Thea Guanzon on How The Hurricane Wars Reflects Her Family’s Heritage and Her Own Roots In Fanfiction

If you read much fantasy at all, you’ve probably already heard about The Hurricane Wars, the buzzy—and now New York Times bestselling!—debut from author Thea Guanzon. The novel, which mixes high fantasy elements with a swoon-worthy romance is a tale of a clash between warring kingdoms, between two powerful aethermancers, between competing political ideologies, and even between the powers of light and dark themselves.
Set in a lush, Southeast Asian-inspired fantasy world, the story takes place in the midst of the titular Hurricane Wars, a decade-long conflict that has seen the Night Kingdom slowly conquer the neighboring kingdoms around them, including much of the Sardovian Allfold. Their impressive technology—which includes massive flying battleships powered by weather magic—means few can stand against them for very long. But Sardovian foot soldier Talasyn has been hiding an important secret: she’s a Lightweaver and possesses a rare, nearly extinct ability to control light magic. This makes her one of the few who might be able to fight the Shadow-wielding forces of the enemy, particularly the handsome Prince Alaric, the powerful heir to the Night Emperor and general of his army.
But when a freak accident that combines their powers forms something entirely new, Talasyn and Alaric will be forced to join together to prevent a deadly global disaster, something that if it’s not stopped will render the outcome of the Hurricane Wars all but moot. The story is delightfully addictive, full of political backstabbing and shady diplomatic maneuvering, alongside a complicated enemies-to-lovers romance, and complex questions about how years of war and conflict undoubtedly shape and impact those who survive its devastation.
We got the chance to chat with Guanzon herself about her debut novel, her roots in fanfiction communities, how The Hurricane Wars reflects her own cultural heritage, and where Talasyn and Alaric’s relationship is headed in Book 2.
Paste Magazine: Tell us about The Hurricane Wars! Where did the idea behind this story come from?
Thea Guanzon: It was a combination of many things. Enemies-to-lovers is my favorite trope, so this is my own take on that, and I unabashedly adore Asian dramas—from Filipino teleseryes to K-dramas and everything in between—so in this book you’ll find a lot of character archetypes and plot beats that will be familiar if you know the genre. As for the idea of storm magic being the main instrument of conflict and oppression, this was inspired by growing up in the Philippines, where we are frequently affected by typhoons and they are as much a fact of life as it is an ongoing nationwide conversation on how best to mitigate their effects.
Paste: In the preface that went out with Advanced Readers Copies of the book, you spoke at some length about how your own heritage and culture—and the history of the Philippines in general—played an important role in how you imagined this story and its world. Can you tell our readers a bit about that? (I thought it was beautiful, honestly, but copying and pasting it here felt like cheating.)
Guanzon: My country as it is now was birthed from a history of violent struggle. The Philippines was colonized three times over a span of almost four hundred years. My great-great-grandfather and his father were freedom fighters; upon their capture by the colonial government, they were tied behind a cart and made to walk for dozens of miles, dragged along by the ropes. My grandfather took up the cause fifty years later, joining the rebel army against a new imperial power at the age of fifteen, and he once walked thirty-seven miles to fetch munitions from a waiting submarine. I sometimes wonder if he ever thought about how he was walking in the footsteps of his ancestors along those mountain trails…
This is where I drew a lot of inspiration from in writing about how war can affect generations and about characters who fight for freedom no matter the cost, while at the same time creating a space where Philippine culture can be celebrated without ignoring our flaws and the past that made us what we are.
Paste: Tell us a little bit about the magic system at work in this world, it feels very different from a lot of similar stories we see in this space, especially in the ways it mixes in technological elements.