By Chris M. Barkley: Novelist Meredith R. Lyons stopped in at the spacious Joseph Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, Ohio to promote her second novel, A Dagger of Lightning. She was hosted and interviewed by the Hugo Award winning writer John Scalzi. Soundcloud Interview Link: “Meredith R. Lyons Interview With John Scalzi”.
In the latest installment of Scalzi’s “The Big Idea” feature, “The Big Idea: Meredith R. Lyons” (which was published on April 3 on his Whatever blog site), Lyons explains what her motivation was for the new novel, which is the first in a new series.
“Why was it that only those twenty-one and under got to be ripped from their mundane lives, gifted immortality, and elevated to chosen one? Why not choose someone with some life experience and an appreciation for the frailty of our mortal coil?”
“With that in mind, I set out to write a forty-five-year-old woman who leaves for a morning run and never makes it home. I was so obsessed with the idea that I had ten thousand words in less than forty-eight hours. But I made the deadly mistake of sitting down and thinking about it, and subsequently worried that no one would be interested in a scifi fantasy protagonist older than thirty. I was even scared to show it to my writing group in case the concept ‘was stupid.’”
Her protagonist, Imogen, is a middle aged woman out for a morning run when she is abducted by what she takes to be an alien, but turns out to be a super powered alien fae looking for an ally, her, to help him wage war on his homeworld. Needless to say, Imogen is a less-than-willing protagonist in this adventure.
During the question and answer session I asked whether she would categorize the book as fantasy, romantasy or an anti-romantasy?
“I would describe it as a romantasy with a spaceship on top,” Lyons said with a mischievous smile.
Meredith R. Lyons currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and “two panther sized cats”. She is a former actor and current audiobook narrator for Onyx Publications and is a member of International Thriller Writers, Sisters In Crime, and the Women’s National Book Association. Lyons has a black belt in martial arts, has taught cardio kickboxing, owns several swords and has been known to knit scarves, enjoy gardening and visiting coffee shops.
(It should also be noted that she bears more than a passing resemblance to MSNBC news anchor Stephanie Ruhle.)
Her first novel, Ghost Tamer, was published in September 2023.
Photos by Chris Barkley and Juli Marr.
