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Patty K Rivera: Hi, listeners. This is Audible Editor Patty K. Rivera, and today I have the pleasure of welcoming New York Times bestselling author Alex Aster, whose Lightlark series spent over 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, to talk about her adult romantasy debut, Starside. Starside follows Aris, a young woman who enters a deadly competition to get revenge on the gods. She's forced to team up with her biggest enemy to survive ancient creatures, magic-wielding beasts, and bloodthirsty immortals. Welcome, Alex, and congratulations on such a fantastic launch week.
Alex Aster: Oh, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.
So, before we dive into Starside, I had to ask about the journey that brought you here, because I find it so fascinating. Can you walk us through your journey as an author?
Sure. I started writing books when I was 12 years old. I was just super inspired by all the amazing young adult books that were coming out, and that was when I learned that you could get published by querying an agent. You could email an agent and then suddenly your book could be on the shelves of the bookstore. I just thought that was so magical, and so that's what I did. I queried agents and, obviously, because I was 12 years old, my book was horrible. But I queried every single agent, and everyone rejected me. Then I wrote another book and another book, and I wrote about six different books through middle school, high school, and then college. I majored in English with a concentration in creative writing, and I got my first agent the day I graduated college and I thought, "Okay, this is great. My whole career is set."
But, of course, that was not true. I spent all summer editing a book. We went out on submission to all the publishers and all of them rejected it. So, then I was back to square one. I didn't have an agent anymore. I started rewriting a book that I had started in college called Lightlark. I rewrote it, rewrote it, and the new agent I had didn't think that it would sell. So, I wrote another book that became my first book that would be published. It came out during the pandemic, didn't sell a ton of copies. Obviously, it was a really tough time. Bookstores were closed for a really long time.
Then I went back to my book Lightlark that had brought me so much joy. I didn't have an agent anymore and I just decided, "Okay, I'm going to rewrite it. I'm going to write for myself. I'm not going to chase the market trends or anything because clearly that hasn't worked so far." I rewrote the book over about six to eight months. I got another agent and then I started to get more rejections again, because I had a book that had already released. At that point, I had only sold I think, like, 2,000 books in over a year, and that's not very good. Unfortunately, publishers can see your sales track. So, it was actually worse for me to have had a book come out that hadn't performed very well than if I hadn't had a book come out at all, because publishers can use that low sales track to justify not giving you a chance. People started dropping out. A lot of people said, "I like the book, but I just don't think it'll sell." Or "She has a low sales track, so we just can't get behind it."
So, then I made a video on social media, kind of pitching my book to the internet, and the next day it went viral and it had thousands of comments from people who really wanted to read the book. After that, I thought, "Okay, this has been a journey of over 10 years"—I think like 14 years at that point of trying to be a successful author—"and this was the one thing that had made any sort of difference." So, for a year and a half, I posted hundreds of videos about my book. When Lightlark came out, it did really well. And that was, I think, four years ago. So, Starside's now my ninth published book, and I owe everything to my readers, because I truly would not have been able to publish this many books, and definitely not been able to publish a book like Starside, without their support.
I will admittedly say that I am one of the people who saw your videos and picked up Lightlark because of it. I truly do find that social media is such an interesting space. With Starside, I feel like last year I saw a post where people were invited to your birthday party, and the next thing you know, it was not a birthday party.
Yes. So, because my readers have been so central to my entire career, when I was writing Starside—I've been writing it for a few years now in secret—and when, finally, the time came to reveal the secret, I wanted to invite 100 readers to my publisher's offices under the guise of my 30th birthday party. So, they came to the office, and they were just excited to be there. People came from London, Singapore, Alaska. It was amazing to have so many amazing readers in one place. Then I revealed that it was not a birthday party, it was actually a series reveal party. I revealed the cover, I gave everyone the first 100 pages of the book, and they were actually the ones who broke the news about the new series. I didn't publish anything about it for two or three days, and so they were the ones who made the announcement. I just thought that was really important to me, because they're the reason I have a career, so I wanted to do it kind of in a fun way.
I love to involve my readers in every step of the process, and that has been really cool to see their reactions through social media. I'm always trying to come up with the next cool idea to get them involved. A year ago, for Summer in the City, we had a giant book in the middle of New York City, and that's how we did the cover reveal. That was really cool. I know how I'm going to reveal the next new thing already. So, it's just really cool. I enjoy that part of it as well, and I just love my readers so much. Any chance to kind of surprise them, I'll take it. But yeah, that's how Starside was revealed. I can't believe that readers have it in their hands now after so many years of keeping it a secret.
