Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work.
Today: H. L. Moore (she/they) is a writer of LGBT+ speculative fiction. Moore is the author of the Death’s Embrace queer fantasy romance series and the Tales from the Jovian Empire queer science fiction novellas.
Social Media: https://linktr.ee/author.hlmoore
Thanks so much, H.L., for joining me!
J. Scott Coatsworth: Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?
H. L. Moore: I do read reviews for my books, but I hold a strict non-response policy – so no matter if the review is positive or negative, the most I’ll write is a simple “Thank you” to the reviewer for taking the time to read and review. Bad reviews always hurt, but they are inevitable – you can’t control what people will interpret or walk away with once your work is out there. The thing I always keep in mind is that I simply do not trust books that only have 5 or 4 star reviews. So by getting the occasional bad review, I know my book is just being kept real. Sometimes there are bad reviews I get that I think to myself, did this person even read the book? But again, I’ll never attack or write back to the reviewer. (I might roast the review in private with some friends to get my confidence back, though!)
JSC: How long on average does it take you to write a book?
HLM: It can take anywhere between four months and four years! Usually if it’s taking years, it’s because the story isn’t “clicking” or I’m just not ready to write it. Something is waiting to fall into place, and once it does – whether that’s a character who needs to be somewhere else, or a plot point that needs to happen – I’ll go on a writing spree and bash out 100,000 words in a matter of months.
JSC: Do your books spring to life from a character first or an idea?
HLM: About 90% of the time, my books are born from a character first. Once I have a character concept, the plot and the world fold outwards from that central point. When I first conceived the basic idea for my Death’s Embrace series, it really started with just two characters who had leaped into my head fully formed: Doran Ó Seanáin, and Nathaniel Morgenstern. I knew that they were destined to be together, but the how and why were a mystery until I started to flesh out more of their lives and backstories. Fun fact – the very first draft of Heart of Dust was only 40,000 words and had virtually no worldbuilding! The iconic cavern of Iole City didn’t exist, and neither did the River Sionanne and the waterfall that veiled the city’s cavernous entrance. It’s so hard to imagine that now, as the city is about as much of a character as Doran and Nathaniel, but it’s proof of how the story and world grew out of the two of them and their very, very slow burn love story.
The other 10% of the time, I come up with a very cool concept for a world – but I do struggle to then fill it in with characters, because the characters then change the world! I am at heart a character writer first. Once I get the character right, everything else falls into place.
JSC: What advice do you wish you’d had before releasing your first story?
HLM: To not rush! Get all your social media in order, figure out where to publish your book, get the formatting right, and get the cover right. And, crucially, get involved in an indie publishing community! You only have one launch opportunity. I definitely rushed my very first book publication, Heart of Dust, back in 2019. At the time, I had designed a cover myself on Canva instead of hiring a professional service, and I was very new to self-publishing avenues. I pretty much had no social media presence except for a Tumblr account, and I only published on Kobo instead of going broad with a range of options like Kindle, Apple, Google, etc. But I went on a hard and fast learning curve, and I am now in a much better position to release future books, and grateful to have access to the incredible resources of LimFic.Com.
JSC: What secondary character would you like to explore more? Tell me about them.
HLM: There are so many secondary characters in my Death’s Embrace series who are near and dear to my heart, such as Leonora Darkwater (the conniving, smooth-talking foil to the main cast) and Dorran O’Sullivan (former Captain of the Guards and one-sided archnemesis to the main character Doran Ó Seanáin). But by far my favourite secondary character in the series is Professor Meirav Kaufman, the octogenarian inventor/scientist/physician with a sharp tongue and no-nonsense attitude. She’s lived a long and difficult life that has formed her acerbic wit and general disgruntlement with the general population, but she still has a moral compass that compels her to invent things for the good of the people. Though you do get the feeling that if she was just a little less moral, she’d tilt over into the “mad/evil scientist” trope. I can’t wait to explore more of her in the final two books of the Death’s Embrace series.
JSC: Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve them?
HLM: Not only do I believe in the advice, I am an ardent advocate for it. I have MURDERED drafts that weren’t working and I’m damn proud of it. In the four years between books 2 and 3 of Death’s Embrace, I wrote 40,000 words of a first draft for Throne of Lies. It took me two years, and I could not break that 40k word barrier. I looked at everything I had written, and realised that I hated every single word. So I printed it – and all 5 alternative versions of the draft – then deleted the files clean off my computer to start the book from 0 words.
It was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do in writing, and yet it was the best thing I could have ever done. The story was stuck and no matter what I did, nothing was working. I needed a clean slate. Once I was freed from the old draft and I had a blank page in front of me, the real story started to flow again.
Did I grieve the old draft? Yes and no. There were some good ideas in that old draft that I ended up recycling and I was sad about the stuff I couldn’t use including some characters I liked who didn’t make the final cut. But killing those darlings was all in service to a superior story, and if I had to do it all over again, I would.
