About the Book:
Entombed beneath a tooth-filled sky, the world rots. Those yet to succumb to the curse of decay inhabit Fourspires Castle, home to arcanists from across the four magical disciplines – blood, bone, stone and botany.
The castle is thrown into chaos when the ruler of Fourspires is assassinated. To crown a new ruler, the arcanists and their human familiars are forced to kill or be killed in the Slaughter, a bloody fight for succession at the top of the Fifth Tower. Familiars, both servants and sources of power to arcanists, are forbidden from even speaking. For them, the Slaughter means certain death.
When Nixie, a botanical familiar, learns that her fate can be avoided and the rotting curse of Fourspires lifted, she’ll stop at nothing to save herself. But she must work with familiars from across the rival disciplines – not easy when one of them is her bone witch ex-girlfriend, Taro – find four magical curse keys and climb the deadly Fifth Tower. With just 48 hours until the Slaughter begins, Nixie and Taro must forge an unlikely alliance with rival familiars Alis and Elliot. Together, the four Wyrdos must battle re-animated skeletons, poisonous and possessed plants, un-dead nuns and the deadliest enemies of all; each other.
Find this book on Goodreads. Find on Bookshop.org UK (affiliate link).
About the Author:
Cassidy Ellis Salter is a fantasy author who lives with a pile of bones and historical oddities they’ve rescued from the Thames. They hold a bachelor’s degree and MA in Writing from the Warwick Writing Programme. They live and work in London.
Interview:
Pitch your book in 10 words!
Four loveable assholes compete for freedom despite undead nuns/apocalyptic slaughter.
The world of Fourspires is constantly decaying and is described in very visceral terms. How did you approach designing the settings to be so sensory? We wanted to go into the book armed with brushes and soapy water!
Thank you! I let myself spend loads of time worldbuilding in the very first draft, even though I knew I would cut a lot of it out. For me the trick is to have loads of fun and be a bit silly and gross. With the Desecrae, the dome of teeth and bones that encases Fourspires Castle, I asked: What would that actually smell like? What’s the light like when it’s filtered through a cloud of floating spittle? Does the air taste weird? My approach is to ask horrible questions about the five senses that nobody sane would want the answers to, then give those answers anyway.
If you had magic in this world, what type would you prefer to have?
I would go for blood arcania, because it’s a never-ending resource (I’m full of it!) and blood arcanists can do pretty cool stuff with their nosebleeds, like unlocking doors and tying people up. They’ve famous for having a tendency towards malice, but some of them (like Elliot, one of the main characters) are actually very good and just need a hug. As a blood arcanist I would basically spend every day locked in my gorgeous, lavish tower, reading books and ignoring the Unholy Mothers.
The characters are deeply flawed people – they are selfish and very much not above backstabbing and manipulation. Why do you think we as readers love books about people who are far from “nice”?
I think flawed characters make us feel a little seen. Most of us are aware of our worst impulses, even though we suppress them, and having characters who act on those impulses to survive tells us: You’re not alone, you’re not bad for not being perfect inside, your jealousy or fear or selfishness is a normal human feeling. These deeply flawed characters are able to scream, and cry, and show their fury to the world, and reading them feels a bit like letting our feelings out too.
They’re also just a lot of fun. A nice person wouldn’t panic and try to break a chair over their frenemy’s head during an ill-fated duel, but I definitely want to read about it.
As familiars, the cast are forbidden from speaking. Communication is a particularly powerful metaphor for Alis/Alix’s journey of power and identity. Why did you decide to use speech for this purpose?
In the real world, whether your voice is heard is often an indication of the amount of power you have. Forcing the familiars to be silent is a literal translation of that. Not only are the familiars overlooked because they can’t talk, it means that their magic – literally the greatest and only power they have – is taken away from them.
It’s especially complex for Alis/Alix, because their difficulties in communicating mean it’s even harder for them to use their magic. But ultimately they still assert themself and their identity, because they’re hugely powerful in their own way. Only a fool would underestimate them for not having the same gender or kind of voice as everyone else. Alix could bring a castle down if they wanted to, and the fact that people underestimate them is what makes them so dangerous.
THESE SHATTERED SPIRES juggles four narrators. What tips do you have for writers for keeping multiple perspectives feeling unique?
That’s a great question! If your characters’ motivations are clear it will bleed into their voice and set their tone, and tell you whether they’re angry, afraid, triumphant, bitter, hopeful, or a million other things. Understanding their histories also helps, even if you don’t include that in your writing. If one character has been lucky in life and just wants to get their girlfriend back, they’ll float through the narrative with a sense of joy, use flippant words, and try to impress everyone, but someone who’s been perpetually miserable will only see and describe darkness.
Having a couple of ‘voice habits’ is also helpful. For Alis/Alix, it’s constantly cursing things in slightly archaic language because they work in an ancient library. For Taro, it’s being sarcastic and telling bad jokes at every opportunity because she doesn’t want to think about her feelings. For Nixie, it’s thinking in short, precise sentences, because she always wants to be in control. You’ll know the voices are firm when a reader can tell who it is after two sentences.
A common piece of writing advice is “kill your darlings”. Were there any moments you cut from the book that you wish you’d been able to keep?
My darlings are mostly atmospheric. After the first draft I cut a lot of worldbuilding that had already been established elsewhere, where I was just lingering and having fun going ooh, look at these three million trinkets buried in the ground, look at this haunted spoon, smell this bone-filled mud. I do love that stuff! But I had to find the right balance and keep the world rich and weird without weighing it down, because there is literally a countdown to a world-ending slaughter to worry about. Nobody has time to look at the mud.
Please recommend a UKYA book you think readers will love.
WITCHES STEEPED IN GOLD* by Ciannon Smart is great! The worldbuilding really sucks you in, the writing style is beautiful, and I love a good story about enemies who are forced into an alliance.
Thank you, Cassidy!
*Affiliate link
#UKYASpotlight 
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