A Review/Interview with Emily Rae Robles
(The review portion has been split from the interview.)

Reading the novel also gives the reader a glimpse into the invisible character of Conant herself.  An avid reader, Conant admits that many of Lilyana’s characteristics ended up being unintentional representations of her own self.  Coming from a childhood that voraciously absorbed the imaginary worlds created by literature, Conant aims to bring her readers into a world that will capture their interest in the same way hers was captured as a child.  The life of Lilyana, who is torn between newfound love in one world and newfound purpose in another, will resonate with readers who often feel torn between the real world and the world created by literature.

Unlike most fictional worlds that take ages to invent, Conant’s flowed out of her like a story that needed to be told.  A writer since the prodigious age of four, Conant’s writing came to an abrupt halt at 16 when her entire body of works was burned up in a fire.  From that time until she began work on The Blood Moon Of Winter, Conant suffered severe writer’s block.  It wasn’t until she discovered NaNoWriMo (an annual contest where writers attempt to write a full 50,000 word novel over the course of the month of November) that her creative juices began to flow freely again.

With a newfound motivation to write, Conant began with one sentence and watched, shocked, as that sentence transformed not into just any book, but a book that contained worlds within it.  As the plot progressed, she thought she was writing chick lit, but suddenly a fantasy plot appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.  This unexpected shift of genre left Conant astonished at the power of unknown creativity and leaves readers astonished at the power of integrated genres.  By crossing the gap between two genres, the story of Lilyana becomes even more compelling, speaking to an even wider audience.

Read the entire interview/review here.