Interviewing RJ Barker

Helloooo!

I recently reviewed the end of the Forsaken trilogy Heart of the Wyrdwood by RJ Barker a fantastic and also surprising end to a verrrrry interesting fantasy series that doesn’t do the usual by any means with a spectacular forest setting which has a whole ecosystem you will not have seen before. Many more unusual turns await. It was a pleasure to invite RJ back to the blog to talk about the series.

How do you like to booktempt people into reading Heart of the Wyrdwood?
Well, I think most readers will have a moment. A sort of ‘oh!’ when everything comes together and they see the bigger picture. And for a series that appears so dark, I think the light it heads toward will surprise them.

When Gods of the Wyrdwood was released I was expecting Cahan was always going to be the central character but in this book we have rotated a lot more and Sorha really came to the fore. Was this something you planed from the start? 

I have quite an odd process that although I know the general end of something when I start I don’t really know how I will get there. So where we end up was always going to happen but what happens to Cahan and how the main characters rotate wasn’t a plan when I first started. It had sort of come into my head when I began the second book, that it could never be just Cahan’s story. I think that’s to do with evolution of character and part of his character is that he’s not hugely capable of change. I didn’t want to turn Cahan round and have him become a more traditional “hero” or have him plod on making terrible decisions. They are also very definitely NOT books about a chosen one. These are books about how you cannot rely on one person, people have to work together to overcome things. So removing him seemed like a good plan -- though the story is dependant on the ripple effect of his choices in the first and second book, both good and bad.

We have a lot of characters on arcs throughout the series all very much changed from where we met them. How do you approach making us see the different hidden facets of a character getting revealed? Which was your favourite to write? 

Sorha’s is the pretty obvious favourite, and I do think that her final act has a really delightful payoff but I think Ont’s is pretty good too. Not just his change from someone full of bluster and fear to someone who wants to do better, but what appears like a terrible and insurmountable thing happens to him. I like the way that this becomes a strength, that without his learned strength everything would most likely have failed. That it’s not the fact he is strong that wins through, but that he shares that strength.

As to the hidden facets, everyone shows a mask to the world that is some way sculpted by where they live and what they have been through. The act of cracking those masks by changing everything for them allows them to change, to make better choices. Quite often this change is powered by people who don’t know what they want, realising what it is they actually need and finding some sense of peace with themselves through that.

In many ways this is perhaps the most metaphysical of your series with some very big secrets about the origins of the Wyrdwood coming to light. How much fun was finally getting us to realise what was going on?

Oh, loads of fun. As I said it was a thing I knew from the start so all the clues are buried within the first book, and things happen in the second that probably make no sense to a fair amount of readers until they read the third. There’s always a sort of delightfully cackling feel to writing stuff that you know at some point a fair amount of people will go ‘OH! So that’s what was going on!’ And you hope that the reader sense sin that delight and gets a real sense of wonder out of it.

It’s actually, in some ways, a huge failure. I meant to write a sort of easy to read and quite commercial fantasy Robin Hood type book, and Wyrdwood is anything but that. It’s dark and complex and, as you said, metaphysical. At the same time I think, for people who stick with it, its hugely rewarding in what it gives back to the reader. Gods of the Wyrdwood is, in many ways, a quite traditional fantasy story but then it becomes something else. But, you know, transformation is the theme of it all and it’s kind of fun it happens on multiple levels both on the story front and on the readers perception of what they are involved in.

What surprised you the most in writing this series?

That I pulled it off.

What else can we look forward to from you in the near future and where can we find out more in this weird world of social media? 

Well, my next book, Mortedant’s Peril, has just been announced by Tor. It’s a story of murder and mystery in the vast tiered city of Elbay. The main character, Irody Hasp, is a mortedant, someone who can read the last few thoughts of the dead. He is not a popular person, though I think readers will come to love him, and finds himself framed for murder with only a few days to save himself from the gallows. He’s assisted by two others, whether he wants their help or not. It sort of harks back to my first book, Age of Assassins, which were first person murder mysteries, but it’s not quite as dark as my other stuff. It’s funny even, in places. I had such a fun time writing it and I can’t wait for people to get to read it and meet Irody and the denizens of Elbay. There’s two books coming and both work as standalones which is a new way of doing things for me.

As well as that there is other stuff on the horizon that I can’t talk about yet, but I am really excited by it. Follow me on Bluesky as RJBarker and you will be among the first to know…

What great books have you read recently?

I’ve been reading Steve Cavanagh’s Eddie Flynn books, which are American set legal thrillers and great fun.