On a eu la chance de rencontrer Melissa Landers, l'autrice derrière The Half King, la romantasy qui fait vibrer les lecteurs. C’est dispo dans toutes les librairies ou en ligne 📚
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00:00Seriously, my name is Melissa Landers. I'm the author of The Half King, which is a brand new, new adult romantic fantasy.
00:07I hope that you love it as much as I do.
00:10And so I'm going to spin the wheel and we're going to talk a little bit about The Half King today.
00:16Ooh, generational curses. Curses are a huge part of The Half King.
00:20I actually didn't plan it this way from the beginning.
00:22The curses developed organically because I knew that I wanted to write a book about a charming young king who turned to shadow at sunset.
00:30So the first question I had to ask myself was, why does he turn to shadow at sunset?
00:35He must be cursed. Okay, who cursed him? Why?
00:38What did he do to deserve this? Spoiler alert, he didn't do anything to deserve it.
00:42The curses are handed down from the goddess because of a thousand-year-old great betrayal in which the four noble dynasties rose up to try and kill their creator.
00:54And so she cursed each noble dynasty in accordance with their role in the betrayal.
01:00I won't tell you too much else because I don't want to spoil it.
01:04Blue! We got Blue! Blue is my favorite.
01:07So his full name is Lord Blue Solon, and he is the sweetest, ugliest, best boy that was ever created.
01:18So Blue is a half-hound, half, it's a little bit of a spoiler, but it's okay, I'll tell you.
01:25Half-Titan hyena fed on the cursed blood of the goddess, half-Mortara brush hound.
01:33So basically, Cerise meets this tiny litter of brand new puppies, and she falls madly in love with one, and the king gives her her own puppy.
01:43And it's the first time she's ever had anything of her own to love.
01:46Cerise is raised since birth in a temple, and she's born to serve.
01:52There's very little affection in the temple.
01:55And so when she wants affection, she goes to the kennels or the rabbit hutch, and she's never had healthy love in her life.
02:03And so when she has Blue, she just immediately feels unconditional love for the first time in her life.
02:10And I promise you, the dog does not die.
02:13Ever. Ever.
02:16Journey of Initiation.
02:19What's a fantasy novel without a quest?
02:21They go hand in hand, right?
02:23So in the Half-King, the main quest is to find the Petros Blade.
02:29Cerise is on a mission to break the Noble Curses.
02:33And the first thing that she has to do is find the Petros Blade,
02:37which is the blade that was originally designed to kill the goddess during the Great Betrayal a thousand years ago.
02:43And they have to go into the Mortara Mountains.
02:46They have to fight off beasts.
02:47They have to pass tests.
02:49Even to find the Petros Blade, the first thing she has to do is win the Sunset Runes.
02:54And to do that, she has to make certain sacrifices.
02:59It's a lot.
02:59Oh, Cerise, our main character.
03:03There's a lot of me in Cerise.
03:05And I don't always do that on purpose.
03:07There's just naturally a piece of me in all of my characters because I'm the one who writes them.
03:11But Cerise and I have a lot in common.
03:13I was also raised in...
03:16I was also indoctrinated in a little bit of a cult-like religion that taught me some really problematic things.
03:23I also had to go on a journey to deconstruct truth from fiction.
03:30But Cerise is the second-born daughter of a noble family.
03:34And as a second-born, she was given to the temple at birth.
03:37And she has been raised to become an oracle, except she has no sight.
03:43And she's trying so, so hard to become an oracle, and she just fails every time.
03:47Her reverend mother receives a vision that Cerise might be able to break the noble curses.
03:53And so she gives Cerise an opportunity to go to the palace as the temple emissary.
03:59And Cerise takes that deal.
04:01Because even though she's afraid, her biggest fear, she doesn't want to be ordinary.
04:05Ah, Kian Hannibal Mortara, our hero.
04:11Sexy Kian.
04:12My first inkling of Kian was just...
04:15I saw him in my mind's eye, tall and dark and handsome and turning to shadow at sunset.
04:21But why?
04:22Because he is the firstborn of his family line.
04:25Not only is he the firstborn, he's the last remaining Mortara.
04:29His noble dynasty's curse is probably the worst.
04:33It's eternal darkness, basically.
04:35So Kian turns to shadow at sunset, every dawn makes him whole again.
04:40And he reappears to wherever his spirit is drawn, to the person where his spirit is drawn.
04:46And before he meets Cerise, that's a very good friend of his that calls his spirit.
04:51He carries the hopelessness and the dread of knowing what his fate is.
04:58Knowing that his fate is to disappear forever into the shadowy underworld and sort of just suffer eternally.
05:05That's another awesome trope that you see a lot in fantasy.
05:12I mean, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, there's always a chosen one.
05:19It can help explain all of the magic, all of the special characteristics of your main character.
05:24In this case, Cerise has favor with the goddess.
05:28And the goddess, I should mention, is equal parts darkness and light, good and bad, mercy and wrath.
05:34She's all things wrapped up into one.
05:36Try to imagine the god and the devil all as one entity.
05:39That's the goddess.
05:40And Cerise has the goddess's favor.
05:43Oh, General Petros.
05:44Okay, so he is cursed.
05:47General Petros might be the only character who actually has passed his claiming day and he is living with his curse.
05:56His curse is insatiable bloodlust and this makes him an excellent general.
06:00He is the commander of the royal guard.
06:03He is a mountain of a man, tattooed flames on his bald head, very difficult to control his rage.
06:11Makes him a very good fighter and a good protector of the king.
06:15And the Petros bloodlust, I feel like, is the only curse that you could semi-live with.
06:20We all can get ragey once in a while, right?
06:22So, it wouldn't be the best thing, but I think this is the curse I would pick.
06:28Royal romance.
06:29This is a trope because it's just super cool.
06:32Who doesn't want to, you know, fall for a king, you know?
06:36I just toured Versailles yesterday and although I can see why there was a revolution, you know,
06:41if I was starving and I saw that palace, I would probably pick up a pitchfork too.
06:47But the romance of it, just to live this lavish life and luxury and power, it's a trope for a reason.
06:57It's kind of like the modern day take on the billionaire trope.
07:00You know, if you're in the medieval times or in a fantasy that's archaic,
07:05the equivalent of that is the king taking a liking to you.
07:09It's extra fun because we have the forbidden romance chucked in there too.