Author Interview: Emily Varga

Get the inside scoop on ‘The River She Became’!

Emily Varga is the author of our July Young Adult ‘Unearthed Magic’ featured book: The River She Became. Read on to get the inside scoop from inspiration to favourite scenes and more!

For anyone meeting The River She Became for the first time, how would you introduce the book in three words?

I’m going to cheat and combine some! Relic-hunting, colonialism, and ancient magic.

The book has been described as The Mummy meets The Cruel Prince. What part of each comparison best captures its spirit?

I think The Mummy is having a massive resurgence now, but when I was writing this book in 2020 it was less so. I just love that movie so much, especially when I was growing up so it’s definitely a nostalgia thing. I wanted to bring the energy of that search for an ancient relic or magic, but also have that fun dynamic with a comedy romance, where there’s romantic tension there but then they’re also ribbing each other. That combination of action, adventure, and comedy, I just love it! And then for the other part, it was just a natural fit, with a human girl going into a fae world. The Cruel Prince is such a portal fantasy, and you get to know the politics with the different courts that are fighting, and this book definitely has that, too. The main character goes from her world’s colonialism and relic hunting to try to beat the empire to save her people, into a new world where its not that dissimilar, but there’s these court machinations and colonialism in that way. I wanted to show the parallels between the two, and The Cruel Prince was such a big inspiration for that for me.

What was the very first seed of the story: Yaseema, the River, the relic hunting, or something else?

I loved the idea of a girl who steals unearthed relics back from a power that is taking them. And that she does it because it has a real impact, like how in the real world it has a massive impact. It has the effect of draining riches from the country and colonialism itself has caused famines and a lot of historical and systemic issues. But I wanted to do it in a magical, metaphorical way, where actually physically taking the relic drains the magic from the land. You can see it happening, and Yaseema wants to return it back to the land to save it.

What makes Yaseema the perfect heroine for this particular adventure?

She is so different from my previous heroine! My other heroine, Dania, from For She Is Wrath, is a fighter through and through. She has her sword, she knows what she wants, and she’s going to get it! Whereas Yaseema is the total opposite; she’s more like a bit of me, where I’m bookish and reading and researching. She does all that, but I wanted to show that as a strength, and that you don’t have to be a fighter in order to have an impact in your world and you can still fight against oppression. She was perfect for this kind of world and this kind of book, because she uses her strength to her advantage. A lot of what she’s doing with the relics requires a lot of knowledge and research, and also an understanding of traps in the world; she has to look before she leaps! I love her as a heroine and she was so fun to write because of that focus on her bookish nature being a skill as opposed to a weakness.

What can you tell us about the River and what it represents within the story?

The river was a big, poignant thing for me. On the one hand it is a physical border between two worlds that she needs to cross, and in order to do so she needs an object. It represents an actual border between two kingdoms and countries which I thought was important in the context of colonialism and what she is working through. And then what’s intense about this world is that she’s going through a famine, but then she crosses into this world that is teeming with life magic with fruit hanging off the trees! But for me it was a metaphorical visual between desolate and lush and how people can experience life in such different ways.

The book incorporates Pakistani faerie mythology. Which part of that mythology most excited you to bring to readers?

Oh my god, the creatures! It is so cool. So the difficulty was that it’s a lot of oral history; there’s not a lot of books and things written down on it, so I had to try and track down information. There’s a lot of really cool oral historians on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok that go to these areas and talk to people about the stories their grandparents told that have been passed down for generations. There’s always some aspect of the same story or magical creature in each part, whether that’s a similar werewolf tale or a fae tale or anything else. And so I incorporated some parts into the story and, because there wasn’t one standard version, I tried to seed in what I felt was the core when I compared all of these different stories with the witches and churel . And the fae, or peris, have this story of them being very beautiful but having backwards feet, and that’s why you can’t get charmed. I used that in the book a little bit as part of the curse they get from the other fae court, and there’s also a golden palace in the mountains that is based on a real mythological palace. There’s a lot of rich history, but the creatures are definitely the most exciting part!

Which aspect of the world was the most fun to write?

So the world in general, and her going into the fae world, was really fun as I could just play with the idea of different courts. The River Court has a palace with a river flowing from it, and I just thought that it would be so cool to have it as a water feature! It’s magical and has flowers growing from it everywhere, and it just feels like this amazing burst of spring. And then the Salt Court takes over these salt crystals that form on top, and I really enjoyed playing with that and being in different parts of the fae world. I also loved the relic hunting piece, and coming up with the riddles throughout. But also another aspect of the book I enjoyed writing that really surprised me was that this was the first time I’ve written a male POV, and I loved writing it!

Is there anything you can tell us about the sequel?

It’s coming out next year and it is called The River On Fire! And, there’s a lot of different traps! There’s this character that is looking for a key and I was thinking about what is the craziest thing that this key could be, what’s the craziest thing behind this door, and what’s the craziest riddle you may have to solve. That got the wheels turning for me and I was like ahh this is so good, even if I do say so myself! It’s been really fun to push on the relic hunting piece a little more, with the traps and the action and adventure aspect of it. And, I can also say you see some of the other courts in the fae world!

What is your favourite thing about the FairyLoot Exclusive Edition of The River She Became?

The cover! Obviously the edges, the endpapers, and everything is also so gorgeous, I can’t even! But there was something about when I saw those characters come to life by @lotusbubble who is the artist who did that, I was like oh my god! You just took them from my brain but made them cooler! So I really adore that.