A big thank you to the Warrior Scribe, Alan Baxter, for posting this blog entry on my debut novel, Graced! [Aw, shucks! You’re welcome. – Alan]
Graced by Amanda Pillar
Graced is an urban fantasy story that follows the journey of four diverse characters; it features vampires, weres, humans and a race called the Graced.
But, rather than another synopsis, I thought I’d share some of the background research that helped me develop the Graced universe!
- It could take only 10,000 years for evidence of a society of our technological level to disappear and become nothing more than archaeological ruins
- Blue eyes do not have blue pigmentation to make them blue
- Speciation is occurring all the time in nature; there are animals even now in our world that are evolving new adaptations (the Australian yellow-bellied three-toed skink is changing from laying eggs to having live young)
- Gun powder was originally developed in China and used for fireworks
- The general ranking of the English peerage was King/Queen, Duke/Duchess, Marquis/Marchioness, Earl/Countess, Viscount/Viscountess, Baron/Baroness
- The colour of mourning varies from culture to culture in today’s world (red, white and black among other colours are worn)
- Marriage was often once a political alliance, rather than an exclamation of love
- Eye colour inheritance isn’t the simple four step process we were taught in school eg a brown (B) eyed parent, and a blue (b) eyed parent equals BB, Bb, Bb, bb. It actually does not.
- Aside from dire wolves having a dramatic name, it was the largest canis species although it has been extinct for at least 10,000 years. Grey wolf males on average weigh up to 45 kgs.
So while the above points may have had a hand in the development of the Graced world, not all of them are apparent in the book. But that’s the beauty of world-building. All of these things helped shape Dante, Elle, Clay and Anton’s world.
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Amanda Pillar is an award-winning editor and author who lives in Victoria, Australia, with her husband and two cats, Saxon and Lilith.
Amanda has had numerous short stories published and has co-edited the fiction anthologies Voices (2008), Grants Pass (2009), The Phantom Queen Awakes (2010), Scenes from the Second Storey (2010), Ishtar (2011) and Damnation and Dames (2012). Her first solo anthology, Bloodstones (2012), was published by Ticonderoga Publications. Amanda is currently working on the sequel, Bloodlines, due for publication in 2015.
Amanda’s first novel, Graced, was published by Momentum in 2015.
In her day job, she works as an archaeologist.
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