what about your horse? You will leave him to suffer at the hands of that monster?”

That landed, for Vlad winced. “Her, not him,” he mumbled sadly. “Ah, my poor Dusha, I should never have left her side.” “Well, tell me where to go and I’ll rescue her, too!” I went on, thinking I was about to persuade him.

“But you will come too, right?”

He pursed his lips. “No.”

“Fine. Where must I go, you can at least tell me that.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I do not concern myself with others’ problems. Long, long ago I learned that lesson in a most decisive fashion. Now, Lucy, as deep a pleasure as it is sipping tea with you, business demands my attention.” Vlad gestured to the door, his manners still impeccable but his meaning clear and firm.

I decided to gamble a little. “But it’s not as if I am asking you to do something you aren’t planning yourself. Only that you bring me along.”

His eyes bored into me. “What is it I plan to do?”

“Find the warlord. And rescue your horse, I suppose.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Well, that’s what all those supplies out back are for, aren’t they? In the wagon?”

There was a flicker of surprise in his eye, and perhaps grudging respect. “The wise gambler knows when to stop. The bold gambler knows when the only choice is to bet everything.” He rose, gesturing to the door. “I salute your gamesmanship, Lucy, but you have no hand to play against me. Now off you go.”

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Interested?

Find The Phoenix and the Firebird on Goodreads, Amazon and IndieStoryGeek.

Thanks for joining me for the interview with Alexis Kossiakoff and Scott Forbes Crawford! I hope you enjoyed the excerpt.

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