I recently had the pleasure of teaming up with Sapphire Ink Press to interview author Avalon Griffin in celebration of her upcoming book Unbound By Shadows. Check out the full interview below and be sure to visit her site for details on where to purchase Unbound By Shadows, which releases February 8, 2023.
To start, please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your writing.
Hello! I’m Avalon Griffin, and I write paranormal fantasy romance. In my debut novel, Unbound by Shadows, I tried to write the type of book I wanted to read with a relatable heroine, an otherworldly hero, and a unique setting with roots in the modern mythology of cryptids. I’ve also always wanted to explore life in a matriarchal world run by fierce but sometimes morally gray queens.
What motivates you to write?
Writing is the one thing that makes me feel both cleaned out and filled up. My interest in romantic storytelling started when I was about nine years old, playing Barbies. I would cook up elaborate storylines during the boring parts of school, then rush home to act them out with my dolls. In high school, I got really into novels by Johanna Lindsey and Diana Palmer but drifted away from romance as I grew older. I came back to it in my thirties after embracing the subversive feminism within the genre, which is now one of my main motivators to write. I love writing stories about women who find their own power and men who are strong but not misogynistic.
Tell us a little about Unbound by Shadows. What can readers expect? Genre? Tropes?
I like to describe the book as “A Court of Thorns and Roses” meets “Ice Planet Barbarians.” In a nutshell, it’s about a wallflower human named Selene and a volatile demon named Samael, who both become trapped in a dimension called Aurelia ruled by legendary creatures. When Samael becomes Selene’s guardian on a quest for a stone that could send her home, he plots to sacrifice her and steal it for himself to return to the Underworld. But as they travel, their attraction grows until they each must choose between going home or giving up everything to be together. Tropes include forced proximity, the guy falls first, fated mates, slow burn, a scene with only one bed, and a hero with a “touch her and die” attitude!
Do you have a favorite trope or character archetype that you’ve written?
I love a campy villain (I blame Stefano from Days of Our Lives for this), and I feel like that affinity comes through in the main antagonist in Unbound by Shadows. He’s a vampire with a lot of angst and delusions of grandeur, which leads him down a dark path. I’m toying with the idea of giving him a redemption arc in a future book, but we’ll see.
Do you see yourself in any of your characters?
Although most people might think I would see myself in Selene, I actually identify more with Samael, a Vengeance demon. I get really upset when I see injustice, cruelty, or deceit, and it’s great to act out all of my revenge fantasies through a demon driven to punish wrongdoers.
Where do you get the inspiration for your writing?
Lots of different places! When I first started writing this book, I dove headfirst into fantasy art by Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell. The images that stuck with me most involved a human woman and some kind of monster, like in the paintings, Vampire’s Kiss and Touches. I love the Beauty and the Beast-themed art of Abigail Larson and fantasy movies like Labyrinth, Legend, and Howl’s Moving Castle. I also have a ridiculous collection of perfumes from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and find a lot of inspiration from their blends when I’m fleshing out a character and want to know what they smell like. Personally, my signature scent is called Smut, which seems pretty on-brand!
Tell us about your writing/editing process. Pantser or Plotter? Sprint or crawl? Scheduled times or whims? Edit as you go or write first, and edit later?
In my life, I am a dedicated plotter and planner (hello, Enneagram type one), but in my writing, I tend to be a pantser. I’m the type of person who visualizes each scene like a movie in my mind, and I’ll often write scenes out of story order and then connect them up later. One of my favorite parts of writing is when I have an “aha” moment where some little detail I wrote for a scene in chapter 15 can inspire what happens in chapter 3. I also like to edit as I go. I’ve tried to fast-draft chapters, but when I’m not satisfied with a scene, it nags at me and keeps me from moving ahead. That doesn’t mean I don’t go back and rewrite chapters later, but I don’t do with well writing rough and moving on.
What has been your biggest hurdle in the writing/publishing process?
Once I stopped looking for approval from gatekeepers in the industry and took the process of publishing the book into my own hands, so much opened up for me. Having complete control over a project so near and dear to my heart was liberating, and it was exciting to think about all I could do with my book rather than how I would shrink it and shape it to meet a publisher’s whim. But it wasn’t easy to take that leap at first.
What are your “must-haves” for writing? Music? Snacks? Atmosphere?
Number one: my glamorous carpal tunnel wrist brace! Besides that, I like quiet spaces or the low drone of coffee shops. I usually prefer sitting on the couch to write instead of my desk, and I have learned to balance my laptop on my left knee while my 18-year-old cat, Rufus, snoozes on my right knee.
How does your lifestyle (other job/spouse/children/neurodivergence) affect your writing?
When I’m not writing fiction, I write funding proposals for nonprofits. It can be very rewarding, but the writing part of my brain gets easily overloaded. After a long day of drafting project narratives and logic models, the last thing I want to do is think up fictional scenarios and crank out words for a novel. I have had to create firm boundaries for myself by designating days strictly devoted to grant writing and days where I’m only working on fiction.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
I would tell aspiring authors that the world needs their stories. It’s so easy to feel like your writing doesn’t matter or get caught up in comparing yourself to others, but everyone is on their own journey. And their own timeline. Keep going when it gets hard (because it will), and trust that there are people out there who will connect with your work, no matter how long it takes you to get it out there.
What do you want to say most to your readers?
Thank you for reading and supporting my work! It’s so exciting to have people read Unbound by Shadows and really “get” what I was trying to do and feel seen through some of the characters. I appreciate all of you so much.
Are you currently working on anything? Can you share anything about your upcoming projects?
I am working on the second book in this series, To Dwell in Shadows. In this book, readers will get more of Samael and Selene’s story, plus see Hal, a cowboy demon (!), and Selene’s sister, Cass, and their adventures pretending to be fated mates to gain entry to the Underworld. There will be more of Aurelia too, and the introduction of a queen that readers haven’t met yet. I’m hoping to release this book toward the end of 2023.
Avalon Griffin writes paranormal fantasy romance with unique characters, far away settings, and a healthy dose of heat. When not writing, she can be found traveling the globe in search of kitschy roadside attractions, off-beat museums, and cryptozoology legends. She lives in Nashville with her husband, an ungrateful house cat, and a crew of rowdy feral cats.
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