The main characters from Amberlight are central again, that is, Alkhes and Tellurith, but a number of lesser to cameo characters from Amberlight become important, and of course new middle to minor characters appear, including one who makes a late but starring appearance and goes on to be a major voice in the third book. The most interesting developer in Riversend, though, is Tellurith’s first husband, Sarth.
I think we've got to tell those who haven't read the book that in the world of Amberlight, women marry two husbands. So when you say that Sarth is Tellurith's first husband, it's not as if they are divorced. He is still her husband when she marries the second husband.
Yes, yes, thanks! (laughing) In Amberlight he had only a couple of scenes. In Riversend he is one of the three pov characters and he developed in ways I never expected. He was also the hardest to write. Alkhes was fairly straightforward, even if male. He comes from your common or garden patriarchy and he’s trying to adjust to a community just leaving matriarchy. But Sarth was born, bred and raised in matriarchy. In a House Tower of Amberlight, which make Turkish seraglios seem like open thoroughfares. Tower men are the equivalent of Classical Greek courtesans. They are supremely well-educated - so they can talk back intelligently to the women who ran Amberlight. They are physically superb – they work out, they cultivate their looks, down to make-up and manicures – so they can be attractive to the women who run the society, etc.. Figuring out how Sarth would already think, let alone how he would change and challenge the new life, was the most exciting part of writing Riversend.
Tell me about Riversend. Is it standalone or should I read the first book to really understand the world?
Amberlight was a complete story, and Riversend is set up to give you some backstory at the very beginning -- but you may find yourself, like one of my other early readers, getting a few chapters into Riversend and rushing out to get the prequel -- or in her case, e-mail me urgently, going, Where’s the first book of this?
Riversend isn’t a complete standalone, because the end isn’t a cliffhanger, but the main narrative does head on into the third book, Source. When Source will see print is a large question at the moment, but it will be the capstone for these three books. The fourth one, Dragonfly, is set a few years later. It explores the consequences, political, emotional and physical, of the Amberlight sequence. I don’t say trilogy, because each story is a satisfying whole in itself.
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