We chat with author Coco Ma about Nightbreaker, which is an exhilarating urban fantasy that will thrust you into an immersive world of thrills and chills, featuring the smart, sardonic post-apocalyptic heroine you’ll soon wish you could be.
Hi, Coco! Welcome back! How has the past three years been since we last spoke!
Thanks so much for having me! Has it really been three years? What a whirlwind! School is as busy as always, if not busier now that I’m a junior. Last time we spoke, I mentioned a secret project I was working on that we sold to Penguin in 2021! After a lot of revising and hard work, I’m so proud that NIGHTBREAKER is finally hitting shelves… and next year, the sequel too (which I’m almost done, I swear). Also, I fulfilled a lifetime dream—I’m now the momma of not one but TWO adorable puppies, named Bunny and Potato. (They’re on Instagram as @potatobichon! 🐶💗)
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
When I was a kid, my mom would go to our local public library and borrow a stack of books as tall as I was for me to read. I usually flew through them so quickly that she had to make 2-3 trips a week. I loved reading. I read while eating, while walking, while showering, while practicing piano, and of course while in the car, which was not great for my motion sickness. I never, however, really thought about writing anything myself until I started working on a short story called The Crimson Crown, which would over the course of a year actually turn into my debut novel, Shadow Frost! The rest is history.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
I can remember the first series: Rainbow Magic, which is about two girls and their adventures with fairies. The book that made me want to become an author was probably Six of Crows and Throne of Glass. My most recent read was Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang. It was crazy. Also I KNOW this is not part of the question but I just finished Good Omens 2 and hoooooooly $&%# I am so mad. I think about the ending 25 hours a day. If anyone wants to scream with me about it, hit me up on Instagram.
Your latest novel, Nightbreaker, is out September 19th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Gritty, high-stakes, action-packed, badass-female-MC, magical.
What can readers expect?
They can expect New York City like they’ve never seen it before, powerful magical artifacts inspired by the city’s culture and history, plenty of monster fighting, and a driven but flawed, diverse cast. And intense rivalry that turns into angsty romance that turns into even more intense rivalry, a.k.a. exes to rivals to lovers to rivals to…….???
Where did the inspiration for Nightbreaker come from?
Have you ever seen the huge, vibrant screens at Times Square go utterly dark? Entire blocks of skyscrapers in the City that Never Sleeps extinguished? “Apocalypse in Manhattan” has been done dozens of times, but I wanted to give it a different spin. Most people already know how the effects of COVID-19 in a way left the city like a ghost town for weeks—deserted streets, abandoned storefronts, New Yorkers sequestered inside shoebox apartments as the pandemic ran its course. Yet they persisted. I had the first idea for NIGHTBREAKER before COVID hit, but it became scarily relevant, and was inspired by the resilience of New Yorkers, and how they constantly adapt to all orders of disasters and find a way to survive.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Shadow Frost’s protagonist Asterin was a girl who had no idea what her place in the world was. Rei, the MC of NIGHTBREAKER, shares a lot of traits with Asterin—determination, grit, and a willingness to jump into the unknown. But unlike Asterin, Rei knows exactly what she wants from life and will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. However, her beliefs are constantly challenged as she learns the dark secrets of the world she so desperately wants to be a part of. It was so fun tormenting her! I also loved coming up with all of the Artifacts, the powerful objects used by the characters to fight monsters, like the Phantom’s Mask, which renders its wielder invisible, the Fourth Claw of Fortitude (one of the two lion statues in front of the New York Public Library), which springs to life to lead its wielder into battle, and so many more!
This is your third published novel! What are some of the key lessons you have learned since writing Shadow Frost?
I’m constantly trying to hone my writing abilities. I hope that every time I read one of my old books I can find something I want to improve upon in the next. I spent a lot of time asking myself what the characters want, what they’re willing to do to get it, and what they do when they don’t get it (because you can never let them have it, or else the story ends). This helped me keep the pacing a lot tighter, so I was able to cut a lot of unnecessary scenes. I’ve had a few people send me angry texts that they had to pull all-nighters to finish the book because they couldn’t stop reading, so it looks like it worked! 😀
What’s next for you?
I’ve written a TV pilot script adapted from NIGHTBREAKER. It might not go anywhere, but it was a really great experience to work on it and I even went and made a few adjustments in the manuscript to reflect the snappiness of the story beats in the script. I also am working on ideas for my next series, which I can’t wait to get started on after I finish the sequel to NIGHTBREAKER! Besides that, I’m also drumming up a musical with my friend about a guy who wakes up from a coma only to realize that the world is set to end in three days. I’m graduating college next year, so I’ll be starting to work on my thesis soon. That probably sounds pretty boring compared to writing fantasy novels, but I’m majoring in Cognitive Science, so I’m pretty nervous about it!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
So many amazing books are releasing this month! I’m especially excited for VE Schwab’s continuation of the Shades of Magic series in The Fragile Threads of Power and the new Percy Jackson book! I mean, Percy in college? Gods, yes!
