Interview with Ilona Andrews

We are so happy to welcome back to The Book Pushers the fabulous writing duo known as Ilona Andrews. Ilona and Gordon are the best selling authors of the Kate Daniels Series, featuring MY favorite shifter Curran and the always snarky Kate. They also pen The Edge Series, a paranormal romance series with my OTHER favorite hero, Declan (E and Has pipes up, you can’t forget about William *sigh*). Later this year they also have their first novella in the Alpha Series releasing in an anthology with Nalini Singh, Meljean Brook and Sharon Shinn.
Welcome back to The Book Pushers Ilona & Gordon!!

 

Book Pushers: Magic Slays, which releases this May, is the fifth book in the Kate Daniels Series, and you are currently only contracted for seven books in the series. Are we coming up on the end of the Kate and Curran reign, or are there any plans to extend the series by a few books?

I) Honestly, I don’t know at this point.  We’ve got Book 6 plotted loosely and we have a framework for Book 7, but the question is, do we end the series or should we keep going?  I guess I just don’t know at this point.
G) More likely we will do a spinoff thing with Julie or Andrea and their respective men folk, whoever they may be.

Book Pushers: You have two full length novels and two novellas coming out this year. When you first started writing did you ever imagine that the Kate Daniels Series would become so popular? That it would have such a large impact on the Urban Fantasy genre?

I) Ehhh, I think rumors of our popularity and impact have been wildly exaggerated.  🙂  We have an awesome core audience of fans – ::waves:: Hi, guys! – and we’re very grateful to them for making the series a success and letting us continue to write for the living.
G) Not really, we just wanted to write a good book that people would like to read.  As far as the impact, sometimes a person will write and say the book helped them through a rough patch, that is the best impact I think we could have.

Book Pushers: You have an anthology coming out with Yasmine Galenorn, Allyson James and Jeanne Stein that will focus on Jim and Dali (Dali & Jim 4EVA <3 – Lou). Jim is one of my favorite characters from the Kate Series, what inspired you to pair these two opposites together?

I) Dali is just such a fun character.  She is this ball of insecurities, and despite being so bright and capable, she would give anything to be a sex kitten that made men drool instead.  She crushed on Jim, perfectly aware that it is completely hopeless, because clearly Jim would never think of her in that way.  Jim needs a powerful fighter, a confident attractive shapeshifter for a mate, not the poor half-blind tiger girl.  Dali is very human in her flaws.
What she doesn’t realize is that Jim is not just very intelligent, but he also comes from a family of very smart people who value hard work.  He respects Dali’s talent, he respects her knowledge, and he is trying to do his best to protect her.  He doesn’t necessarily need a super strong fighter as his mate – he is one already.
Mating, and marriage, is a cooperation between two individuals who unite to support each other and to compensate for their flaws.  It seemed like a natural pairing.

 

Book Pushers: The short novella spin-offs with side characters from the Kate world are immensely popular. Are there plans in the work to continue this trend? Who would be next in line for their own short story?

I) We just did a very short story with Saiman’s cousin in Philadelphia.  It’s not one of our best, so we’re hoping for some feedback from a good editor.  There might be an e-novella with Kate and Andrea in the works, to be released as a companion to MAGIC SLAYS.  We also have two spin-off novels, tentatively scheduled as Andrea and Jim and Dali stories.   As to who would be fun…  I think the Bears would be hilarious.

 

Book Pushers: The second novella you have releasing later this year is the start of a new series, Alphas. For us faithful blog followers, we’ve had a bit of a sneak peak into the world already. What inspired you to go and write a much darker and twisted story?

I) We were under a lot of stress and blowing off steam.  It wasn’t really a complete story at first, just a few scenes.  But now we’ve twisted it into its own little world.  I’d love to work with it next.  I think it would be cool.

Book Pushers: Are there plans to continue writing in the Alphas world. Will future releases be novellas or full length books?

I) We’re committed to two more books of The Edge and two Kate spinoffs in addition to two Kate novels, but I’d love to do something with Alphas.  I think it’s strong enough to support a series.  Maybe next year.  We’ll have to see how Alphas does.

Book Pushers: The third book in The Edge Series, Fate’s Edge is  set to release next November. You said on Twitter that this book will have a lot of George and Jack in it. Does that mean we will get to see more of the Weird? Can you give us any insights into what Kaldar’s book is going to be about?

I) Sure!  About two years have passed since William found Cerise.  William and Cerise have settled into their life as agents of the Mirror.  They moved out of their big house and live in a smaller, more modest place not too far from Declan and Rose.  Cerise’s family also made their new house nearby.  Mars made a decision as a family to work for the Mirror.  They view it as an insurance – if something happens to William, they would still have value to Adrianglia.  Of all the Mars, Kaldar, a thief and a rogue, is best suited to the kind of work Mirror spies do.
Far away, on the other coast, Audrey Callahan, a young woman who comes from a long line of Edger thieves, is trying to stay on the straight and narrow.  Audrey is working a job in the Broken.  She cut off her family and broke free of them, but then her father reappears on her horizon and asks her to do one last heist.  She agrees.
It just so happens that the heist Audrey pulls off is a matter of national security and Kaldar is assigned to this case with instructions to retrieve the object Audrey stole.  He follows her trail all the way back to Republic of California on the back of his Mirror-issued wyvern.  It seems like a simple job: dangle money, or drugs, or whatever it is that makes Audrey tick and get the stolen item back.
And then he finds out that a California crime lord living in impregnable castle in the Weird is involved, Audrey is much more complicated than he expected and isn’t buying any of his snake oil, oh and Jack and George have stowed away on his wyvern.
Poor Kaldar.  Poor, poor Kaldar.

Book Pushers: One of the things we have noticed is that the more stories that an author has written, they seem to have a stock phrase or phrases that appear with each book.  Sometimes they deal only with a particular subject matter, other times they seem to deal with a theme that ties the stories together.  Would you be willing to explain the significance of “Rox fall. Everyone dies.  The End?”

I) Sure  it mea— Rox fall.  Everyone dies.

G) If I may dear?  It can be more accurately interpreted as “I am soo done with this.  I ain’t gonna work on it no more, you want a proper ending do you?  Ok, a giant asteroid enters the earth’s atmosphere, burning rocks fall from the sky and extinguish all life on earth.”  The End.

Book Pushers: And finally! Which heroes would you pick to go the pub with and what would you talk about?

I) I want to talk to Nancy Virai from the Edge series – can you imagine what stories she could tell?

G) Any heroes?  For me it would be Robert B. Parker’s Spenser or David Gemmell’s Druss the Legend.  We might even get into an old fashioned bar brawl.  I would be the guy hiding under a table while Spenser and Druss kicked all kinds of ass.