Q&A Thursdays #16: Forrest’s Question

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted one of these—since way back on September 28, I believe.

On the other hand, I always intended it to post intermittently, although we are, in fact, nearing the end. Just a few left to go now, in this reprise of the Daughter of Blood (and by extension The Wall Of Night) Q&A series that featured in 2019.

Today’s question came from Forrest and is about research that informed the book.

USA

Forrest: You’ve said that you did a lot of research into battles and sieges. Was there anything else in the book that you researched as much?

Helen: Yes: medicine! You’ll recall Myr has an interest in healing and there are injuries associated with the Honor Contest in the first part of the book and then again with the siege in the second half. So I did a lot of reading about warfare injuries and how they were treated in the ancient and medieval worlds, then looked at the (increasingly rapid) evolution of treatments over more recent centuries. I also checked in with two doctors over the finer details. I wanted that aspect of the book to be authentic, but the final bridge between our modern understanding and the world of the book had to be “healing magic.” Although the magic healers, like Kion of Sea and Vael of Stars, and Myr herself (albeit without the magic), still had to have training: they couldn’t just magically wave their hands about and “hey presto”—because that’s part of the authenticity, too.