JSC: Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.
HLM: The following is an excerpt from Chapter 15 of Valley of Secrets (Book 4 of Death’s Embrace):
The seat belonging to the High Druid was the grandest. The carved stairs led upwards to the elevated seat, which almost an exact replica of the throne in the palace of Iole City – or rather, Grace realised, the palace’s throne was a replica of this ancient seat.
Upon it was High Druid Éamon Tadhg, who was indeed no man.
He – as Grace had to remind herself – sat strewn in his chair with his legs crossed. One leather boot rested upon the arm of the throne. On the left side of his head, his brown hair was shorn close to his skull, while the right side bore a lusciously thick warrior’s braid, twined all the way through with strands of leather and twines of silver and copper, travelling down past his broad shoulders and ending at his waist. His eyes, as violet as the wisteria that bloomed in spring, were lined with a heavy layer of black kohl, and he wore the traditional leathers, furs and fabrics of a Valley warrior, only more elaborate and fitted tightly to his muscular yet shapely body.
His slouch would have looked lazy or disrespectful on another person, but Éamon commanded the casual pose upon the ancient seat of power with an elegance which filled Grace with a sudden envy that the elected head of the Council of Elders could exude such authority. In his left hand, he loosely brandished her WANTED poster.
Grace knew herself to be pleasing to the eye, but Éamon was both handsome and beautiful – striking in a way Grace had rarely considered anyone before, not even Bryson, who had certainly been handsome but had otherwise stirred no desire within her. She had assumed such a thing would develop over time.
Under Éamon’s cool, discerning gaze, she felt exposed, and was overcome with the sudden need to impress him, to prove that she was his equal.
“High Druid Éamon, revered Council of Elders,” Grace began.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I am honoured to finally make your acquaintance.”
Éamon responded. Grace had expected a heavy Valley accent, something far more extreme than her father’s, but it took her more than a few seconds to realise Éamon had spoken not in common at all, but in old Arajoni.
Grace blinked, then glanced at Doran, then back to Elder Éamon. “I – forgive me, Elder Éamon,” she said, “I didn’t realise you don’t speak common.”
The entire council laughed, then Éamon spoke again.
Grace’s understanding of old Arajoni was non-existent, but she knew enough about people to realise she was being insulted.
Doran cleared his throat and leaned close to Grace’s ear. “He said – he said that he can speak common better than you,” he whispered.
I’ve had this scene planned since 2018 when I finished writing my first draft of Heart of Dust. I knew that Grace Harrington, the Dowager Archon of Arajon following her husband’s death, would eventually meet with the mysterious and as-yet unseen Council of Elders of Arajon – AKA the Druids, who are the spiritual de facto leaders of the nation. In the context of Death’s Embrace, the Druids of the Valley are quite hostile towards the city-dwellers like Doran and Grace and cling to the old ways. I always knew there would be a point where Grace would need to seek the support of the Druids, but in the original drafts, this scene took place in Throne of Lies, before the climax of the story. It absolutely didn’t fit there! Another thing that’s vastly different is that in the original drafts, Grace summoned the Druids to the city; in the final version, Grace has been forced to flee the city and has gone to the Druids’ seat of power to seek support directly.
Perhaps the biggest change is High Druid Éamon Tadhg. I didn’t have a concept for Éamon in earlier books other than his name, and the fact that I’d established his pronouns as male. When it came to writing it, however, I discovered (much like Grace right before meeting him) that Éamon was not a man – Éamon is a he/him lesbian! Once Éamon’s character clicked into place, so did the fast-burn lesbian awakening for Grace and her immediate connection with Éamon.
JSC: What qualities do you and your characters share? How much are you like them, or how different are they from you?
HLM: I think I pour a little bit of myself into every single character, some a lot more than others. For the main cast of Death’s Embrace, I actually have very little in common with Doran, which is what makes writing him so fun. I have more in common with Nathaniel, who tends to brood a lot about the difficulties he and his people have suffered, and even more so with Lien, who has little patience for fools but is unendingly loyal to those she loves.
There is one other character who is more like me than any other: Captain Reagan Iovanius. For those of you who have read the series, don’t worry – I’d never do what she did! But her hardened mentality, her displeasure with petty politics, and her clear vision of what she believes to be right and what is wrong and how it must be dealt with? Those are traits I have draw out of my own states of mind at various points in my life and coalesced into this layered, complex antagonist. Not to mention, she gets some of the best (and positively brutal) dialogue lines in the entire series which she delivers with such gravitas.
JSC: Which of your own characters would you Kill? Fuck? Marry? And why?
HLM: If not for the fact that (SPOILERS!) Archon Bryson is already dead, I’d kill him! But that’s too easy of an answer. If pressed, I’d probably kill Leonora Darkwater, not because I don’t love her for her villainous scheming and double-crossing, but because about 50% of the main characters’ problems would be solved by her not being around.
