Hello! I’m featuring fellow Self-Published Fantasy Blog-off authors on the blog, and today it’s J. Patricia Anderson in the spotlight. She might be a rabbit lover, and her SPFBO 9 entry features a non-earthlike world. Welcome to the …
Daughters of Tith
The kandar are the children of the trees. Powerful. Immutable. Nine hundred eternal beings who need no sleep nor sustenance, created at the beginning of time to guard the nine human Earths.
That was never meant to change.
The youngest of five sisters, Tchardin is about to be acknowledged as queen of the kandar. She must lead them in their Creator-given Purpose—to guide and inspire the humans—but her people have been exiled to their homeworld for generations. None of them have seen the Earths. Not one of them has met a human.
Tchardin can think of no way to end their exile until a strange longing calls her from beyond the shore of their island. Most of her sisters tell her to ignore it, to take her place as queen and focus on the kandar. One suggests she answer it, as it might be the key to finally returning her people to their Purpose.
Somehow, I expect it’s the key … or at least related to the key.
Now, onto the Questions!
As a Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) Entrant, you’re not just independently published, but self-published. Can you start by explaining a bit about why you chose that route and how it’s been for you?
I’ve had the world and characters from DAUGHTERS OF TITH (DoT) (and the series: CHILDREN OF THE TREES (CotT)) in my head since I was a child, so I had a lot of time to daydream about what I hoped to accomplish when I finally turned them into books. I originally hoped to traditionally publish DoT, but it is… 220,000 words long! Which, as most of us know, is a biiiig stretch for a debut novel, even in epic fantasy. In reader-speak, that is 640 pages in the paperback format—and it would have been more except for the use of some creative formatting and a large trim size haha.
I always knew the story needed a lot of room. I wasn’t surprised by the final length, and I know the other books in the series will be similar. Because I’m a compulsive researcher I also knew how hard of a sell that would be for agents and publishers. Luckily, thanks to all that research I’ve also been aware of the self published fantasy scene for a long time! I did query DoT in the end, if only to leave no stone unturned, but I wasn’t hesitant to put it out myself when that didn’t work out. I wrote a (very long) blog post on my website about this when I announced I was self publishing. It’s called “How I didn’t get my agent or: The story of CotT and more specifically DoT” if anyone wants to check it out.
I’m very happy with how things are going so far. As a self publisher, I am able to play the long game and let interest in the book and the series grow organically over time. The book will only disappear into the aether if I stop talking about it, and I don’t intend to do that! The focus traditional publishers put on pre-order and launch success was a stressor I wasn’t looking forward to if I managed to break in, so I’m much happier doing it this way. I will be writing every book in this series regardless of outside interest or perceived success/failure because I am interested in it!
Yes! What a shame it would be to quit, because other people aren’t interested … or be unable to publish!
On a related note, why did you enter the SPFBO contest? How do you expect to find it? Refreshing your blog’s page every five minutes, or sit back and chill?
I’ve been following SPFBO since 2016 and I always intended to enter it if I self published DoT. I didn’t expect the entry period to be such a crazy rush though!
As of writing this I am still alive in the competition. DoT is in The Weatherwax Report blog group, and they have been very open about their process so far. I’m usually a serial refresher, but the transparency and regular updates have been keeping that impulse at bay. The community is also wonderful and the authors have been posting and chatting enough to keep me occupied.
It’s been very distracting (in a fun way!) so far, but I’m slowly starting to get back to work on editing DoT’s sequel, which I hope will come out some time in later 2024.
Distractions are good – and you need a balance between them and other things. That is cool!
Book titles. What’s the story behind Daughters of Tith?
I first tried (and failed) to write DAUGHTERS OF TITH in high school, and at the time I had no concept of what it could be called. All the files were simply labelled “Title”, and that’s how I thought of it for many years! I can’t remember when I finally switched to the published title. It was some time after I had restarted and actually finished the book as an adult, but I don’t know exactly. In the end I chose the title because it most accurately represents what the book is about. It is about Tith’s five daughters, and how they change their world.
(A fun little detail is that Tith is the big central tree shown on the cover, and yes, he has daughters who are not trees!)
That’s why the series is called Children of the Trees, right? 😀
I won’t ask for your favourite scene since I know some people don’t have those (like me; I never have favourites), but can you share a (non-spoiler) scene you really like and you just can’t believe how awesome it is every time you go back to re-read it?
I have favourite chapters actually! I have three, and they are chapters 27, 44, and 45. 27 is my number one and the other two are tied. Those are rife with spoilers given how far into the book they are, so I’ll share a short excerpt from chapter 2, which I feel gives a good summary of how the environment that shapes my characters is different from our Earth, and from many other secondary worlds in epic fantasy.
In this scene are two of Tith’s daughters, one of whom has knowledge of a history that the rest of their people don’t remember…
“You have to wait for her,” Sandin said.
Sometimes Jaydin found it hard to believe her sister couldn’t hear her thoughts, despite knowing Sandin had no place in the collective.
“It’s not like we don’t have time,” Sandin continued. “Giving her a moment to escape isn’t going to break the world.”
“It might already be broken.” Jaydin sighed. It had been a long time since the human worlds had kandaran guidance and so many had already been so far gone. “I just want to go back to the Earths. I can’t help but be impatient.”
“You can’t go back,” Sandin corrected, “when you’ve never been there.”
Jaydin closed her eyes and images of her time with Tith flashed through her mind. Humanity. The Earths that were its home. Thousands of generations worth of history rushed by in a moment.
“Maybe not,” she said, “but I have seen them.”
