Through the Wringer With GILDED RUINS Author, Chantal Gadoury

THROUGH THE WRINGER WITH GILDED RUINS' CHANTAL GADOURY

Following her release of Gilded Ruins (Blinding Night, #2) yesterday, Chantal was gracious enough to chat with me about all things Summer, Darce, a whole new cast of Gods and Goddesses, and a possible Morpheus spinoff—read on below to find out more!

Your sequel to BLINDING NIGHT, entitled GILDED RUINS, was released yesterday with The Parliament House Press. Congratulations on book two! What's your literary journey like while writing sequels? How is this different from writing book one? I’ll admit, writing sequels hasn’t been something I have a lot of practice in. The only other time I’ve ever sat down and wrote out a sequel naturally was “The Songs We Remember,” my Young Adult Contemporary duology. The story naturally continued into a second book for Micah and Charlie. Whereas, Gilded Ruins really took some coaxing of the characters. It was something I spent a good deal of time working on. As soon as Blinding Night released, I began the first few chapters of Gilded Ruins, without any real road map. But as 2019 progressed, it started to take shape. Writing Blinding Night was much different from Gilded Ruins. First, Blinding Night was originally a novel called “Seven Seeds of Summer,” – which was ultimately, completely rewritten. It was an exciting venture to go back to characters I had created in college, and breathing a new, more mature life into them. So, everything was really uncharted, and I could create the story I think I always wanted it to be – but at the time, didn’t know how to tell. Gilded Ruins took the story a step further. I knew I needed to tie up the loose ends of Summer and Darce’s story, and also answer some really important questions in regard to Summer’s past lives. In Gilded Ruins, there was more of a “lane” I had to keep myself in. I will admit, both books were amazingly fun to write.

Is there a scene in either Blinding Night or Gilded Ruins that made you cry while writing it? How about the scene that made you laugh the hardest? For obvious reasons, the Dad scenes really got to me. There’s a scene in Blinding Night when Summer is seeing her Dad in a dream, and he’s in their family home, and he’s just talking to her. I can still remember sitting outside in the twilight of a summer’s evening, near my family’s pool, thinking of my own Dad, and the things that I wish I could say to him. That scene always hits me the hardest because of just how personal it is for me. I know in Gilded Ruins, there were several scenes that made me laugh – the one that’s sticking out to me the most is when Summer meets Eros for the first time, and he admits to being a sucky aim with his love arrows. I just really loved Eros; the way he just blossomed in my mind. He’s this slick and smooth guy, who’s kind of like the Hollywood star of all the Gods and Goddesses, but he’s quirky, and imperfect – just like love.

Would you consider your protagonist, Summer, a good person? Be honest. Yes, Summer is a good person. She’s not entirely mature at the beginning of Blinding Night. But I wrote her that way on purpose. Young Adults at her age, going to college, focusing on friends and the things that we want to do, are rarely in the mind-frame of deep commitment, and making life-long decisions. We’re not thinking about rare opportunities (like going to Greece with our family.) We want the simple – hanging out with our friends. Swimming by the pool. Especially when they’re things we’ve been denied our whole lives. Summer is really thrust into a whole other way of life and thinking when she meets Darce and starts to unravel some well-hidden secrets. I think some of Summer’s immaturity follows her into Gilded Ruins – but again, she’s still growing up. She’s learning how to navigate the waters of adulthood, the best way that she can.

How does a big ego help writers? How can it hinder writers, if at all? It’s hard to see how a big ego could help a writer. In my own experience, I find t