I would 100% fuck Éamon Tadhg, the High Druid of Arajon, because he’s a he/him butch lesbian with so much charisma that it made basically Grace Harrington fall in lust/love with him at first sight, and then he rocked her world. So, um, not to be a lesbian but ohhh my God.
As for marry… I’d actually marry Gerald (Nathaniel’s assistant at the apothecary), because he’s such a damn sweetheart and he’s extremely financially responsible. He’d be OK with a non-sexual marriage of convenience!
JSC: What are you working on now, and what’s coming out next? Tell us about it!
HLM: I have a couple of projects lined up! Completing Death’s Embrace is my top priority, of course. Books 5 and 6 (tentatively titled Shadow of Vengeance and Embrace of Death respectively) are in the drafting process right now, and of course I’m pottering away with the rest of my queer sci-fi novella series Tales from the Jovian Empire. I have two more secret projects that I’m not fully ready to share, and of course I am always looking for opportunities to collaborate with fellow writers.
And now for H.L.’s series: Death’s Embrace:
Doran Ó Seanáin, former miner and leader of the Black Lung Gang, and his best friend, Tsa Lien, are almost at a breaking point in their ongoing conflict with Lord Archon Bryson Carlyon II, the city of Arajon’s tyrannical ruler. Just as things are spiralling out of control, Doran’s life is saved by Nathaniel Morgenstern, an apotheker with a mysterious past. Although Lien has her reservations, Doran’s and Nathaniel’s connection is instantaneous and their attraction undeniable. But as their relationship develops against the backdrop of the ongoing social turmoil in Iole City, the secrets Nathaniel is keeping threatens to destroy them all…
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Excerpt
By the time Doran arrived, the front door of Nathaniel’s apothecary had been torn off its hinges. The old red wood was smashed through by steel-capped boots, the small prayer box ripped from the splintered frame and tossed into the wreckage.
Doran’s pistol was already in his hand, his heart thundering in his chest as he stepped through the doorway. His boots crunched on splinters and shattered glass. He smelled smoke – something was burning downstairs – but the shop was deathly silent.
He was too late.
His throat clenched so tightly he couldn’t even make himself call out Nathaniel’s name. The adrenalin trickled away, leaving him weak and shaken. Cold sweat broke out across his body and his stab wound ached with every step he took in the darkened shop.
His foot caught on something soft and heavy. Doran staggered then regained his balance to point his pistol at the obstruction.
It took him a few moments to register that he was looking at an arm so limp it could only belong to a corpse. The world tilted.
Doran reached down, barely able to breathe, and rolled the body over.
It wasn’t Nathaniel.
The guard’s eyes were vacant and glassy and his white uniform was stained red with the blood that had pooled under him. His left temple was crushed in, as though his head had hit – or had been slammed against – something sharp. The corner of the counter was smeared with blood and hair.
“What…” Doran breathed, standing slowly. His heart thudded and he raised his pistol once more, and steadily his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
The shop front was a mess. It was as though someone – or several someones – had taken a baton to the shelves and smashed everything in sight. Doran’s boots crunched in the glass from shattered vials, drawn to the faint glow and smoke rising from the staircase leading down to the workshop.
He passed another guard on the staircase. There was a knife embedded in her back between her shoulder blades. She’d died with her arm stretched out, like she had tried to claw her way to escape. At the bottom of the stairs, a guard’s body was broken and twisted. There was an impression of a boot that had stomped down on his throat, crushing the trachea.
Doran treaded over the body carefully, coughing on the scent of smoke, and stepped into the workshop.
It was a massacre.
Five guards had their throats slit so deeply their heads were almost decapitated. Two others’ necks were visibly snapped, their heads twisted at unnatural angles. One had his own dagger embedded in his chest.
The wall of vials and potions were beyond saving. Doran’s boots crunched in the remains of the shattered glass of the vials, all but ground to powder. The precious contents of the vials, weeks or months of Nathaniel’s work, spilled out over the floor.
In the middle of the workshop was Nathaniel. He was on his knees, drenched in blood and breathing hard.
Nathaniel didn’t react as Doran holstered his gun, his pulse hammering in his wrists and throat.
“You’re bleeding,” Doran said.
“It’s not mine.” Nathaniel’s voice was hoarse.
Doran stilled.
You don’t know who he is.
Doran swallowed. The blood might not have been Nathaniel’s – not all of it, anyway – but Doran could hear his ragged breathing, the sound someone would only make if they were injured.
He found himself moving his hand to the back of Nathaniel’s head and threaded his fingers through his hair to guide him close against his chest.
There was a sharp inhale. He felt Nathaniel’s muscles lock at his touch, his entire body seizing like a wounded animal ready to flee.
Then Nathaniel shuddered and breathed out. He closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, pressing his forehead to Doran’s beating heart.