9 Things You Might Not Know About It Takes a Thief…

…To Catch a Sunrise was originally released under the title of The Northern Sunrise with a different cover. It was suggested to me that both cover and title were not catchy enough. My wonderful sister suggested the new title and BOOM! the series was born.

The world is older than you think. A long time ago I originally had a YA series planned for the world. It was going to be based in the country of Great Turlain and was going to centre around a group of young elementals as they graduated from their academy to find the world isn’t as nice and happy a place as their sheltered lives had taught them.

Sassaille culture and language is based on France. Great Turlain on Germany. Arkland on England. And there’s another country across the Brimstone seas which is based on another European country… but I’m not yet telling which.

Originally I was going to have Sassaille use electricity quite a bit more and have the airships charge capacitors by flying into lightning storms. Then I was informed that Neil Gaiman had already beaten me to that idea so I scrapped it and decided Sassaille would focus more on alchemical power.

Jacques Revou and Isabel de Rosier are based a little bit on Bonnie and Clyde only without the violence. I wanted a thieving couple so deeply in love that their connection bemuses people around them.

The first chapter of …To Catch a Sunrise started life as a short story. I decided to adapt it into a full novel after readers asked for more.

The schematic of The Northern Sunrise was originally based of a 19^th century Ironclad warship. The artist heavily modified it with drawings of the Vinet crystals and a bunch of annotations that I provided.

…To Catch a Sunrise was originally designed as a stand alone book. I needed a palette cleanser, to write something a lot lighter, after finishing The Ties that Bind. However, I left it open for a sequel because I wanted the characters to live on. A number of avid readers contacted me and asked when the sequel was coming… so I started to plan one. Which leads me to…

It Takes a Thief to Start a Fire is coming this year. It’s set in Great Turlain (home of the elementals) and will see Jacques and Isabel encounter another thieving crew with some interesting magic. AND… there is a 3^rd book in the series planned which will take place across the Brimstone seas.