Guest post: KJ Taylor on the Southern Star trilogy

As everyone loved KJ’s last guest blog post, I thought I’d ask her to drop by again, this time to talk about the Southern Star trilogy.

I love vast overarching story-lines with long-term consequences, and stories that reinvent themselves by taking on new ground. The Southern Star trilogy hits that mark.

Tell us about the Southern Star trilogy

Southern Star is the third trilogy in the series that began with The Dark Griffin way back in 2009, and continues the overarching story with a new protagonist.

During the editing of the book that came before this trilogy, The Shadow’s Heart, the editor asked me why I’d introduced a new character – a fourteen year old recently-orphaned boy named Red. I said “because he’s the main character of the next book, and we need to have met him in advance”.

So Red’s story began in that book in a minor role, and now continues here as we see how his life unfolded after he grew up.

The conflicts in this trilogy are all consequences of the things that happened in the one that came before it, though in a sense we’re starting with a clean slate since we now have a new main character and the previous main characters are either dead or now occupy supporting roles.

Arenadd, the main character from The Dark Griffin, and then his daughter Laela after him, did all they could to stop war breaking out between North and South – but they ultimately failed, and now we see the consequences of that.

Their successor Caedmon now intends to conquer the South, in an act of vengeance against the crimes their people committed against his in the past, but also in an effort to prevent history from repeating itself. Meanwhile poor Red, a humble if ambitious city guard, is unwittingly and unwillingly caught up in the middle of it.

What was the hardest part to write, and why?

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!

Seriously, don’t read beyond this point if you haven’t read the first two books.

After Red became the Shadow That Walks, I found myself thinking, “well why can’t he just use his powers to go and kill Caedmon and be done with it?”. But the answer was simple enough. Our hero might have the same terrifying abilities as Arenadd and Saeddryn before him, but that doesn’t mean he would or should be prepared to use them in an evil or dishonourable way.

He’ll still want to fight fair and give his enemies a chance, and he’ll remember what Kullervo told him when he was young – about how there’s a better way.

That was very hard to write.

What did you learn about yourself while writing it?

Well, I should mention that this was a long time ago – I wrote this trilogy back in 2009! (The publishing industry is a slow mistress, and especially when you have to change publishers twice in two years).

But one thing I do remember is how much I enjoyed writing a straightforwardly good protagonist after two whole trilogies starring antiheroes. I’d grown disenchanted with heroes and had developed a very sour and cynical attitude toward that sort of fiction and indeed life in general.

Red and Teressa took the series in a much more optimistic direction.

What do you hope your readers take away by reading it?

That there is a better way. I could have ended the trilogy by having Red kill Caedmon and wipe out the Northerners, but Kullervo in the previous trilogy had laid the groundwork by inspiring a few people to think a little differently, and Red is ultimately the one who realises his mentor’s dream.

He sees that conquering and subjugating the enemy will only lead to further revenge and revolution in the future, and that the true enemy of the South is not the North, and the true enemy of the North is not the South – the true enemy of both sides is fear.

He sees that the only way to peace is through understanding and forgiveness, and finding common ground. It’s not easy and he makes a lot of enemies by taking that stance, but he does it anyway, and so leads his homeland toward a better future.

What’s next for you?

There’s just two more books to go before The Cymrian Saga is complete, and after that I’ve got a whole bunch of things to move on to – I’ve started dabbling in other genres and have a crime novel in the works along with a science fiction series, and a few more fantasy projects.

And my first picture book, which is due out very soon and has me and a lot of other people very excited!

You can find more about K.J. Taylor via: