Anu Recommends #22

An interview with debut author Kika Hatzopoulou

Hi and welcome to the Storyteller!

Today I’m thrilled that I can finally talk about one of my favourite books I’ve read so far in 2023—even better that the author herself agreed to an interview that I hope you’ll enjoy reading while you wait for the book to arrive on your doorstep (or on your preferred digital reading device).

But before that, here’s something that made my week. The lovely India Holton shared my Storyteller interview with her on her author newsletter! 💜

If you missed reading it, the interview is linked above, and here is where you can read my thoughts on the Dangerous Damsels series.

Now, onto the equally lovely guest for today’s issue 😊

Kika Hatzopoulou, according to her bio, “currently splits her time between London and her native Greece, where she enjoys urban quests and gastronomical adventures while narrating entire book and movie plots with her partner.” She works in foreign publishing and has published several short stories, including in anthologies such as Game On and Firsts & Lasts. Threads That Bind (out May 30, 2023 via Razorbill in the US and Puffin in the UK) is her debut novel.

The publisher’s bio for this reads:

In a world where the children of the gods inherit their powers, a descendant of the Greek Fates must solve a series of impossible murders to save her sisters, her soulmate, and her city.

Descendants of the Fates are always born in threes: one to weave, one to draw, and one to cut the threads that connect people to the things they love and to life itself. The Ora sisters are no exception. Io, the youngest, uses her Fate-born abilities as a private investigator in the half-sunken city of Alante.

But her latest job leads her to a horrific discovery: somebody is abducting women, maiming their life-threads, and setting the resulting wraiths loose in the city to kill. To find the culprit, she must work alongside Edei Rhuna, the right hand of the infamous Mob Queen—and the boy with whom she shares a rare fate-thread linking them as soul mates before they’ve even met.

But the investigation turns personal when Io's estranged oldest sister turns up on the arm of her best suspect. Amid unveiled secrets from her past and her growing feelings for Edei, Io must follow clues through the city’s darkest corners and unearth a conspiracy that involves some of the city’s most powerful players—before destruction comes to her own doorstep.

Threads was one of this year’s most anticipated reads for me, and it is safe to say that it has beyond fulfilled that expectation. 2024 is too long to wait for book two in this duology; though I must say that Kika knows how to craft the perfect, non-annoying cliff-hanger—not too many writers can nail that!

Threads That Bind: a Greek-myth-urban fantasy-dystopia-climate-environmental-survival-murder mystery

Phew!

And yet, it all comes together in a seamless, riveting whole that makes you want more.

Behold the half-sunken city of Alante with its cat bridges and high-tide warnings and its three moons (Pandia, Nemea, and Ersa). It is the splitting of the once singular moon into three that brought about the Collapse, the shaking, breaking, and cleaving of the known world into what we find as we turn the pages. Legend says that the gods died out long before the old world collapsed. But their powers survived in their descendants, the “other-born”, more and more of whom appear with every generation.

Eighteen-year-old Io Ora is the youngest sister of the Moirae (the descendants of the goddesses of Fate). Oldest sister Thais is the spinner who can weave new threads, middle sister Ava is the drawer who can elongate or shorten a thread, intensifying or weakening the corresponding feeling, and Io, Io is the most feared as the cutter, the goddess who decides when a life-thread (or any thread) is to be cut.

The threads of Fate were manifestations of what you loved, and in turn who you were.

People averaged fifteen threads, the most common being threads to other people they cared about, places they loved, objects that bore some significance. But even a cutter, with their power to see the threads of others through the Quilt as well as their individual significance, can cut another thread only by sacrificing one of their own—Io has an unusually high number of them (37) since she is quick to love, to form attachments. But she also has a secret thread that only she and her two older sisters, Thais and Eva know about. A rare thread that is known to exist before an attachment is formed: a fate-thread.

Once a thread was cut, the connection, love, or enjoyment you once felt was gone. Something meh was let in its place. The thread might grow back over time, but most likely it would not; such was the risk of cutting it.

Io has debated cutting her own fate-thread—how could she subject another person to a fate they hadn’t chosen? But she decides to keep it, while actively avoiding whoever is on the other end.

That someone else is Edei Rhuna, the right-hand person of Bianca Rossi, the mob queen of the Silts, the neighbourhood comprising of immigrants, other born, the poorest of the poor; blamed for the death of the Furies during the Moonset Riots more than a decade ago (an eight-day-long violent gang war that almost wiped out the Silts).

When Io, a private investigator for mostly cheating spouses, and Edei are tasked with solving the spate of horrific other-born murders by abducted women whose life-threads are cut, she is not only thrown together with the only person she has actively and consistently avoided, but will also be forced to reckon with her estranged sister Thais who, thought missing, is found to be in the city’s poshest neighbourhood, on the arm of Io’s prime suspect, a mayoral candidate.

Who can she really trust? Is everything she has ever been told, holds dear, and believes in a lie? And what about Edei and her growing feelings for him which seem to be reciprocated? How/when will she tell him about their fate-thread, and how will he react?

As secrets unravel, as the past closes in on her, and as she races against time and suspicion to gain answers (the other-born are akin to second-class citizens but even amongst them a cutter merits special disdain and fear, the most dangerous of reputations), Io must confront her guilt, the consequences of her past actions, and the deepest, darkest fears she hasn’t dared to vocalise. All while holding the life-threads of her loved ones in her hands. Over the span of this week, we see her put through the emotional, physical, and mental wringer and emerge truly transformed, eventually taking fearless control of her destiny.

Knot it once, the saying went, and she will know you’re still fighting.

In the Silts, people added the second verse: Knot it a hundred times, and she will still cut it.

This is a world (and magic system) unlike any I’ve read about, with a central character in Io who is fierce yet vulnerable, wise beyond her years while protecting a soft interior, and someone who is flawed but willing to accept them, willing to do what it takes to stand up for what is right even when her back’s against the wall.

She has always been told that their late mother called Thais, Eva, and her “one soul split in three bodies” but there is an extremely complicated dynamic between the sisters that Io must finally allow herself to see, to eventually accept.

It’s neither easy nor fast, reexamining your loyalties.

Threads That Bind is a book that plunges you into the deep end with its very first page and almost never lets up. It took me a few chapters to orient myself within the world and gain a burgeoning sense of the main players, but the investment was more than worth it. And I suspect that the experience will feel even richer in book 2 (out next year) as much of the core world-building and character studies have already happened, and can hence be deepened.

Bravo, Kika, for pulling off something so multi-genre and ambitious for your debut!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Razorbill for sharing a digital review copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

You can read an exclusive excerpt from Threads That Bind over on Tor, as well as multiple world-building and character profile posts over on Kika's Instagram.

Now, let’s hear from Kika herself 😍

Anu: Welcome to the Storyteller, Kika! Let’s talk a bit about your journey to the written word. And if you have a day job—how do you juggle that and the writing?

Kika: I’ve been writing since I was a child, starting with fan fiction of Meg Cabot’s works. I’m not a native English speaker, but I had to teach myself to read fiction and write in English when the Greek translation of the Princess Diaries were discontinued. I needed to find out what happens to Mia Thermopolis, so I ordered the original English versions. My writing skills slowly improved, and I was able to get in an MFA program in New York. I began querying my projects and eventually signed with my absolutely fantastic agent, who sold my duology to my amazing editor at Razorbill!

Right now, I work part-time and have no children or financial obligations, which makes finding time to write much easier. In the past, however, especially when I worked 10 and 12 hours a day during the lockdown, I had to fight tooth and nail to find the time and energy to write—even then, I only managed to carry out simple tasks. It was a bleak time and I’m glad we’re all past it.

Anu: Your bio says that you write stories filled with “lore and whimsy”. Can you elaborate on that? Going off that, what motivates or draws you to write and tell the stories that you do?

Kika: Lore, because I love to write about myths and gods, either real or invented. And whimsy, because one of my favorite things as a writer is to play with these myths—and because I’m also a MG (middle-grade) writer! Some of the things I enjoy about writing is worldbuilding, romance, setting and unexpected twists. But at the core of each story, there is usually a theme or a character journey that I’m interested in exploring—that’s the heart of the book and the part that I usually have to fall in love with before starting a project.

Anu: How do you incorporate your Greek culture (whether the actual myths, or just the customs/thinking/way of life) into your stories? We are all products of our upbringing and roots—how would you say that all of yours has fed into your writing, whether in style, narrative outlook, or even just the stories you write?

Kika: We certainly are products of our upbringing and I find my favorite books are usually the ones that really explore culture and myth. In the case of Threads That Bind, I have infused the world with gods that are usually side characters in media, like the Fates, the Muses, the Graces, the Furies—I wanted to write exclusively about sibling gods, because sisterhood and family are so central to the story, which I think is a reflection of my own experiences and how tight-knit Greek families usually are. In other stories I’ve written or am interested in writing, I always navigate towards complex relationships and complex societal structures. Most of the international book community have this idea of Greece as it was in antiquity, but modern Greece is an amalgamation of cultures, with a rich history of migration and several deeply rooted political conflicts that seem to appear in every single one of my books.

Anu: Do you have favourite parts about the writing and creative process?

Kika: So far, I’m lucky to say I’ve enjoyed it all! I love the initial spark of the idea and brainstorming the plot and world, I love the exploration of the first draft, I love the deep dive into edits, I love line-editing and pass pages, I even love the administrative tasks that go with selling a book to a publisher. That might change in the future, but for now, I am overjoyed that I can call writing a job—it’s been my dream since I was a child! That said, I do think it’s important to find what brings you joy in writing and focus on that instead of the hundreds of other things you have no control over in an industry that can be wildly unpredictable and unfair.

Anu: Is there any advice you wish you’d gotten when you first started out? Or any advice for aspiring authors from your own experience, something that’s really helped you in your writing and publishing journey so far?

Kika: That is a great question! By the time my book was sold, I had several friends who had gone through the process of traditionally publishing a book, as well as several years of experience working in publishing, namely in acquisitions. So, I had a pretty clear idea of what to expect from the publishing industry. I tried – and still try—to set realistic expectations for what this journey is going to look like, which usually means not equating my self-worth and my worth as a writer to things that are outside of my control, such as sales, marketing or comparisons to other books/authors.

That said, I think the best advice I’ve been given is to read. Read a lot, read in your genre, read outside it, read with a critical eye. My prose evolved so much after I started doing close reads of the books I loved, looking at how authors used metaphors and similes, learning new words, dissecting how they created a strong voice and narrative. And of course, finding your people in the book community is so joyful. Writing can be a lonely art—friends are important.

Bonus questions:

Anu: What would you like the readers of this newsletter to know about Threads That Bind?

Kika: There’s so much! I want them to discover the dangerous city of Alante and the descendants of the gods that populate it, to fall in love with its characters, to examine shame and guilt, destiny and choice, and, of course, to boo or cheer at the twists and turns of the plot!

But since we have been discussing writing in this newsletter, I would like readers to know that Threads That Bind was my ‘Screw this!’ book. Before starting it, I had been having a hard time as a writer—I’d been told multiple times that I had to silence the quirkiest parts of my writing to fit into the industry, and even when I did that, I still got rejections. I decided this new book was going to be about all the things I love and if no one buys it, then so be it—at least I would have had fun writing it. So I incorporated in the book all the things that I love: the Greek Fates, a detective main character, a noir setting, an environmental disaster and a broken world, class struggles, sisterhood, and a subverted soulmate romance trope. To this day, it still amazes me that this weird, unusual book is the one that has found so much success—it just goes to show that you need to write from the heart.

Anu: What's in the works going forward? And can you share a few recommendations for the readers of this newsletter?

Kika: Oooh, yes, I love giving recommendations. Recently, I’ve read and loved Godkiller by Hannah Kaner and Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto. Some of my favorite YA fantasy books are Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education trilogy, Margaret Owen’s Merciful Crow duology and Amanda Joy’s A River of Royal Blood duology. On the adult side, I’m a big fan of Samantha Shannon, whose A Day of Fallen Night I’m currently reading, and Andrea Stewart’s The Bone-Shard Daughter trilogy.

Next up for me is the sequel to Threads That Bind, the final part of the duology. I’ve had great fun drafting and editing the sequel and I’m very proud of the ambitious twists I’ve managed to pull off! I’ve also got a project co-written with some author friends that’s nearly finished and ready to go out on submission to publishers, and I’m slowly working on an adult solarpunk fantasy!

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Thank you so much for taking the time out to answer my questions, Kika!

You can find her at website | twitter | instagram - all of which have buy links for Threads.

As always, please feel free send in recommendations—books, movie, TV shows, authors to interview, ideas of what you’d like me to write on, rants/ramblings/excited monologues, GIFs and memes (especially them) and more. Just drop me a line and turn this into a conversation, even if just to say hi and let me know what you thought of the latest issue :) Or share this with someone you think might enjoy it.

Take care and see you next week!

Anu

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