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It’s almost exactly a year now since Daughter of Blood was published (gasp!) and in reflecting on that I also found myself reflecting on different aspects of storytelling.

Although my stories have multi-layered plots and action forms a large part of the story, the characters are still the key to the storytelling—and nowhere more so than in Daughter of Blood. (I do hope readers agree! 😉 )

The story is all about people in relationship, although rarely so obviously as in defined familial or romantic relationships, and yet it is the network of their often near invisible connections that hold the story together.

The central character in Daughter of Blood is Kalan, and the story’s network of relationships also centre on him. He is both the companion-in-exile and a loyal adherent to Malian, the exiled Heir of Night, and it is her cause that has set him on the course he must pursue through the book.

As a result of that path, he also ends as first champion, then Captain-at-Arms, to the shy and retiring Myr, the eponymous Daughter of Blood. Their relationship, which begins in necessity, evolves through growing trust and confidence to underpin the story—as the title perhaps gives away.

But there are other relationships that are almost as important: between Kalan and Faro, a terrified orphan boy who sees Kalan as his salvation from powerful enemies, and between Myr and the ensign, Taly, who is steadfastly loyal to her cause. Yet another relationship that defines the story is Kalan’s alliance with Tirael, the scion of an enemy house, when circumstances force them to deal with each other.

Yet whether born of chance and crossed paths, necessity or circumstance, it is the threads of these relationships, spun from one character to another, that create the web of story.