Take Five: Greer Macallister and SCORPICA

You know Greer Macallister as a long-time WU contributor, but you may not know that she has a book coming out under a slightly different name: G.R. Macallister. It’s a choice authors and their publishers make sometimes when an author moves from one genre to another, and that’s exactly the case here. Greer’s latest book is SCORPICA, the first in an epic fantasy series called the Five Queendoms, and marking a step away from her bestselling historical fiction (for now).

Greer’s novels have been named Indie Next, LibraryReads, and Amazon Best Book of the Month picks and optioned for film and television.  Kirkus has given SCORPICA a starred review:

A bold setup for a blood-bathed new series of epic fantasy.

And said Publisher’s Weekly of the story: 

The page-turning plot and intricate worldbuilding makes this a must-read for fans of Game of Thrones and Priory of the Orange Tree.

Read on to learn more about SCORPICA and this exciting new chapter in Greer’s career.

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WU: What’s the premise of your new book?

GM: Scorpica is epic fantasy set in the world of the Five Queendoms, which consists of five matriarchal societies who enjoy five centuries of peace and cooperation until, one day, girls stop being born.

WU: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

GM: It’s a big, juicy, complex story, told by multiple narrators over the course of 15 years. So there’s a lot to keep track of, but I promise it all links up. And I think of it as epic fantasy in the classic mode—swordplay! Sorcery! Secrets!—but infused with a feminine spirit, putting women front and center.

WU: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

GM: The challenge of not knowing whether the Drought of Girls will ever end is the big, abstract threat hanging over everything. But the story closely follows a variety of characters in different queendoms, showing how the phenomenon affects each of them personally, from a powerful sorcerer-queen who extends her life with dark magic to a poor desert healer who will do anything to protect her young daughter, one of the last born before the Drought began.

WU: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?

GM: It was a huge shift for me, going from historical fiction to epic fantasy, but the inspiration seized me and wouldn’t let go. I took what I learned in writing historical fiction—selecting the right details, how to describe the world so readers feel they’re living it—and built on that. The major challenge was to create a world from scratch instead of a combination of extensive research and reasonable conjecture. And each of the queendoms has its own traditions, cultural norms, form of government, attitude toward men’s equality, etc., so it was almost like building five worlds.

WU: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?

GM: I’ve always been more of a rewriter than a writer, pushing my books through draft after draft after draft, but I’ve never rewritten a book as drastically as this one in so short a time. The first draft followed five different characters in five different queendoms, their stories not converging until the climax; the finished book basically follows three storylines, sometimes through a different character’s eyes, but focused on the same action. One major character grew from a single mention in a single line of the first draft, and the reverse is true too, that major characters from the first draft are now barely mentioned. The great thing about writing a series—also a first for me—is that those characters can come back in a later book instead of being lost forever. So the adventure is just beginning, for the characters and for me.

Learn more about SCORPICA on Greer’s website or by visiting any of the sales links below.