This week I am delighted to have a slice of cake with Suneé le Roux.
Suneé writes urban and high fantasy fiction, She lives in South Africa with her Welsh husband, a 5-year-old son, and a black Labrador named Loki. She’s a total geek who loves reading, going to the cinema, gaming, and travelling abroad whenever she gets the chance. Her debut novel,
Myth Hunter, was published in 2020.
What kind of books do you write?
I write stories that infuse a spark of magic into the mundane. This is my roundabout way of saying I mostly write urban fantasy, so my characters generally live in the world as we know it, but with that extra spark of magic that transforms their everyday into something a little more unusual. Similarly, I write short stories and flash fiction that cover a broad spectrum of fantasy genres with the aim of injecting a little magic into my readers’ lives for short bursts of escapism.
Can you describe your writing why?
As an only child, reading was my escape. I had friends, of course, but I’d come home from school and dive into a book, where I could go on adventures with Frodo, vanquish evil snow queens with the Pevensies, sail to faraway lands on dragonships, fulfil prophecies with Garion, and learn how to wield saidar with Egwene. This was long before the time of affordable e-books, so in between the next visit to the library or the bookstore, I learned to tell my own stories. I’d dream up feisty warrior princesses and portal universes and talking animal companions and brave knights and crafty dragons. And eventually I realised I wanted to bring the kind of joy books and stories had brought to me to other people as well. I wanted them to read something I had written and, for a moment, escape their boring reality and be transported somewhere wonderful and magical filled with people that felt like best friends to them too.
Many years passed and I let my dream of becoming a writer slumber as I worked diligently at a day job that stifled my creativity and kept me so busy that I didn’t have the energy for anything else. And then a baby boy was born and it suddenly felt like my life was passing me by. I couldn’t afford to put my own dreams off any longer. One midlife crisis later and voila, a writer was born.
I’ve changed jobs since then and although I’m now even busier with a full-time job during the day and a 5-year old son after hours, I make time to squeeze writing in whenever I can. It keeps me sane and it makes happy, and there’s nothing I love more than getting a letter from a reader to tell my how much they loved my story.
Share with us your favourite passage from the book you enjoyed writing the most
This is an excerpt from Beginner’s Luck, the first instalment in the Mythical Menagerie series. In this scene, my main character, Ambrose, attends a presentation for prospective employees, and soon learns it wasn’t quite what he had been expecting:
I took the stairs up two at a time and entered a darkened room on the second floor where a dozen or so people were already watching a slideshow. I sat down in the back row, waving apologetically at the presenter in the front as she continued talking.
The woman looked to be in her early twenties too, with dark chocolate skin and a waterfall of black curls framing her face. Her accent was as English as my own, but the African-print scarf wrapped around her throat hinted at a more exotic background.
“As you can see,” she was saying, “we are interested in creatures of a more... shall we say, unusual... reputation.” She pointed at the screen where a picture of a winged horse on an old Grecian vase was displayed. “We specialise in animals of myth, folklore and fantasy. Your job would be to locate and acquire these creatures on our behalf. This does not come without an element of danger, but you will be handsomely compensated for any risks you may need to take. All we ask is that you deliver the creatures into our care alive and unharmed. Any questions?”
“Yeah.” The guy in front of me raised his hand. “What have you been smoking, lady?”
I glanced at the faces around me as laughter bubbled throughout the room. Almost everyone looked sceptical, some shaking their heads in amusement, others frowning in annoyance. One or two even glanced at their watches, barely bothering to hide their yawns.
“I assure you, we are not crazy. These creatures may be hard to come by, but they are as real as you and I.” The presenter looked calmly at the sea of disbelieving faces staring at her. “And they are in danger. They need to be protected.”
The man scoffed again, turning an incredulous gaze at the people around him. “Is she serious?” he asked of the room in general. He picked up his coat and stood up. “I’m out of here, lady. Thanks for the fairy tale, but I have mouths to feed. I wouldn’t want to send my children off to find the gingerbread house in the woods.” More laughter followed as he strode out of the room. One by one, the rest of the people stood up and left too.
“What a waste of time,” a woman said to her friend as they shuffled past me.
The presenter made no move to stop them, but her shoulders slumped a little as she bent over her laptop and turned the presentation off. She flicked a switch on the wall and the room was bathed in fluorescent light. Her eyes widened when she saw me still sitting in my chair.
“Was there something?” she asked, a small frown creasing her forehead.
I stood up, not sure how to explain to her that I was desperate enough to go in search of fairy tales if that meant I could eat something other than dry bread the rest of this week. Hell, for a small stipend I would swim the length of the Thames in search of selkies or whatever imaginary creature they wanted right now, no matter if I ended up on Sky News tonight.
“Well, uh...” I hesitated as her brown eyes met my own. She looked me over with one eyebrow raised quizzically. I must look a mess, I realised, all sweaty from the jog here and wearing a water-stained suit. I ran a hand self-consciously through my windblown hair.
“I like your shoes,” she said, a small smile playing across her lips. She held her right hand out and I shook it automatically. “Amari Kerubo of the CPPCC. And you are?”
“Ambrose Davids,” I replied. CPPCC? Sounded like a remnant of the old Soviet Union. Father would have been looking for conspiracy theories right about now. He’d always had an active imagination.
“Well, Mister Davids,” Amari said as she reached into her laptop bag and pulled something out of a side pocket. “I sense you are not quite as sceptical as the rest, so I will give you this.” She placed a silver whistle in my hand. “Blow it when you have something we might find interesting.”
I stared at the whistle. She had to be kidding me. I suddenly wondered if there was a hidden camera somewhere and my sister would be showing all her friends on YouTube how her brother had fallen for some obscure practical joke.
I looked back at the woman. She raised an eyebrow at me again. I mumbled my thanks and shoved the whistle deep into my pocket, wondering how much I’d be able to flog it for. Without another word, I turned around and left too. This really had been a waste of time.
Tell us about your latest project
I started writing the Mythical Menagerie series as serialised short stories, but soon learned that my readers prefer novels, so I combined the first six instalments into the first novel, Myth Hunter (http://books2read.com/mythhunter). It’s the story of Ambrose Davids – young, ambitious, disgraced – who meets a mysterious woman from an unnamed Council, who offers him a silver whistle and an impossible mission. He falls headfirst into a world in which mythical creatures are real – and not quite as friendly as his childhood bedtime stories had led him to believe. It’s a quirky rollercoaster ride that takes readers to places like London, Paris and Rome on a mythical adventure in which Ambrose learns that nothing is what it seems and that not everyone can be trusted… Least of all himself.
While Myth Hunter can be read as a standalone novel, the adventure continues and I’m currently working on Book 2 of the Mythical Menagerie series. I hope to have it finished mid 2022.
What is your favourite cake?
My absolute favourite cake is a South African speciality called “Joodse tert” (Jewish custard tart) which is like milk tart on steroids. It has at least ten layers of thin pastry stacked with creamy custard filling and it is divine! Unfortunately, I have neither the skill nor the patience to bake it myself, so I order it from the local bakery every year on my birthday as a special treat.
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Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet, completely addicted to cake. Find out more about her books on her website
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