Summer Author Blitz: Cinda Williams Chima

Hello, people of the universe! Welcome to my stop on the Summer Author Blitz tour! Today I am hosting the lovely Cinda Williams Chima, author of the Seven Realms series and the Heir Chronicles. I have an awesome guest post from Cinda, as well as all the info on her and her books, plus a giveaway for The Enchanter Heir! Enjoy!

The Guest Post

The Heir Chronicles Redux - Can You Really Go Home Again?

When my sons were thirteen and sixteen, I began writing a fantasy novel for teens. We all loved reading fantasy fiction, and I thought it would be cool to write something they would enjoy reading. The story focused on Jack Swift, a midwestern high school student who discovers he’s among the last of a guild of magical warriors. Jack’s being hunted by wizards to play in a magical tournament known as the Game—a fight to the death.  I called it The Warrior Heir.

After four years of revision, and lots more writing practice, The Warrior Heir sold, and then the companion novel, The Wizard Heir, and finally The Dragon Heir, which brought the previous stories together and tied them off neatly. We called the trio The Heir Chronicles. I then moved on to another teen series, the Seven Realms.

I’ve been so fortunate. Both of my series are New York Times bestsellers. The Heir Chronicles have continued to find new readers, seven years after the first book was published. Readers (and my publisher) have been asking whether I might consider writing more stories about the warring magical guilds known as the Weir.

I was wary. I hate it when I suspect that an author is stretching the equivalent of five stories into ten books with ten advances. I would much rather leave readers wanting more than fading away when they realize they have totally been there and done that too many times.

Readers move on. Writers do, too. I’m not the same writer I was in 2008, when the last of the Heir novels was published. I’ve changed—improved, I hope, but I worried that the reader looking for the exact same reading experience may be disappointed.

Could I really go home again? And, yet, I knew there were more stories to tell in that world. And so, I agreed to write two more Heir novels.

How hard could it be? I thought. I have my magical system, I have my world, and all I have to do is get the old band of characters back together.

I think it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

First of all, I had to find a way to pick apart the tidy ending I’d crafted and get my characters in trouble again. 

Secondly, I found myself trying to write amid the din of a thousand voices in my head. Over the past seven years, I’ve received lots of feedback from editors, readers and reviewers. No writer can satisfy everyone, and readers often disagree. You know this, if you’ve ever read a series of reviews of a book on Goodreads or Amazon. One reader says a novel is slow-paced, another says it’s rushed. One says there’s too much info in the first chapters, another says there should have been more up-front world-building. One reader loves a character, another finds her annoying.

Plus, once the new books were announced, readers made their expectations known.  I hope you’re planning to give Linda and Leander more stage time, one wrote. You neglected them in your last book.  Or, I hope you’re planning to bring _____ back to life. He was the best character ever, and you killed him off.

Meanwhile I was hearing from Seven Realms fans demanding to know why I wasn’t writing more fantasy in that world.

I had my own goals as well. I wanted to write a twinset of stories that a brand new reader could pick up and read without confusion. Stories that could stand alone, but would be a satisfying read for fans of the first three novels.

My readers know that I love to tell a story from different perspectives, because the truth often lies somewhere in between. I began asking the what-if questions.

What if some members of the “underguilds” decided to win the ongoing battle against the oppressive wizard guilds once and for all? Could there be a scenario in which wizards are actually the victims? Where genetic engineering and magic collide to create a whole new set of conflicts and unanticipated consequences? 

Of course there could.

And so I did what I’ve done before: I brought new characters onstage, while giving familiar characters some stage time, too. In honor of the new novels, my publisher has refreshed the covers of the original three books and designed a fantastic cover for The Enchanter Heir.

Perhaps you can go home again.

The Books

Seven Realms, featuring The Demon King, The Exiled Queen, The Gray Wolf Throne, and The Crimson Crown

Heir Chronicles, featuring The Warrior Heir, The Wizard Heir, and The Dragon Heir

The latest novel in the Heir Chronicles, The Enchanter Heir, releases this fall, and can be read without reading the previous books in the Heir Chronicles.

