JeanBookNerd: Sariah Wilson Interview

Photo Content from Sariah Wilson

USA Today Bestselling author Sariah Wilson has never jumped out of an airplane, never climbed Mt. Everest, and is not a former CIA operative. She has, however, been madly, passionately in love with her soulmate and is a fervent believer in happily ever afters—which is why she writes romance. She grew up in southern California, graduated from Brigham Young University (go Cougars!) with a semi-useless degree in history, and is the oldest of nine (yes, nine) children. She currently lives with the aforementioned soulmate and their children in Utah, along with cats named Pixel, Callie, and Belle who do not get along. (The cats, not the children. Although the children sometimes have their issues, too.)

Sariah's book ROYAL DATE was selected as one of the first winners in Amazon's Kindle Scout program. Her novella ROYAL DESIGN helped launch Amazon Publishing's Kindle in Motion technology, and she had her own Kindle World for THE ROYALS OF MONTERRA. Her books THE FRIEND ZONE and ROOMMAID were selected by Amazon as one of the Best Romances of 2019 and 2020, respectively. She has repeatedly hit Amazon's overall Top 100 (both in and outside the USA) and been a #1 bestseller on Amazon category lists multiple times. Her book ROOMMAID was the most read book from Amazon's website in September 2020.

What fiction most influenced your childhood, and what effect did those stories have on A TRIBUTE OF FIRE?
Romance and fantasy, because that’s what I grew up with. My mom devoured romance—she used to get those Harlequin subscriptions by the truckload—and my dad loved fantasy. We were pretty poor growing up but there were always books in our home. And after I’d read through everything from the library, I would read my parents’ books, and it gave me a deep love for romance and fantasy.
I knew when I started writing that I would write romance as that was the thing that interested me the most in books, and I had found it very lacking in fantasy. So when authors like Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros started combining the two, I was very, very excited. My time had come to combine my two favorite genres!

What’s one thing that readers would be surprised to find out about you?
I skipped a grade and it’s kind of a family tradition now—my dad skipped a grade and my youngest son skipped a grade.

TEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT A TRIBUTE OF FIRE

It is based on a real life but obscure event—the Locrian maidens.
Enemies to lovers is my absolute favorite trope, and this book has it!
This story is set in an alternate universe of ancient Greece and I could have made everything up, but because I have a degree in history I spent months researching and speaking to professors of classical antiquity to get the details right. (And then I made stuff up anyways, LOL.)
This book was definitely inspired by Reylo and Reylo fans will see Easter eggs that other readers will miss entirely.
I wrote this book (156,000 words or about 520 pages) in 39 days.
Spartans are among some of my favorite ancient warriors, so you’ll see them represented here through the Daemonians.
This was the easiest writing experience I’ve ever had—it just poured out of me. I edit as I go, but what you’ve got in your hands is what I turned into my publisher. There weren’t very many changes!
The cover artist for this book is the same one who did “Fourth Wing.”
The audio is being done by Therese Plummer. I don’t usually listen to audiobooks very often but people who do gasp when I tell them that fact!
Some readers have been confused by the name "Jason" in the book—but that is an ancient Greek name! (In Greek mythology Jason led the Argonauts, a collection of heroes (and one heroine!) who went to retrieve the Golden Fleece.)

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to have a life in writing?
Do the work. Read, read, read in the genre you want to write. Understand the conventions and tropes and expectations. Read craft books. Join a writing organization that is dedicated to teaching aspiring authors. Search on Google for how to get published (authors are a very giving bunch—all the information you need is out there!).

Are there authors that you’re excited to engage/work with?
I actually feel like I’ve already had this opportunity—I was invited to do a collection with Amazon Original Stories called “The Improbable Meet-Cute collection” with some other authors you might have heard of—Christina Lauren, Abby Jimenz, Jasmine Guillory, Ashley Poston, Sally Thorne. I felt a little like that song on Sesame Street, “One of these things is not like the others.” But that was a really, really amazing opportunity to work with some of the biggest names in rom-coms!

Which character have you enjoyed getting to know while writing A TRIBUTE OF FIRE?
All of them? It’s true. I have a great love for each and every character in this book, even the ones that don’t get very much page time. They all have their unique quirks and weaknesses and strengths and it was a lot of fun exploring that!

The fate of a cursed nation depends on a princess who must outwit a mortal enemy and outlast the trials of a death-defying ritual in a thrilling adventure by USA Today bestselling author Sariah Wilson.

Lia is the princess of Locris, a dying desert nation cursed centuries ago by an earth goddess—one still worshipped by the thriving and adversarial nation of Ilion. Every year, Ilion offers the goddess a sacrifice: two Locrian maidens forced to compete in a life-and-death race to reach her temple. In a millennium, no maiden has made it out of Ilion alive. This year, Lia is one of the hunted.

An education in battle gives her a fighting chance, but the challenges are greater than she feared: Lia’s beloved but untrained sister Quynh has been put in the path of danger. The winding streets of Ilion itself have been transformed into a labyrinthine maze of countless choices and dead ends. And if the risks weren’t significant enough, Lia is reluctantly drawn to the commandingly attractive Jason, an Ilionian sailor she loathes to trust and desires like no man before.

The tribute game is on. It’s up to Lia to lift the goddess’s curse, restore Locris to its former glory, and change the fate of every young woman destined to follow in her path.

You can purchase A Tribute of Fire at the following Retailers: