Meet Nadine Brandes.
NADINE BRANDES once spent four days as a sea cook in the name of book research. She is the author of the award-winning Out of Time Series and Fawkes (July 2018) Her inner fangirl perks up at the mention of soul-talk, Quidditch, bookstagram, and Oreos. When she’s not busy writing novels about bold living, she’s adventuring through Middle Earth or taste-testing a new chai. She and her Auror husband are building a Tiny House on wheels. Current mission: paint the world in shalom.
Social Media
Website: http://nadinebrandes.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/nadinebrandes
Twitter: http://twitter.com/nadinebrandes
Facebook: http://facebook.com/nadinebrandesauthor
The Interview
Let’s start with something intense. I noticed in one of your book blurb for A Time to Die this opening question “How would you live if you knew the day you’d die?” So, how would you spend the last day you had alive?
That’s a question I’ve thought about a lot—and I have to say that I probably wouldn’t change much. One lesson I learned when writing A Time to Die was that, if someone asked me, “What would you change if you knew you’d die tomorrow?” I wanted my answer to be, “Nothing.” I strive to live every day intentionally and at it’s fullest. BUT….on a more lighthearted side, I’d probably spend the day with family. 🙂
I’m sensing *cough* a theme with your Out of Time series around life and death. What did you want to convey about the concepts of life, death, and time?
First and foremost I wanted to convey that, no matter how much time we have and no matter how much darkness or light we’ve lived through…God can do amazing things with our lives. We just need to keep seeking Him. I also really wanted to convey that the only thing in our power that can affect these three things—life, death, and time—is our intentionality. It is so easy to waste time, it is common to fear death, it is tempting to breeze through life. But if we’re willing to self-examine and to push ourselves and to seek out shalom…we can be world-changers.
What was the hardest choice you made while writing, or editing, Fawkes and did your character(s) surprise you with their reactions to said choice?
I’ll try to keep it spoiler free, but let me just say that someone dies that I didn’t originally plan to kill off. So that surprised me. But it fit so well in that scene and for the story that I almost did a victory dance afterward. (We authors are cruel, I know.)
When you began writing what did you envision happening and how has that changed since you’ve become published?
To be honest, I don’t really remember! Ha! I think, at the time, I was just focused on “I’mgettingpublishedI’mgettingpublishedI’mgettingpublished!!!!!!” But I will say I didn’t expect that life on this side of the book would be so…nonstop. I didn’t anticipate expectations from readers or fan art or the severe doubt that tries to creep in when I’m writing something new. It’s very different writing on a deadline instead of writing at my own pace. But, in a way, I think it’s really good for me. So that’s something I didn’t envision happening.
Family vs the love interest. In Fawkes why did you play these two devices off each other?
Because I think those are two things that are extremely relatable to a lot of people. A lot of times we can feel like we need to choose between the two. The family vs love interest is often presented as “loyalty vs love” and I don’t believe life should be a one-or-the-other like that. My main character struggles a bit with that mindset and learns a lot from it. I’ll stop now before I say too much. 😉
Phew. Let’s end with something fun. If Thomas Fawkes was hit on in our world what would his first reaction be?
HAHAHA! I think he’s be wary at first, like “Why are you hitting on me? What’s your ulterior motive?”
Raven C. Eckman 