Title: The Enchanter Heir

Author: Cinda Williams Chima

Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Publishing Date: October 1, 2013
Pages: 512

Goodreads│Amazon│
Barnes & Noble

The first of two new novels in the Heir Series.

Universes collide, intrigues abound, and familiar faces return in Cinda Williams Chima’s brilliant new chapter in her beloved and bestselling Heir Chronicles series.

They called it the Thorn Hill Massacre—the brutal attack on a once-thriving Weir community. Though Jonah Kinlock lived through it, he did not emerge unscathed: like the other survivors, Jonah possesses unique magical gifts that set him apart from members of the mainline guilds. At seventeen, Jonah has become the deadliest assassin in Nightshade, a global network that hunts the undead.  He is being groomed to succeed Gabriel Mandrake, the sorcerer, philanthropist, and ruthless music promoter who established the Thorn Hill Foundation, the public face of Nightshade. More and more, Jonah’s at odds with Gabriel’s tactics and choice of targets. Desperate to help his dying brother Kenzie, Jonah opens doors that Gabriel prefers to keep closed.

Emma Claire Greenwood grew up worlds away, raised by a grandfather who taught her music rather than magic. An unschooled wild child, she runs the streets until the night she finds her grandfather dying, gripping a note warning Emma that she might be in danger. The clue he leaves behind leads Emma into Jonah’s life—and a shared legacy of secrets and lingering questions.

Was Thorn Hill really a peaceful commune? Or was it, as the Wizard Guild claims, a hotbed of underguild terrorists? The Wizards’ suspicions grow when members of the mainline guilds start turning up dead. They blame Madison Moss and the Interguild Council, threatening the fragile peace brokered at Trinity.

Racing against time, Jonah and Emma work to uncover the truth about Thorn Hill, amid growing suspicion that whoever planned the Thorn Hill Massacre might strike again.

From Cinda: "Stay tuned for the release of a free short story linking the redux to the first three novels, and featuring one of my favorite characters, the wizard Leesha Middleton."

The Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cinda Williams Chima grew up with talking animals and kick-butt Barbies. She began writing poetry and stories in third grade, and novels in junior high school. Her Heir Chronicles young adult contemporary fantasy series includes The Warrior Heir (2006), The Wizard Heir (2007), and The Dragon Heir (2008), all from Hyperion, with The Enchanter Heir coming October 1, 2013.

Chima's bestselling YA high fantasy Seven Realms series launched with The Demon King (2009), followed by The Exiled Queen, (2009), The Gray Wolf Throne (2011), and The Crimson Crown (2012).

Chima's books have received starred reviews in Kirkus and VOYA, among others. They have been named Booksense and Indie Next picks, an International Reading Association Young Adult Choice, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, to the Kirkus Best YA list, and the VOYA Editor's Choice, Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and Perfect Tens lists. Her books also appear on numerous state awards lists. Her books have been New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher's Weekly bestsellers.

Chima was a recipient of the 2008 Lit Award for Fiction from the Cleveland Lit and was named a Cleveland Magazine Interesting Person 2009. She lives in Ohio with her family, and is always working on her next novel. 

Website│Blog│Facebook│Twitter

The Blitz
The Summer Author Blitz is taking place throughout July and features several authors in guest posts and interviews, as well as a scavenger hunt. It has been made possible by the awesome Tabatha Perry (Montgomery County Book Festival) and Belle Whittington (Books and Broomsticks), so be sure to thank them!

+On July 19 at 7:00 p.m. there will be a Twitter party--follow #2013SummerAuthorBlitz!

+On July 26 at 3:00 p.m. there will be a Facebook event, which you can check out here.

The Giveaway
+No cheating
+One entry per person
+Winner will have 48 hours to respond or else a new winner will be drawn
+US Only
+No one associated with this post or the Blitz is responsible for lost or damaged items
a Rafflecopter giveaway