Author Spotlight with Deborah Jarvis

Welcome! Introduce yourself and tell us a little about your writing.

My name is Deborah Jarvis and I am a full-time high school English teacher and part time college professor. I also am an advocate for greyhound, galgo, and podengo rescue. I am a mother of two awesome twenty-somethings, and live and work in New Hampshire.

I write urban fantasy and high fantasy primarily, with a sprinkle of horror mixed in. My high fantasy series is The Keyralithian Chronicles, and the first two books, The Crystal Pawn and The Ivory Queen, are currently out. The third book is in the works and should be done sometime early next year. The other series is an urban shapeshifter fantasy series called The Shapeshifter Symphonium, and the first book, Wolves Running, is out, and there are several others in planning stages.

What’s something unique about your book that will make readers immediately want to check it out?

I mean, there’s dragons, but they don’t really show up until book two. However, the steps that Deirdre takes to go through initiation into who she is meant to be are interesting, as are her early trials discovering her powers. One of the points of the whole series is about the self-discovery Deirdre goes through, and by book three, she’s definitely figured out who she is and what hill she is willing to die on.

What inspired you to write The Keyralithian Chronicles series?

I grew up in the 1980s and cut my teeth on classic fantasy stories like The Last Unicorn, Hiero’s Journey, and The Dragonriders of Pern, to name a few. I always loved writing, and when I was a teenager, I started writing about Keyralithsmus, a fantasy world where the heroine, Deirdre, found herself in the midst of a dire plot surrounding an evil lord of darkness and demons. Over the years, it evolved into what it has become today, and the characters have jelled into a solid cast of colorful beings who I would love to meet in real life.

Tell us about your favorite character you’ve written about and why?

Jack Parns was and is my favorite character to write about. Jack is also from our world, but unlike Deirdre, he came through one of the temporary portals that appear occasionally between the worlds, then disappear again, often trapping beings from one side on the other. He is a rogue and a bit of a rake, but he is loyal and one of Prince Benjamin’s closest friends. He also has a little thing for Deirdre, though she is utterly clueless through most of the first two books. Deirdre meets him in the city of Malepoer, and realizes where he must be from when he uses an American colloquialism. They bond over silly songs from musicals and become fast friends.

You’ve included so many interesting animals and species in your book (including everyone’s favorite…dragons!). Can you tell us about some of these creatures and their significance in the story?

Let’s start with the dragons. They took their leave after a major war over three hundred years prior to when the story starts, but the left behind rather specific instructions as to how to find them and enlist their aid. Only a three-form Shaper has the potential to become a dragon and call on them, but those instructions have become rather fuzzy over time. Dragons won’t just show up for a cup of tea, and they really want proof that they are needed before they come to help.

The unicorns are interesting. The King of the Unicorns, Rathal,was present at the battle between the humans from the west and the peoples of Keyralithsmus those three hundred years ago. His mate was killed, and he took most of his people and sailed east across the sea to wherever the unicorns live – I haven’t been there and they haven’t told me, so I’m not sure where that is. When the Shaper leader of the Northern Reaches, Count Nerfal, lost his legitimate daughter, Rathal returned to help Nerfal find his off-world child. He’s been shadowing Deirdre ever since. There is a hint that some of Rathal’s people have been traveling Keyralithsmus in human guise ever since the war, but that is more just rumor.

The minotaurs are somewhat of a tragic tale. As they tell it, one of their own fell in love with a evil wizard’s daughter, and when she was killed, the wizard cursed them with being unable to give birth to any more females of their species. The humans have another, less savory account of the tale…In any event, as their remaining females died off, they only way they could reproduce at all was with humans. This did not go too well, obviously, and the minotaurs are considered to be one of the most savage and cruel of the races. Any that are found are sent to the Isle of Coliseum to serve in the fighting arena. There is a group that is rumored to exist where humans and minotaurs live in peaceful harmony and civility, but that is considered to be a fairytale by most minotaurs.

The centaurs are a noble race and one of the groups that shelter some of the other magical races – excepting the minotaurs – in their camp below the Southern Mountains. They are mainly just trying to figure out what their next move will be, and they have close ties with the Alari, the tribes of desert nomads that range the desert below the mountains.

Lastly are the Talking Folk, a collective of intelligent animals who live in the Northern Reaches with the Shaper clan. They are good neighbors to them and often serve as emissaries to the other magical races.

Without giving us any spoilers, what’s your favorite quote or scene from your book and tell us a bit about it?

No spoilers? It is the scene with the doors from book two. Deirdre has to choose between doors of all types and colors and materials. Only one is right. But which one? Which one? This one takes all sorts of story elements from the two books and represents them visually. Super fun to write.

Where can readers find you?

All of my links can be found at https://linktr.ee/the_rael_coyote. My newsletter can be signed up for through my website at www.deborahjarvis.com.