Susan K. Hamilton immerses readers in a dark fantasy world filled with fierce characters in Shadow King
“Shadow King”
Susan K. Hamilton | Oct. 2, 2018 | Inkshares
eBook | 9781947848474 | Price: $8.99
Paperback | 9781947848986 | Price: $16.99
Dark fantasy
Ambition. Betrayal. Revenge.
Centuries ago, the Faerie Realm was decimated by a vile and corrupt spell. To survive, the different faerie races—led by the Fae—escaped to the Human Realm where they’ve lived ever since.
As the Fae Patriarch of Boston’s criminal underworld, Aohdan Collins enjoys his playboy lifestyle while he works from the shadows to expand his growing empire. Until one night when he shares a shot of whiskey with the lovely Seireadan Moore…
A Fae Seer, Seireadan is haunted by a vision of the Fae responsible for destroying Faerie and murdering her family. Common sense tells her to stay away from Aohdan, but his magnetism and charm are irresistible.
As their passionate affair intensifies, Seireadan is pulled into the center of the underworld. And while her heart is bound to Aohdan, she cannot let go of her lifelong quest to hunt down the Fae who haunts her visions… especially when she realizes Aohdan might be the key to helping her find him.
But is revenge worth betraying the one she loves?
SUSAN K. HAMILTON: Susan K. Hamilton is the author of three novels in the fantasy genre: Shadow King, Darkstar Rising, and The Devil Inside (forthcoming in 2019). Shadow King landed on the Top Ten finalist list of the 2016 Launchpad Manuscript Competition out of over 1,000 entrants from 24 countries and was published by Inkshares in October 2018. The Devil You Don’t reached the Top 25 finalists list the following year and will be published under the name The Devil Inside. Susan lives near Boston, Massachusetts with her husband and cat. An avid equestrian, you can often find her at the barn when she’s not writing. She rediscovered her love for writing at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst when her writing teacher freshman year told the class that their last assignment was “to write something creative.”
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An Interview with
Susan K. Hamilton
- Can you explain a little more about how Shadow King came about through the Launchpad Manuscript Competition? I entered the original manuscript because I had the chance to get feedback from the judges, something that can be hard to come by at times. I was fortunate enough to make the Top Ten Finalists list. Inkshares was offering one of the grand prizes in Launchpad, and although I didn’t win that, Shadow King had garnered enough support during the competition, that I was able to move forward with publishing through Inkshares.
- Why did you decide to set a magical book in such the more traditional setting of Boston? When I was first thinking about the concept of Shadow King, I asked myself the question, “if the fairies we know from folklore lived here, with us, what would they do?” I laughed thinking about how people would feel if they had a leprechaun for a coffee barista or taxi driver… but that also made me wonder what the dark fairies would do. The logical answer to me was that they’d be criminals. From there, the character of Aohdan Collins was born.
- How did you come up with the character’s names? Many of my names have a cultural basis. Many of the Fae characters have names derived from Gaelic, whereas the fairies from Middle Eastern legends were given Persian-inspired names. And in a few cases, to be honest, I just made a name up.
- Where do you get your inspiration? That’s actually hard to answer -- I get it from lots of different places. I’ve gotten ideas from fragments of songs, from daydreaming, from random conversations. There isn’t one process I have to think up a story. Often a character pops into my head and that in turn makes me wonder what that character’s story is.
- Do any characters bear resemblance to people you know in real life? Not really. There may be a quality here or a common phrase there that someone uses, but I try not to base my characters on any one individual person.
- What got you into writing fantasy? I always loved to read it, so when I started writing, I tended to write it as well. For me, it gives me the freedom to create a whole new world if I want to. In Shadow King, I went with more of an urban fantasy and really enjoyed figuring out how to get my fantasy characters and the concept of magic to work in a “real” city.
- Do you have a way to deal with writer’s block? When I get stuck, sometimes it helps to write something else. A blog post, short story, even a letter to myself just ranting about what’s frustrating me. Other times I need to just walk away for a little while. I find if I give myself some space, and do something else -- especially something where my mind can wander -- it all gets figured out. In fact, I came up with the entire idea for Shadow King while I was raking leaves in my yard.
- Will we be able to visit this world again? Hopefully! I have some ideas for a second book featuring the same characters and hope to start really making some headway on that in the near future.
