Misty Massey: Mad Kestrel

Title: Mad Kestrel
Author: Misty Massey (http://mistymassey.com/)
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 978-0765318022

1. First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch.  What’s your book about?

Thank you!  I’m still a little giddy from it all!  Mad Kestrel is a tale of magic on the high seas.  Kestrel, quartermaster of the pirate sloop Wolfshead, is a Promise, someone with raw magical ability. If she makes any sort of rhythm, she can control the air around her.   She’s been hiding from the feared and hated Danisoba Magi, a sect of powerful wizards who murdered her parents years before.   She’s special even among the wielders of magic; salt water weakens the Danisoba, but it doesn’t affect her at all.  If the Danisoba could get their hands on her, she’d never see the light of day again. 

When royal soldiers take her captain, Binns, into custody, claiming that he stole a  warship and is destined to hang, Kestrel is his only chance.  Avoiding bounty hunters and soldiers, she discovers that Binns is not who she believed him to be, and only the mysterious Philip McAvery, who might be a Danisoban himself, can help her.  McAvery, however, has disappeared, along with Binns’ ship.  Kestrel has to find McAvery and save Binns’ life.  And the only way to do that is to use the magic she has denied for so long.

2. Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.

It was a long and torturous journey…. *grin*  The first agent who offered me representation promptly fell off the face of the earth.  No emails, no returned phone calls, nothing!  To this day I don’t know for sure what happened with her.  After a few months of no contact, I approached Holly McClure, of the Sullivan Maxx Agency.  It had always been my dream to be published by Tor, since they seemed to publish all my favorite books, so Holly got right onto making that dream come true. 

Dennis Wong of Tor was interested, but he wanted to see a rewrite, with another subplot woven in.  I cried for about half a day, then took a deep breath and got busy.  Four weeks later, I sent the revised manuscript back, crossed my fingers and left town for a beach vacation with my family.  One afternoon, the phone rang.  It was Holly, calling to say that Tor had made an offer on the book!  It couldn’t have been a better time to get the news, since my husband and son, my parents and sister were all there with me.  Before I was even off the phone, my husband drove down to the tiny general store and bought two bottles of champagne to celebrate.  We stood around in our damp bathing suits, drinking cheap champagne out of plastic cups - you can’t say we writers don’t party up right!  

3. Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now?

I’m nearly finished with a second volume of Kestrel’s adventures (tentatively titled Kestrel’s Dance) right now.  There’s a third plotted and ready to be written, that I plan to devote the whole summer to writing.  I also have a separate fantasy novel, set in a Renaissance faire and combining mapmaking, magic and the Anasazi, that’s about half-finished.

4. What’s your writing process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?

I’m very much a morning person, but I work on weekdays as a media assistant in a middle school library.  During the school year, I write for about two hours every afternoon after school, and then another two hours before bedtime most nights.  Summer is the best - I can get up early to write, and use the afternoons for errands. 

5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at the The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.

My husband and son are both allergic, and since I’m terribly fond of their continued breathing, I’ve sacrificed the joy of cat ownership.  But since the house just doesn’t seem right without a pet in it, I have a Mexican Milk Snake named Scarlet.  She’s a diva in every respect (who knew a snake could be temperamental?)