Introducing Eve Morton, our newest Eerie River Author!

Eerie River is so excited to have Princes Like Us be a part of our first romance publications. Would you mind introducing yourself and telling us how you started writing?

I’m excited as well! I’ve been writing since I was a little kid, probably around the age of 12 when I read The Outsiders in school. Hearing that S. E. Hinton was only 17 when it was published clicked something in my brain that told me it was possible. While I never got a novel published like her at 17 (my goal at 12), I did get my first publication at 17! It was a poem in an online magazine.

I started to publish more professionally when I was in grad school in 2011. From then until now, I’ve had numerous short stories in various genres published, along with freelance pieces based on my academic research (including in Atlantic’ Tech Channel), and of course, novels! I’ve always loved LGBTQ romance fiction, and Princes Like Us is one of my many, many attempts to take what I love about LGBTQ romance and Canadian speculative fiction and mash them together.

We may have some readers who are new to the romance genre. What aspects do you love about the genre and think others should too?

I love a good happy ending. For me, I am very much so drawn to LGBTQ romance novels because of those happy endings. Growing up, I struggled to find characters that were like me who survived to the end of the book, let alone end happily!

So when I realized that there was an entire industry of LGBTQ romance novels, an entire world of pulp that had been here long before I was born, I fell in love. Instead of worrying about hate crimes or the bury your gays trope every five pages in a book, I enter into a world where I know there will be struggle and strife–but not at the stake of the person’s identity or life. And we get some fun times, too.

I know you’re a fan of all things occult and that Princes Like Us will play with genre, weaving in urban fantasy elements. Tell us, what were the initial inspirations for this book and what do you enjoy about genre mixing?

I absolutely love genre mixing. Maybe it’s my own neurodivergence that’s drawn to it–so I can’t get bored while writing or reading–or maybe it’s the neat contrasts that come out when I take one trope and put it into another. For me, Princes Like Us came out of my constant need to put more Canadian work out in the world. Especially for horror, fantasy, and all things speculative. It’s always been a point I’ve raised in my classes when I teach genre fiction that due to Canadian laws and arts grants, we do a lot of the production work of a lot of Hollywood movies, but we do not get the imagination of it. As in, so many movies are filmed in Toronto, but Toronto does not have the same ‘magic’ to the world that NYC or Hollywood does. Why not? Our landscape is being used so often, why can’t we just have it set in Canada?? There are scenes in Princes Like Us that have very Canadian focus to them (eating Hickory Sticks and Ketchup Chips), but it’s also about the Canadian Dream and how that differs from the American Dream; and also, too, how Canada fails its population through denying the dream to some and not others, etc. I was really drawn to the work of Charles De Lint because of how Canadian he makes his spec fic, but I was also drawn to the work of someone like Nalo Hopkinson, who uses Canada and her experience of an immigrant in Canada to write spec fic.

I also really wanted to see if I could do a supernatural caper story. The idea of gathering the ensemble cast to obtain something is so much fun. Why not throw in supernatural creatures and humans and some riddles in downtown Toronto and then a roadtrip to Ottawa?

Can you tell us a little about your main characters? Are there any traits or habits you especially admire about them?

A caper story is nothing without its cast of characters! The leads in this one, and our romantic interests, are Malek and Caspar.

Malek is a djinn working for an underground supernatural network whose main operations is to right the scales of Justice. In this world, supernaturals have been discovered and integrated into the community, but the laws and policies still lag. Caspar is someone who was thought to be a supernatural creature (ghoul) who killed his family; it is incorrect and he is innocent. We meet them both in prison, as Caspar is offered an opportunity to finally leave his cell and maybe even use those three wishes to figure out who did kill his family.

Other characters they pick up along the way include Natasha, a human who works at the museum devoted to Caspar’s crimes; Katja, a necromancer researcher who is also getting over a rather bad break up; and William, an LGBTQ runaway thief who happens to have a particular important item to complete their caper story.

