Q&A with Krystal Sutherland, author of The Invocations
We have a treat to share with readers today- a Q&A with author, Krystal Sutherland. Her latest book, The Invocations, is a thrilling and mysterious story.
The Invocations is a gothic thriller about a supernatural serial killer loose on the streets of London – and the three teenage girls who team up to stop the murders, before they’re next on the list.
It can come from anywhere, often when you least expect it – but I find that a) travel and b) museums are often the richest sources of inspiration for me. House of Hollow was inspired by Anuradhapura, a ruined city in Sri Lanka, and The Invocations was inspired by the ancient Roman baths in Bath. So I guess ruins have been a particularly fruitful source of inspiration for me of late!
I have! At least since I was 18, when I decided to write my first (terrible, unpublishable) book. Since then, I studied for a degree in English and creative writing, and wrote two more unpublished manuscripts before I got a book deal for Our Chemical Hearts at the end of university. Being an author is the only “real” job I’ve ever had.
Persistence is key. Persistence in getting words on the page, and persistence in continuing to write even when you are rejected (because you will be rejected, over and over and over again). It’s a completely mad thing to do, to spend all your free time writing when you have no assurance that what you’re working on will ever see the light of day – but you must keep showing up. The only certain path to failure is giving up.
The Invocations deals with some dark magic – did you do research into this subject?
I grew up in a religion (which I’m no longer a part of) that firmly believes in the existence of demons and dark magic. I used a lot of my own memories to form the magic system, taking the approach of “What if everything I grew up being afraid of was real?”
I just had a baby, so my capacity for reading entire books has been catastrophically reduced for the past couple of months! I genuinely cannot remember the last book I read before she was born. I am, however, looking forward to diving back into reading with Melissa Albert’s The Bad Ones and Saara El-Arifi’s Faebound.
I run on anxiety and sour candy.
Without fail, in the early morning. If I can be up at 6am, at my desk with a cup of tea, I can do more good work in the next two hours than I will for the rest of the day.
The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland is published by Hot Key Books and is available this week from retailers.