Author Morgan Rhodes takes readers into exhilarating new high-fantasy territory with A BOOK OF SPIRITS AND THIEVES. Written in alternating perspectives that shift between modern-day Toronto and the ancient kingdoms of Mytica, Rhodes masterfully weaves the dark, magical world of her Falling Kingdoms series into an epic contemporary saga that will leave you breathless.
Today, she shares with us an introduction to A Book of Spirits and Thieves, and the magical literary inspiration that eventually led to her writing her New York Times bestselling series.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
— Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“Books may well be the only true magic.”
— Alice Hoffman
Morgan Rhodes (c) Shanon Fujioka
Every now and then I’ll read a book that stops being just words on a page—and it transports me to a completely different place as if it’s a porthole to another world. I become the character I’m reading and I experience what she experiences, I see what she sees, I feel what she feels.
Please tell me I’m not alone in this. (glances around nervously)
Books are magic. I believe this absolutely. They can sweep us away from our problems and ordinary lives with the turn of a page. In my series starter, A Book of Spirits and Thieves, this happens quite literally as a teenage girl from modern-day Toronto happens upon a mysterious, unreadable book that transports her spirit to a very dangerous and magical realm called Mytica. Readers already familiar with my books will know that Mytica is the main location for my Falling Kingdoms high fantasy series and that A Book of Spirits and Thieves is a companion that can be read side by side or completely separately from the original.
How much fun would it be to literally step into the pages of your favorite book? To experience in the flesh (or even incorporeally) what is impossible here in our “normal” world. To see magic with your own eyes and have a say in what happens as you join the fight of good against evil?
Answer: Super fun.
My inspiration for A Book of Spirits and Thieves goes back to the books I adored as a kid (and still love to this day). The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland are two great examples (with very parallel storylines to each other) about normal girls who travels to incredible, fantastical worlds and needs to find a way to get back home. While A Book of Spirits and Thieves doesn’t follow this template exactly—since it also involves immortals, dark magic, secret societies, family mysteries, and forbidden romance—I am grateful to these books for sparking my imagination and feeding my hungry muse. They were the first to show me that books are magic.
Happy reading!
Morgan Rhodes