https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMV3H8F2/
What inspired the name The
Mists of Tanindua for your book?
The
name Tanindua” came to me in a dream I had while I was traveling from China to
Thailand. In the dream, I was disembarking from a clipper ship, and on the
docks, there was a woman who shifted between human, fish, and insect as she
spoke. She put a lei over my head and said “Welcome to Tanindua”. That dream stayed with me and eventually,
inspired me to write about a land that shifted between realities like the woman
from the dream, but it lacked a mechanic.
Ever
since I was a child mist and fog always had a touch of magic for me. It was
transformational. It could take something you see every day and suddenly make
it mysterious. It allowed my imagination to invent entirely new worlds to
project just beyond what my eyes could see. It created a liminal space between
the known and the imagination. So, my choice of worlds shifting in the mist
felt like a natural fit to me.
In
this book, the island of Tanindua is a crossroads of sorts that sits between
many worlds. The Island is always shrouded in mist, and as the mists shift on
the island it opens a gateway to one world while closing the gateway to the
previous. So, once you go to the island you may not be able to return to the
world you left for some time, and should you leave the island to enter a world
you may not be able to return until the island returns. So, I came to the title
“The Mists of Tanindua” in the hopes
that it will capture the dream-like mystery that inspired the stories
themselves.
Can you share more about Charles Brennan; how did you develop this
character?
When
I was much younger, I used to read a lot of “boy adventurer” books like The
Hardy Boys, and Johnny Quest. I wanted to capture some of that naivety and how
the protagonist would never seem to quite realize just how much danger they
were in. But unlike the Hardy Boys and Johnny Quest, Charles’s story is also a
coming of age. Without giving too much away, he starts this book off as Charley
an 18-year-old man/boy dreaming of adventure and the unknown, by the end he
takes on the persona of Charles signifying his taking on the mantle of full
adulthood. In later installments of the series, we will see him continue to
grow into a “man of the worlds”.
What significance does the pendant hold in the story; why did you choose it to resonate with Tanindua's essence?