Monster Mash
Author VE Schwab unveils her latest monster-populated creation...
Nobody could ever accuse vE Schwab of being lazy. The Nashville-based author of Vicious and A Darker Shade Of Magic has published 11 books in the last five years, amassed 30,000 Twitter followers and been nominated for numerous fantasy awards, including the Publishers Weekly Best Book Of 2013. And the 29-year-old is showing no sign of slowing down.
“Oh man, I’m just getting started,” she tells Red Alert. Quite literally in the case of This Savage Song, which kicks off a new series set in Verity, an alternate United States where, according to Schwab, “brutal acts of violence start breeding actual monsters.” Adds the author: “In the US, we have been seeing so much internal violence over the last several years, I was fascinated by the idea of a metaphysical aftermath. That’s where my monsters come from.”
Attempting to evade blood-draining skeletal monsters are Kate Harker and August Flynn, youngsters from warring families who must unite when Kate’s targeted for assassination. So how does This Savage Song compare to Schwab’s previous work? “It’s probably the strangest, which for me is saying something,” she reveals. “It’s at turns the most commercial and the most literary, the most violent, and the most introspective. It’s the book 18-year-old me would have wanted.”
VE Schwab’s This Savage Song is out now from Titan Books.