Jaydin knew what her purpose was. She knew she would be better serving on the Earths with the humans. She knew what most of the kandar had forgotten and couldn’t seem to understand. They had been created to fulfill a purpose and that purpose had been abandoned.
The kandaran world, Derkra, was a world of infinite sand and water—endless empty desert and desolate ocean. It was impressive in its scale but not in much else. Ovaeron and Tith were grander than the World Trees on the Earths, but other than those two Derkra had few great trees, and the variety in those it did have was sorely lacking. Images flashed behind Jaydin’s eyes. The World Trees. The other great trees that sometimes stood with them on the Earths. The trees that made up the forests that covered great spans of land. Derkra had only one forest. Cens was unique as far as Jaydin knew, in that it was the only forest that could be said to be truly alive, but it was small and plain. There were only trees, moss, and grass contained within it, whereas the forests of the Earths were teeming with abundant plant and animal life. She had seen them. She saw them now.
Waves. Images of violent water, of still water, of the creatures that lived beneath both came to her. The water on the Earths was breathtakingly beautiful. The humans had waterfalls, rivers, lakes, salted seas and deep oceans where Derkra had only Water Side, flat and featureless for as far as they could see. And empty. The waters of Derkra were dead.
The Earths had suns, moons, day and night, light and darkness, where Derkra had only ubiquitous light with no apparent source, and floating shadows that chose their places to cling at random. Not that it bothered the kandar. Jaydin was the only one who knew any different. There was no wind to ruffle the leaves of the trees. No mountains or valleys to break up the landscape. Only Calendrai—which was flat where it rose slightly above the water—and the dunes of Land Side which were static and unchanging and had been since the beginning of time.
Even the humans themselves were magnificent by comparison. No kandar could stand up to them now. Pandinzori was used only to save a climb down the trunks of the great trees, when in the past it had been used to create marvels. The members of the guardian race had slowly become more dull, more uniform as time passed away from the Earths. Of course they had, having only Derkra and other kandar to interact with.
The images in Jaydin’s mind spoke of things the kandar of this generation had never experienced and maybe never would. By now the humans could have changed the faces of their worlds. Without kandaran guidance everything could have been destroyed. The Earths could even be gone. No one had seen them in generations. World Nine at least… Well, anything was possible.
I feel like that scene almost needs a glossary itself, but the good news is I have supplied one on my website! 😀
I think I understood it well enough without one! It really does paint a picture 🙂
What are some elements or themes, or combinations thereof, that really make your book stand out to you?
I think the main thing that stands out about DAUGHTERS OF TITH is something I’ve only fully realised since publishing it. Like many authors, I grew up wanting this story. I’ve read fantasy my whole life and I have read it voraciously. And always, the thing I wanted was this. New worlds, new magic, new cultures, new philosophies, new stories…
I love the familiar aspects of the genre, although the ones I love might be different from the ones another reader will love, because there are just SO many to choose from. My classic fantasy may not be your classic fantasy. Our foundations in the genre can be completely different while still remaining true fans of it because the genre is so vast. I love the familiar—but what I wanted to build with DoT was the unfamiliar.
Don’t get me wrong, the books I read growing up are written all over this story and this world, but I believe they have combined to make something individual. I always felt that way, in my secret mind, with my quiet voice, but once other people started to read DoT I had it confirmed. Different isn’t better by default and it might not even be good—depending on what you want from the genre—but at this point, with enough readers, I think I can accurately label DoT as different.
There are no swords, no purely evil villains, no militaries, and no medieval kingdoms. This is no romance. There aren’t even any human POV characters. The main world featured isn’t Earth-like and the people it produces are bland and uninspired… at first.
I always thought DoT was different, but I don’t think I realised how different it was until I published it. I’m coming to terms with the fact that its differences will mean some readers miss what they love about the genre completely, but I hold onto hope that the readers who want something new will eventually find it.
I think this is something that we sometimes can’t discover until we publish! And I think you hit spot on with “My classic fantasy may not be yours.” Even in the same book, what readers see and remember can be so different! Wishing you (and all of us) the best of luck connecting your books with the readers who want them, to whom I also wish the best of luck finding their gems!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I have a novella coming out on August 27th! It’s called YOUR BLOOD AND BONES and it is completely unrelated to DAUGHTERS OF TITH but is also a bit of a weird and different story so… yeah. The above applies to that one as well :D.
If you’d like to try out my work without committing to a lengthy epic, YOUR BLOOD AND BONES is a nice (short) introduction, although it’s significantly darker than DoT. It has listed content warnings, where DoT is pretty safe.
Thank you for sharing with us! It was a delight to have you here! And – readers, you can find all the links below in just a minute! 😀
J. PATRICIA ANDERSON is a Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy author with a practical day job as a Computer Scientist.
She lives in Ottawa with her husband, three children, and a fluffy grey rabbit called Litla Ljón.
You can find more information about her current projects and writing progress on her website at jpatriciaanderson.com. You can also find her on Twitter.
You can get Daughters of Tith from various retailers here, or check it out on Goodreads and Storygraph.
Your Blood and Bones
Kill the monsters when they’re found.
No matter who they used to be.
The girl with secret feathers in her skin and strange bones jutting out beneath her clothes is resigned to her fate. Her deformities mark her a monster and the stories say monsters must die.
When her family finds out and turns on her, a village boy saves her and leads her on a frantic escape. The girl believes her death has merely been delayed—until he mentions a cure.
With the world against them and the monstrous change progressing, they must cross water, forest, and field to chase the rumor that fuels their desperate hope. But is hope enough to keep them going?
You can preorder Your Blood and Bones here, or check it out on Goodreads.
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