Article contributed by Raathi Chota
Liselle Sambury’s debut Blood Like Magic is refreshing with its mix of sci-fi and fantasy themes. Growing up in Toronto, Ontario, Sambury runs a YouTube Channel where she shares tips for aspiring writers and her debut novel Blood Like Magic is the first in the series with the sequel to follow in 2022 and other future works by Sambury. The Nerd Daily had the pleasure of interviewing Sambury about her debut!
Hi, Liselle! Thank you for taking the time to do this interview, I’m really excited since I enjoyed the book so much! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thank you so much! I’m so happy to hear that! I grew up in Toronto, Ontario where Blood Like Magic is set. I am both a plant and dog mom, and I consider my writing brand to be “messy Black girls in fantasy situations.”
Describe Blood Like Magic in five words for people who are interested in reading the book!
Black witches in future Toronto.
Now tell us all about your debut novel Blood Like Magic!
Blood Like Magic is about sixteen-year-old Voya Thomas who after failing a ritual that witches must do to come into their power is given a second chance by her ancestor. Except this time, she’ll have to choose between killing her first love or losing her entire family’s magic forever.
What was the inspiration behind Blood Like Magic?
I was living away from Toronto and just desperately missing my city. I wanted to write something set there and was very invested in that story being about a family of Black witches. I cannot tell you where the idea to set it in the future came from, that was extremely random, but it fit. I loved how the future twist set it apart from other witch books and as a sci-fi fan, it was fun to imagine.
Blood Like Magic includes fantasy and elements of sci-fi while creating a connection to the past. How did you manage to balance all of that?
It was definitely not easy! I started with some basic rules for both the magic system and the technology in the world—that witches had to use blood to cast or otherwise could use a gift without blood, and gifts would be unique to each person. And for the technology, there would be a system that could manipulate genes in a way that would have expressive results. After I had those, I really had to think about how to connect the two so one wouldn’t exist without the other. I was afraid of getting the suggestion to just take out the sci-fi part, and so I knew that if they weren’t interwoven strongly enough, the book would be vulnerable to that critique. The connection to the past however felt a lot more natural because it meshed really well with the fantasy elements of the book, and later on I figured out a way to connect that to the technology through a subplot. A lot of weaving all these elements together came in stages, and was helped along by betas, CPs, my agent, and my editor asking a lot of questions that I found ways to answer through the worldbuilding.
What was the creative process like, especially with the amount of worldbuilding within the novel?
I didn’t plan my worldbuilding at all before I started writing, which later came back to haunt me. Now when I plan my books, I try and do a lot of that before I get going. But I just started with those basic tenants that I talked about earlier, that magic required blood and if it didn’t, they could use their unique gift, and that technology had advanced such that genes of any kind couls be modified.
From there it was a process of basically coming up with more and more rules as questions were asked about the world and modifying rules that didn’t work. Also, as I learned more, I made adjustments for inclusivity and discussions of how issues of social justice had adapted. A lot of the sci-fi worldbuilding was that—thinking about what would and wouldn’t change in the future, and also how people would be affected by this new technology.
It’s essentially a lot of question asking and layering and figuring out how to answer those questions in a way that fits with the story I’m trying to tell.
Was there a gift that didn’t make the final draft that you wish you added?
Funny you ask! I very much wanting to add a nail growing gift in the book, and I ended up putting it in the sequel which I’m happy about. Also, fun fact, Keisha’s gift actually used to belong to a different character. I hadn’t developed them very well, and there were already a lot of family members, so they were cut, but I loved their gift for sensing discomfort so much that I gave it to Keisha. Her previous gift was “making things a little bit special,” which I ended up finding too vague.
Which character did you have the most fun writing about?
Speaking of Keisha! Of all of Voya’s cousins, I do have the most fun writing Keisha because she very much speaks her mind and is authentically herself, but she also has her own complex struggles, and in the midst of that is trying to care for her family the best way she knows how. Which isn’t always the most tactful, but it is fun to write.
Can you describe the unique relationships Voya has with her cousins?
Voya has three cousins, Keis, Keisha, and Alex. Keis and Keisha are sisters and are the children of Voya’s Aunt, and Alex is the only child of Voya’s Uncle. Keis is Voya’s best friend, Alex is like her big sister, and Keisha falls somewhere between friend, sister, and cousin—but they’re all close. It’s an interesting relationship because until she’s 10, Voya doesn’t have any siblings of her own, but she’s grown up with Keis, Keisha, and Alex, and has known them her entire life because they’re all older than her and live in the same house. I really wanted to show the complexities of how cousin-relationships can be.
There is a unique outlook on what the future will look like, some might even be possible. Which technological advancements from Blood Like Magic do you hope to see in the future?
That’s a hard one! Precisely because a lot of this technology is already on the way there, and I do think realistically could be possible. I would love to have widely available and affordable self-driving cars. We do already have self-driving cars but not to the point where a working-class person would buy and use one the same way they would buy a budget Honda. I enjoy the idea of road trips, but I hate the actual labour of doing the driving, and I like to avoid flying because I’m scared of heights. So being able to hop in my car and let it do all the work while I read a book or write would be fantastic.
What do you hope readers will get out of reading Blood Like Magic?
I hope first and foremost that they’ll have a great time! I wanted this to be overall a fun book where a Black girl could be the hero. It definitely tackles some difficult topics, but I do aspire for it to be the sort of urban fantasy that people just get sucked into and love. I want Black readers and Black girls especially to see another example of them belonging in those sorts of stories. I think of all the fantasy that I read growing up and was absolutely addicted to, and I would love for Blood Like Magic to be that for someone.
Do you have any advice for writers attempting to build their own fictional world?
Don’t be afraid to dive in! I think that fantasy can be daunting sometimes because of the level of worldbuilding that you have to do, and while I plan those things in advance now, I don’t know if back when I decided to write Blood Like Magic, I would have been able to do it if I got super caught up in all that work beforehand. Sometimes, you just need to jump in and start writing the story and worry about fixing it later. I find that especially when you’re a new writer, it can be easy to get so bogged down by the pre-work that you don’t start, and you want to start.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
So many! Legendborn by Tracy Deonn is always at the top of my list of recommendations, it’s Black girl magic meets Arthurian legend and is absolutely amazing. A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth which is also an urban fantasy set in Toronto but with fae and murder. Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour is a beautiful story of a girl finding her place and ghosts. Anything by Angie Thomas or Tiffany D. Jackson. And for high fantasy fans, both Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko and The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna blew me away, they’re such lush page turners and both have girls finding their strength and found families.