There are more people (once again, sort of the purpose of a caper story) but the bulk of the story is focused around the lives and romance of Malek and Caspar. I like them both as characters–and without giving too much away, I think both of their commitment to freedom and servitude is fascinating. I enjoyed writing their interactions, too. Both of them have been horrifically hurt in the world–Caspar is getting out of prison for a crime he did not commit–and they are both mean and rude because of it at times (and especially Caspar). They are not perfect characters. But they also both have so much resilience and perseverance. It’s something I obviously admire and hope it comes across in the writing!

What kinds of scenes or characters do you find the most challenging to write? How do you overcome this?

Malek and Caspar are both non-white characters. I am white. This was the largest challenge of the novel and one of the main reasons why, I think, I did not send it out for a long time. I wanted to write a story about a djinn–but to write about genies and just repeat the same tropes from Aladdin would be offensive (and not creative!). So I researched djinns and the culture around them; I thought about what it would mean to be a djinn in a new supernatural landscape, much like I thought about what it would mean to be a witch or a shifter in this landscape, too. And so, when I went to write this story, I talked a lot about colonization.

Malek’s story is one of extreme colonization and theft of objects that should be with one nation/family but are with another through violence. The majority of outside violence in this story comes from the fact that a djinn’s objects can be stolen and people have been hunting and stealing these objects for centuries. So when they do their ‘final’ theft in this caper, they are stealing from a museum because the museum did not source their items and bought from a thief. This part isn’t fantasy; it’s something that still happens quite regularly. I leaned heavily on my research resources as a professor and my past experiences with students and other grad students who do share these identities. So many people helped with understanding bits and pieces that I did not quite grasp, simply because I did not have the exact lived experience (only adjacent). But I know this book isn’t perfect and even with research, there will still be some mistakes and errors. I try my best to learn from each one.

Across your research work, you really champion LGBTQIA+ communities, do you similarly have an overarching mission as an author? Is there something in particular you wish readers walk away with after reading your work?

That’s such a good question! I feel as if I have had several missions in my work.

When I was younger, I tended to be very goal-oriented. Get published by 17. Write a novel in a month. Write so many things in a year. Etc, etc. It was very much, look! You do not need to be fancy or super-smart to write. You just have to do it! And I still champion this message a lot to my students when I teach my classes now. Just do it. You liked what I wrote? You could do it too! Or, even better, you hate what I wrote? Well, you should do something you like then! I’m very inspired by failure in that way. There’s a story from Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill) who said something like “then you get on the stage” to a woman who told her she sucked. According to Hanna, it was a revelation for this woman. That you didn’t have to be GOOD to get on stage. Something, getting on the stage and doing the thing is what eventually makes you good!

Across multiple genres, multiple styles, and over years and years of writing… I think one of the main goals that has kept me coming back is that someone needs this. Even if it’s just me. I wrote a lot of LGBTQ fiction when I was doing my dissertation because I kept coming across the harsh reality of LGBTQ communities, and wanted to escape into a world where I could imagine a happy ending and not a hate crime. And maybe in the act of imagining, things could get better. Perhaps utopian, but I prefer to paraphrase Frank-N-Furter and say I’m writing it so I can be it later.

Finally, if you could enter any fictional world, yours or anyone else’s, which would it be and what’s the first thing you’d do?

I had this conversation with someone recently and for some reason, the immediate answer that came to my mind was Dune. Maybe because it feels like we’re living at the start of Dune right now, and I just would like to get to the point where I can be part of the cool space witches. I would find the oldest one there and probably grill her for information. Get them to take me to their secret texts. And if I could bring tarot cards with me into this world, I think I would be especially happy to find Jessica and give her a reading.

Stay Connected with Eve

Instagram

Goodreads 

Website

Other Works

Pre-order this amazing book on Amazon.

https://books2read.com/PrincesLikeUs

Paperbacks will be made available everywhere and in person events!