Then two days later, I had a shower thought for the idea of Powerless, and it was basically just like: What if I flipped the Chosen trope? Because I’ve read so many incredible books where the girl essentially finds her power and saves the kingdom. And I thought, but what if the girl has no powers, but everyone around her does? And it’s nothing profound by any means, but that was the spark. So I took that and I just started plotting and learning about the characters, and I wrote the book in three months as I was in school.
For whatever reason, I just tore through this book—and it was so long, too, like 180,000 words my first draft—and I was advertising and promoting it as I was writing it, and I think that’s how I built such a supportive community around me. I finished it and then I found a freelance editor and worked with her for a really long time, and then I went away to university. I was just sitting on this book until finally people kept berating me online: Where is Powerless? We want to read it. So I begged my mom to let me come home from college, and she gave me a semester to prove that this was something I could do.
I had no idea what I was doing, I was literally googling how to self-publish a book. Pulled together like copyrights, Library of Congress number, formatting, cover, all this stuff. I was 19! Somehow got it done, and it came out in early February of 2023 and it was about three months later that Simon and Schuster reached out. I’ve been just writing ever since, and it’s been such a whirlwind.
Paste: Wow! So, when you first wrote Powerless, all the way back then through now, did you know when you wrote it that it would be a series? Did you know what the ending was going to be and where Paedyn’s journey would go?
Roberts: When I had the idea for Powerless, I knew it was going to be a trilogy. I knew the basic plot of Reckless, and I knew how Fearless needed to end. There have been a lot of things that have been tweaked or changed. In Fearless, there are a lot of new things you discover that leave you with questions. You leave the story with more questions, which is intended. And there’s more to tell, obviously.
But the ending of Fearless has always kind of been the same. I knew from the get-go that a certain someone was going to die and how that was going to happen. So, I knew on a very base level how the plot was going to go.
Paste: How did you manage to keep all the different plot beats straight? Because now I want to go back and read Powerless again and see where I can draw a line through to what happens at the end. Does that work?
Roberts: Hopefully it does! I think—I started since I started the series when I was 18, there are so many things I’d have done differently if I could do it now. There are more seeds I’d have planted in Powerless because obviously there are some things in Fearless that change. But honestly, I didn’t really keep things straight as much as I probably should have. [laughs] I had an idea, but I am not a mastermind. Some authors are just so put together in that way….
Paste: As in, if you look on page 54 of book three in the series, there is this hint of something that will happen two books later…
Roberts: Exactly. [laughs] Obviously, I knew how Fearless was going to end, and I knew a lot of the pieces that went into it. Most of the twists are planned. Most of the things that happened are foreshadowed, but there’s some stuff where it just felt like it was meant to be as I was writing it. So many plot points and threads of information just kind of fell into my lap.
In the future, I’m going to be so much better about laying everything out. [laughter] But again, a lot of times I feel like I’m paying for the sins of my 18-year-old self, thinking, oh, yes, if I had done this one thing differently, it would have made all of this so much easier. So I’m excited to step into something new where I can fully flesh it out and know exactly what I’m doing all the time.
Paste: What is the thing you love most about Paedyn as a heroine? What about her really just grabbed your heart?
Roberts: We see this the most in Reckless I think, but what I love about her is that she’s so strong, but she knows when she needs help. That’s such a show of strength. It really is. The strongest people are the ones who understand when they can’t do something on their own, not the ones who bulldoze through life thinking they don’t need anybody’s help. I really love that about her. She’s a badass character, but she also has this softness to her. There’s a gentle balance there: She’s not perfect all the time and shs’s not strong all the time either.
Paste: What made you want to tell this story as a dual POV then, with another voice besides Paedyn’s?
Roberts: It truly is that I love making a man do and think what I want.
Paste: That’s maybe the best answer I’ve ever gotten to a question like this, just FYI.
Roberts: It’s true—it’s kind of selfish, really. But I just wanted to be inside Kai’s head and have those moments of him, say, watching Paedyn come down the stairs in a ball gown and be like Oh God, she’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Obviously, there’s more to it than that—His point of view adds a lot to the story and a lot of growth. Both [Kai and Payden] have looked at the world through totally different lenses. And I think that’s really important. I love getting two sides of the story and two different perspectives of people who have grown up and lived so differently.
But I do feel like the series as a whole is Paedyn’s story. Kai plays a huge role in it, obviously, but this is her journey. If there’s a book that’s more their story, it would definitely be Reckless, because they needed to have that time, and that rebuilding of their relationship before stepping into Fearless.
Paste: What is it that you love the most about their relationship, as the person who’s writing them? And why do you think their relationship speaks to readers so strongly? People love them, and I can’t say I disagree.
Roberts: I’ll answer for readers first. I think, and I could be wrong, but I feel like what draws people to them is their banter. I think people really like their dynamic of this quick back-and-forth dialogue, that’s also balanced with these really delicate, emotional moments. It can be hard to find the right balance for a bantering couple—too much banter, and there’s no emotional depth, or you have too much emotional depth, and the relationship gets bogged down by that weight. Not that you can have too much emotional depth to your characters, but you know what I mean. There’s no counter.