We have it in our ears.
Oh, yeah.
In our hands, in our ears...
On your phones and your ears through the narration. Speaking of the narration, it was really important for me to have it be a duet. When I sold the book to my publisher, that was one of the things that I said, is I kind of want to guarantee that you guys will do a duet narration. Anthony Palmini, who plays Grim in my other Lightlark books, I just think he's so great. Immediately, I was like, "He has to be Raker." I'm so lucky that my publisher said yes, because now you can really just hear Raker's voice. I think it makes a huge impact to the reading experience. I've been tagged in many a video of people listening to the book, having reactions to listening to it, having to pull over their cars during the plot twist. It's really cool.
Did you expect anything different when you have a line like "I hate you. Hate me harder"? Like, do you expect anything different? I had to pull over. I had to pause, rewind.
I love that. It's so cool nowadays to really be able to experience a book in so many different ways. I know people will read it and listen to it at the same time. So, it's just really cool to see those reactions. But yeah, I get it. I have been tagged in so many reactions of, again, having to pull over, like, screaming in the middle of a public area, and I love it. That's why I wrote the books. That's the reaction I wanted.
Starside is your romantasy debut. What made you decide it was time to write your first adult romantasy?
I think I always write exactly what I want to read. So, when I was 12 years old up until through college, I was mainly reading YA. Obviously, we've had these amazing periods of huge, huge YA franchises and series, and so that's what I was writing at that point. And then as I've gotten older—I'm 30 now—I think just my reading tastes have shifted a little bit, so what I'm writing kind of naturally reflects that. I published Summer in the City a year ago, and that was my first contemporary romance. I started writing that after I got super, super into Ali Hazelwood and all those incredible romance authors.
"I've been tagged in many a video of people listening to the book, having reactions to listening to it, having to pull over their cars during the plot twist."
Then, for Starside, I started writing it a few years ago because I really just wanted a place that was mine, in between writing the Lightlark books. It was actually from an idea I'd had about 10 years ago. I had a little bit of an idea. I didn't really have that much. I started it and then I shelved it for a few years. And then the last few years, it's really just felt kind of like another home for me to just escape to. It naturally became an adult story just because Aris's story, she's not a character discovering the world for the first time. She knows who she is, for better or for worse. She knows the decisions that she's making and she knows the consequences. She's not lost. She knows exactly what she's doing, and she has very strong reasons for making these choices.
I think just naturally with the characters and then the level of romance and the level of the stakes that are in the story, it was just an adult story. I'm just really grateful that the adult romantasy space exists right now, because it really wasn't even a genre a few years ago. Obviously, stories like this have existed for a while, but I think the term “romantasy” is pretty new. Like, it didn't even exist when I started publishing Lightlark.
It's just amazing to see that readers have shifted the landscape so much. Even with audiobooks, these types of narrations, the fandom around different narrators, it's so cool and it feels very new. It's just exciting because, as a 12-year-old, as a 20-year-old, I never expected that the reading world would look like this. It's really cool that I wanted to tell the story at this time, and everything seems like it's fitting together, so I'm really grateful.
I love that in writing for yourself you have managed to not only captivate the audience but bring us on this journey. I've been immersed in the book. But even when I've stepped away from it, I'm like, "Man, the enemies are really enemying here. Like, how are they going to end up lovers?” Because Aris and Harlan, man, I've seen enemies to lovers, but I feel like Aris and Harlan really just redefine what it means.
They're definitely true enemies to lovers, which is what I wanted, because I wanted them to actually hate each other and to have real reasons for hating each other, and for readers to feel like, “Are they ever going to get together?” And then by the time they do get together, to have it so impactful because you've just been watching these characters go from truly hating each other, to begrudgingly respecting each other, to trusting each other, and then to having this romance. Raker was meaner in the other drafts, which is kind of hard to imagine, because obviously he's still pretty mean in this draft.
You're saying he's meaner, and I'm just like, "Oh, my God, how?" How did you go about developing Aris and Harlan and their connections? How did their personalities and the relationship develop as you wrote?
I think I always knew that I wanted the main character of this quest story to be full of rage, female rage. She's so angry, and Aris was one of the first parts of this story. But I also wanted to have her have kind of a soft heart. Like, she's so angry and she has a very clear reason why she's doing this, but she's also enchanted by the world, and she loves the magical balls and the dresses and the creatures, and she has empathy and kindness in her heart. I think that that was something that I really wanted to try to balance, is this very fierce rage and kind of ruthlessness, but also humanity.
Aris came first and then I was wondering, like, who is the worst person for her to fall in love with or to be paired with? She has a secret across her skin, and then the knights are the ones who are hunting people like her down. Harlan Raker is the head of those knights, and he's the most ruthless, merciless knight. I knew that I wanted them to have interacted before, a few years before the quest, and have a horrible first impression of each other and a horrible first meeting, to the point where she actively hates him, not just for being a knight but for being him. And so she doesn't trust him at all.
I knew that I wanted those dynamics. And then when I started writing, it was interesting because, obviously, a book goes through so many different drafts, and in some of the first few drafts, they don't get together at all. They don't kiss, they don't do anything romantic until the scene, the very long scene. I had to kind of add in a part that was a little steamy in the middle of the book, some banter in, I think page 50, that's where it ended up. I needed to do that because it truly was like, "Okay, it doesn't look like these characters are ever going to be together." I had to kind of think of the reader, like, "Okay, I don't want to make them wait. They do have to wait for the romance to intensify, but I want to give some sort of indication that they do like each other in some way.”
"The characters were just so clearly themselves from the very beginning that putting them together was just kind of electric."
In the first draft, I was telling their story, really kind of playing with their connection, their banter, the tension between them. And then the subsequent drafts were about kind of honing that and then also making it more palatable for a reader. You know, I'm a reader, too. Obviously, I love this genre. It would be hard for me to not have any sort of spark at all until like 90 percent of the book. So, it was kind of just little edits that I made. But in the original version, there was nothing, no indication whatsoever that they liked each other until that point. I think that's how I went about it. And the characters were just so clearly themselves from the very beginning that putting them together was just kind of electric.
I will say that those moments that you spoke about, that you went in and added, it's interesting because even in those smaller moments, they do feel intense, right?
Yeah.
Aris, I feel like she's, through comedy, through a little bit of like, “I'm going to get you to smile first” or “I'm going to chip away at it.” And you do begin to see Harlan, you begin to see that wall come down, but, of course, you did what you did to us at that final moment. I'm not going to say what it is, no spoilers. And now we're just left to wait and to see how the enemies are going to become lovers.
Yeah, I knew the ending for a very long time while I was writing. In a physical form, it's 15 pages. It would actually be really interesting to know how long it is in minutes since we're talking about the audiobook. I don't even know how many minutes it would be.
The audiobook is a little over 20 hours.
Okay, 20 hours. So, I guess 15 pages of that. I don't know. I am sure I could do some sort of proportion. But I'm sure it's several minutes of romance scene.
I compared it to the book as I was getting ready. It's a full chapter.
Oh, yep. It is a full chapter. I knew that I made readers wait. You still get steamy moments, but this is the moment that they get together. I just wanted to put it all out there because, again, I'm a reader, too. I know that once you get to that point, you don't want it to end. You want to explore every single part of their connection. And so that's what I did.
I wrote that part very early on in the manuscript, because I wanted to, first of all, kind of explore their connection in that way. I also knew that I still wanted them to hate each other in that scene, and it was a way for me to force them to stay enemies the entire time, because my first instinct is to kind of make them lovers or make them too nice to each other. As a reader, even though that's kind of the easy thing to wish for, I like when they remain enemies for as long as possible. I think once they become lovers, lovey-dovey gets a little boring, so it was my way of kind of keeping them enemies, is I wrote that scene. I was like, "Okay, they're still enemies. They still don't trust each other at the scene all the way. They still hate each other for certain reasons.” So, I wrote it and then I was like, "Okay, gotta keep that consistent throughout the book."
And then, again, no spoiler, but what he did after?
I think after that scene, the plot just happens, everything happens so quickly that whenever people are telling me now, "Oh, I only have 50 pages left," I'm like, "Okay, get ready for everything to happen."
I know, you could've put that in the book, Alex.
I know, I know. Next time I should have a warning. I should just put a bookmark at that page and be like a rollercoaster, like, “Keep your arms inside, get ready for it to get rough.”
So, you've spoken a lot about how your Latino heritage has influenced your storytelling. For listeners diving into Starside, can they expect to see that influence woven into the story in new or different ways?
I think it's interesting, because I'm Colombian, and I grew up learning English and Spanish at the same time, because half my family doesn't really speak English. My mom is Colombian. She came here when she was in her 20s, and then my grandparents came after I was born, and my grandparents lived with us. So, my Lala, my abuela, she would come to my room every single night and she would be like bundled with blankets and she would sit at the edge of the bed, and she would tell us cuentos. One of those cuentos, my favorite one, was "La niña con las rey en la frente," which means “The girl with the star on her forehead.” And these were stories that were passed down orally.
It's interesting. Those stories heavily influenced my first book, Curse of the Night Witch. When I went back to do research, like, "Oh, let me find the physical copy of this story," I really couldn't. I learned that it was because, obviously, different versions of that story do exist online or in a book, but because they were told orally, they changed so much that the stories that I found online were very different from the ones that my grandma told me. I asked her about it and she was like, "Yeah, this is how my grandma, my mom, told me."
"I do think if my grandma had never told me those stories, I probably would never have become an author. When you're little, those little things really affect you. I just every single night was like, 'Tell me this story, tell me this story.'"
It was really beautiful to see that kind of storytelling tradition. All the stories that she told me, they were all cautionary tales and they involved curses. So, that one in particular, one of the sisters gets a beautiful star and the other one gets horns, and it's a curse. She tries to scratch off the star, and it gets more beautiful and more glimmering. From that point forward, I was obsessed with stars, because of that story.
I have always kept that story. It super, super influenced Emblem Island, with the magical symbols. From that point forward, I think it also influenced the fact that I always wrote stuff with magical influences. All of her stories had magic in them in some way. Even with Lightlark, it was really inspired by La Patasola, kind of a temptress in the forest that is an interesting character in Colombian mythology.
For Starside, I think, obviously, I have star in the title. I always wanted to write a book with the word “star” in it because I fell in love with stars. I think you can probably find the influence of my heritage, but also her stories, in everything. She put her fingerprints all over me and my inspiration, and she made me want to become a storyteller. It’s interesting because all of these little influences, it's almost afterwards. Like, when my mom or my grandma will read parts of it, they'll be like, "Oh, you took this. I can see this." You sometimes have to have someone else point it out.
I think the main influence is that that original star cuento is everywhere in this. But instead of markings or emblems that I had in my original book, it's swords. It's all kind of contained in the sword magic. I think while that was the first influence, everything else is just a mosaic of little things I've loved throughout my entire life. For Lightlark, I loved elemental powers. I grew up loving Avatar: The Last Airbender, so that was a huge influence for Lightlark. You don't realize it in the moment, but once I think about it—or people who know me will point it out—that's when I really kind of see how important these influences are in my storytelling.
Oh, that's absolutely beautiful. As a Latina also—my family is Dominican—I can completely understand. I have a repertoire of stories.
It's so interesting because I never thought to look them up until I was published, and then it's like, "Oh, my gosh, it doesn't exist in the same exact way that my grandma said it.” So, I recorded her saying the whole story because I was like, "I don't want to lose this, the way that you said it to me, because that way is the way that I remember."
It's such a big part of my upbringing. My mom's here with me on tour, and it's really beautiful because there are a lot of Latina readers who come to my events. It's really beautiful to be so embraced by the Hispanic community, and they've been so kind. Also to have all of my works translated into Spanish. Starside is about to come out in Spanish. I think that also the audiobooks are in multiple languages, including Spanish. So that's just really cool. My family who's still in Colombia can read my books. Hopefully, they won't read the romance scene in this one [laughs]. Oh, I don't want to see that. I'm going to tell those Spanish publishers just don't translate that part.
But, yeah, I do think if my grandma had never told me those stories, I probably would never have become an author. When you're little, those little things really affect you. I just every single night was like, "Tell me this story, tell me this story." And it really has been like a cornerstone of my entire life.
I love that. And like the magic of storytelling, right?
She would give us a lot of books in Spanish and in English. And with my mom, I think it was just very much a part of my upbringing of telling stories, the magic of storytelling. It's really cool now to have books that were really just inspired by those stories when I was a kid.
Listener favorite Anthony Palmini, who you worked with before on titles including Crowntide and Grim, is joined by Vanessa Moyen to deliver a duet performance that had me hooked from the first few chapters. What did it feel like to hear them perform?
It's so good. They do such a good job. Obviously, I write the words, but it does feel so different hearing them spoken aloud, and they put their own intonations on things. It feels like you get another meaning from it. I know my editor, she sent me little clips of it before it was published, and I cried, especially during the emotional parts. She delivers such a performance, the way that she speaks, you can feel the emotion. This is a romantasy, but it is a very emotional book. I cried writing a lot of the parts, and so to hear that level of emotion, it's not just simply narrated, it feels performed. It's amazing. I'm so grateful that my book gets to be read by these two incredible performers.
So, you kind of dove into this a little bit: What made them feel like the perfect voices for Starside?
I think it's interesting that I am lucky enough that I get sent little clips, almost like auditions from people. It was a very long process for Grim and Oro, to find Grim, to find Oro. And so then once Anthony Palmini read for Grim, it was like, “Done.” It was like, "Okay, he's Grim." Obviously, he's so well-loved in the romance community and romantasy community. So then for Raker, I was like, "If he's available, I would love for him to play." He does do the voice a little bit differently, but he just was able to capture that level of the brooding love interest, but also someone who has something beneath the surface. I think that he was perfect at that.
Then with Aris, that was so difficult because I wanted them to sound similar ages. I wanted them to be able to match each other. When I heard her sample, it felt like Aris, and it sounded like Aris. I didn't even get to see the level of emotion that she shows in the book. I just think it's sometimes you have to say, "Okay, let's see." And then it works out and I'm just so grateful. It's really just them having to pull a performance out of these words and reading the text and finding their own interpretation. So, I'm really grateful that it worked out because it's really hard.
The casting directors of these audiobooks have it cut out for them, because even listening to a few clips, I'm like, "I don't know." Every narrator, they can play different types of characters, and they can sound very different during different genres. So, it really is such a hard job for the casting directors. Luckily, they really narrowed it down for me, but wow, it was hard. I just try to go with my instinct of closing my eyes and being like, "Does this person feel like they have the essence of the character?”
I absolutely love the audio. I cannot stop singing the audio praises. That tension, in audio, it definitely becomes so much more palpable. Listeners, I am in total spoiler territory here, so feel free to skip ahead if you haven't listened to Starside yet. Aris's understanding of Raker and what he did to her shapes her anger towards him for most of their journey. When she finally learns who he really is, it changes everything between them. How did you think about balancing that shift where Aris has to reframe everything she thought she knew about him?
I think it's interesting because—and obviously these are spoilers—but Aris has also been keeping her identity a secret. She is the heiress of a great house that was burnt down, and the reader doesn't even know that until Raker reveals it. I think because they're both lying to each other the entire time about many things, it kind of puts them on equal footing. Also—again, this is a spoiler—but she tries to kill him. So, it's like she can't really be that mad at him because she fully believes that she's killing him when she puts her sword through his heart. I think she kind of loses the ability to be completely angry at him.
Then, he, on the other hand, obviously has been lying to her the entire time. I think it does reframe how they think about each other, but at the same time, because they've reached that part of their relationship where they love each other, and that's clear with the connection between their swords—the fact that Aris can steal his sword, the fact that he can steal her sword—it's a little bit of, "Okay, but they still love each other even after they found that out." So, it's enemies to lovers back to enemies, but they love each other.
It's kind of this interesting dynamic that obviously is going to be very important to the second book, if you love your enemy and they now have access to your sword. So, what are you going to do about it? Are you in control of love at all? That's a question that I have explored in the Lightlark series a lot. Something that I just love thinking about as a writer: Is love voluntary at all? And if love is connected to power or to your weapon, can you control it? Can you force yourself not to love that person? Does love just go away after you find out something like that, that you've been lied to the entire time?
I think if only one of them had been lying the entire time and if only one of them had betrayed the other person, it would be difficult, but they both are on pretty even footing. Raker did not try to kill her. He did steal her weapon, but he did not plunge it through her heart. So, they have a little bit of a balance in some ways.
Well, sometimes you just have to plunge into somebody's heart to get the point across, that you're being serious.
Sometimes you just have to try to kill the person that you love for them to understand how much you hate them, or hate that you love them.
You're not supposed to stab the people you love, but here it works [laughs].
In real life, you would get a restraining order or you'd be in jail. But in fiction, this is a very heightened situation where they're on a deadly quest, there are prophecies involved, there are magical weapons involved. So, this is a very different context to fall in love in.
Now, shifting gears a little bit, is there any news you can share on the Lightlark adaptation?
Oh, I don't have huge updates right now. I can share that there have been several scripts that have been written, and the screenwriters who are working on it are so cool and amazing. They've worked on amazing stuff before, and they're really staying true to the heart of the story, and everything I've seen is amazing. So, right now, we're just waiting for the final script, and then we'll get a director, and then the director will be the one who kicks off casting and everything else. This is the year I think that readers will have the news that they've been waiting for, but I can't share anything right now. But in the next few months, maybe I will be able to share everything. Who knows?
Are you involved at all in production?
I'm an executive producer. That's something I negotiated a few years ago when the deal was done. So, they've involved me with the script and all the people who have been brought onto the project. I am involved, but I also kind of know where I'm useful and not useful. I'm not a screenwriter. I've never made a movie. There are certain things that they know a lot better than I do. So, I'm involved in the sense that I'm making sure that they're staying true to the story but not so involved that I'm hindering what's necessary to happen to actually make this into a movie.
"Sometimes you just have to try to kill the person that you love for them to understand how much you hate them—or hate that you love them."
But the good thing is the producers who are involved, they've loved the book since before they were published, and the executives at Universal love the book so much, and they are all just extremely passionate about getting it right. So, I could not be in better hands. The story could not be in better hands. So, for now, I'm very happy. I'm sure I will be more involved as things progress, but I'm just happy to kind of be helpful where I can be helpful but then let people do their jobs, because they're really good at their jobs.
That's totally fair. I appreciate that. We will be on the lookout for all the news to come with Lightlark. Now, last year, you wrote your first adult debut, Summer in the City, and that's also being adapted. Is there anything you can tell us about that adaptation?
It's interesting because Summer in the City and Lightlark are almost at the same stage, even though Lightlark was acquired many years before. But then we had the writers’ strike and then their contracts took a very long time. So, Summer in the City also has a script and someone's writing who's very, very talented and they're just incredible. Everyone might get news about that this year, but that's a way easier project to adapt than Lightlark. I do assume that that could move quicker than Lightlark. I'm also really lucky everyone involved with that is super, super talented and they've made some of the best romance movies ever. Again, that story could not be in better hands. They know exactly what they're doing. They're all very, very talented. Hopefully, I weirdly think that we're going to get news for both of them at the same time this year. I will share as soon as they allow me to.
Fantastic. I'm really looking forward to that because I really do feel like Summer in the City, I believe you described it the best when you said it's a love letter to New York City. It really is. Living in this area, when I listened to Summer in the City, I'm like, "Oh, I can go there, I can go there..." The maps and oh, it was amazing.
When I was having the conversations with the people who are making the movie, I just said, like, New York City looks like a movie during the summer. It looks like it. When you're just walking down the block, seeing all the taxis, seeing everyone on these quilts in the parks, it looks like a movie already. Obviously, there have been so many movies set in New York City, but I think it's been a while since we've gotten a New York City rom-com and I'm just really, as a consumer, as a reader, a watcher of movies, I want to see that type of movie. So, I'm really excited.
Same. Now, that Starside is out in the world, what is next for you?
I just finished writing the second book in the series, and it's longer. It has more romance, some more betrayals, more of everything. It is 800 pages on my laptop. It will not be 800 pages when it's printed. The same way Starside was 680 pages, I think, on my laptop, and then it became around 500 pages, so they will shrink it to fit it into a book. I love it so much. You get a lot more of I think what everyone is enjoying in Starside. I can't wait for that to be out, sooner than readers think.
You're threatening me with such a good time right now, but you know what? I'm sure that there will be plenty to read, especially after this next question. If Aris and Harlan could recommend an Audible listen to me, what would it be?
Oh, my gosh. I feel like Raker would choose something ridiculous, like some war strategy book, or something so boring or bad—
The amount of romantasy main male characters that have recommended The Art of War to me [laughs].
Yes. Yes. Yes. That's probably what Raker would—or Raker would be like, "We're all going to die, so don't read books." That's really what Raker would say, so don't take book recommendations from him. I think Aris, it's interesting, in the second book, Aris reads a lot, and she reads romance books, so I think she would definitely recommend at least those books. She would recommend anything romance and anything that has a happy ending because she has had way too many tragedies happen in her life, so she would want anything that feels like an escape.
I love that. And then are you listening to or reading anything that you would like to share with us?
I just finished The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, and it was so, so good. Such a great story. It also deals with a sword and knights, in a different way, but I just am obsessed with that book. Every single line was either devastating or beautiful or funny. I love it so much.
Oh, that is fantastic. Thank you for the recommendation.
Yes. Thank you for having me. It's always great to talk books, and especially with someone who has read Starside, thank you. I'm sure it took you many, many hours or however many hours the audiobook is.
It took me 16 nice hours, and I would do them all over again.
Oh, my gosh. Thank you.
Alex, it has truly been amazing speaking with you today about Starside. And listeners, you can pick up Starside and the rest of Alex Aster's catalog here on Audible now. Happy listening.
