Jill Braden is the author of The Devil’s Concubine and its sequel, The Devil Incarnate.  The Devil of Ponong is her first published series and takes place in Ponong, a tropical island under colonial rule in a fantasy world.  Join us for our interview as we talk about her amazing fantasy world, NaNoWriMo and how writing can be compared to watching paint dry.

1.  QuiTai is a truly incredible woman in many ways.  Was there a woman either in your life or in history that inspired her character?  Or was there something else?

I’m glad you like her. My main literary inspiration is Irene Adler from Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia. I don’t like modern versions of her much (and could go on forever about why) but the original is still wonderful. She was a former actress like QuiTai, and rather notorious, and she outsmarted Sherlock Holmes. I also love Amelia Peabody from Elizabeth Peter’s Amelia Peabody mysteries, Miss Celeste Temple from Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, Lisbeth Salandar from the Millennium trilogy, Mattie Ross from True Grit, Joan Wilder from Romancing the Stone, and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. Each of them are wonderfully sensible in their own way, and they have the added attraction of being so well written that they just about leap off the page. Continue reading →