So I feel like finding that balance, which I did to the best of my ability. And I don’t know if people would agree, but I feel like that is perhaps what draws them. And especially in Fearless, there’s a lot of tension because now they’re not allowed to be together. But they still have those bantering moments even after they’ve admitted their love and after they’re separated.
To answer your other question, though, about what I like the most about them— in fantasy books, what I love are the mundane moments that you could put in everyday life. For instance, in Powerless, the two of them have a thumb war underneath the willow tree. That’s one of my favorite scenes, because it’s so raw and just human. I feel like a lot of times in fantasy, we forget that these are young adults, and they might be fighting for their lives in one chapter and then they’re just being little cutie kids in love in another. My favorite thing about them is that they’re not always super serious. I’ve read so many amazing books where the characters are hot, like, all the time, and that just feels so much less attainable and real than, you know, them goofing off sometimes.
Paste: To be honest, I full-on thought we were going to get a throuple ending for a hot second. I loved the scene at the ball where Paedyn, Kai, and Kitt are all drunk, and it was so adorable—I just couldn’t help thinking, oh, that’s how to square that circle.
Roberts: Oh. My God, that is so funny. I have never thought about that, but I can see how you did. I should write an alternate ending. That’s so cute. [laughing]
Paste: I also really thought Kitt was going to be the third POV character in Fearless, and I was really surprised both that he wasn’t and by who it did turn out to be. I get why it couldn’t be Kitt, but talk to me about why you decided to use his voice at the end of Reckless.
Roberts: That’s a great question. I think, in Reckless, I wanted to kind of use Kit as an outlet for everything else that was happening in Ilya. Obviously, Paedyn and Kai are on their little journey through the Scorches, so I used him as a little sneak peek. And he was so distraught, he was really not doing well, and I wanted to show that and end the book with him and that surprise.
But then in Fearless, I couldn’t have him be a point of view, because then you would immediately know all the things about his sickness and his thoughts and everything else that’s happening, which I needed to be unfolded slowly throughout the story.
Now that’s not to say—as I said earlier, you might have left Fearless with some more questions. What is the Plague? Who is the Queen of Esram? There are a few things that the reader is meant to leave Fearless still wondering about, which will be answered in the future. You’ll get some more insight on Kitt, and some of the things that happen later on.
Paste: That is so exciting!
Roberts: It’s one of the main reasons I was so scared for Fearless. Obviously, people are going to have their opinions, and that is totally fine and expected. But I know that in the ending I kind of throw a lot at you. And I just want to tell everybody, like, just wait, there’s more.
This is public knowledge, so I can say that there is another novella coming. So that’s what I mean. Like, there’s more to the story, and it’s gonna kind of follow the same format that Powerful did when you read it in tandem. I can’t say who it’s about, but you’ll see some different points of view from other characters.
Paste: The literal next question on my list is: was there anything you wanted to fit in this trilogy that you couldn’t make work?
Roberts: There’s so much, just in terms of explaining and adding depth. As I’ve gone through the series, I have realized how expansive this world is and how much more there is to tell in it. There’s definitely so much I could have crammed it here, but it was just not meant to be.
Paste: What was the hardest part of Fearless for you to write?
Roberts: The ending of this book took years off my life because there was just so much going on. The whole last 100-120 pages are just full team ahead with reveal after reveal, which I did intentionally to throw the reader off the scent a bit. I wanted everyone to think: Okay, surely this is the big real!?! And then another one happens. Figuring out and navigating it was a lot. Same with a lot of the foreshadowing throughout the book, because there are a lot of lines that Paedyn thinks back on and uses her little psychic ability to kind of deconstruct. And that’s how she figures everything out.
The chapter where she has the jewelry box also took years off my life in the best way possible. I genuinely spent so much time on that chapter, pulling every single thread and like every line from all the way back in Powerless. And I was putting them into Fearless and trying to line everything up. But it was so satisfying when I finished it, and you could sort of see Paedyn’s thought pattern: He said this about the roses. And then he said I look like my mother. Just all the pieces falling into place. I have a love-hate relationship with it, it was so fun, but very stressful.
Paste: You saying that made me think of how interesting it was to see, in the King’s POV chapters, the reverse of scenes we’d watched with Paedyn in Powerless. It was very cool.
Roberts: I really loved writing in the third person. This was the first book I’ve ever gotten to do that in, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I feel like it’s a different style of writing, the way you’re able to expand in third person. It was also just really fun to be in the King’s head, and also Kitt’s in some of those chapters
Paste: What are you reading right now? This is my favorite question I always ask everybody.
Roberts: One of my favorite authors is Olivie Blake. I am so obsessed with her writing style. She’s got that great style of…it’s a fantastical world but very literary fiction type writing. Her Masters of Death is so good. I’m in the middle of it right now.
Paste: Oh, I’m reading her Gifted and Talented currently, which is basically what if Succession was also fantasy. You’ll love it.
Roberts: Oh my God, I need to read that! But really, I’m in the middle of five different books. The Ministry of Time is another one. It’s so fun and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’m also reading Vicious by V.E. Schwab, another incredible author. Both Olivie Blake and V.E. Schwab are just huge inspirations for me. I think they’re just masters of their craft. If I could be like half as good as them when I’m their age, I’ll be set.
Fearless is available now wherever books are sold.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB
