with 𝗘. 𝗞. 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻

Each week, I ask some informal questions of an author. Their answers can be as short or as long as they like. They can answer all or none, or just ignore my emails…

This time, I am absolutely thrilled to be spending just 5 minutes with New York Times No1 best-selling author E. K. Johnston. Her book Star Wars: Ahsoka remains one of my favourite books.

𝙆𝙖𝙩𝙚'𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙝𝙤𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙡𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙨.

The full blog including information and buying links for all of Kate's books is published on jldixon.co.uk.

1. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (and probably the whole Percy Jackson series) by Rick Riordan - For the nostalgia. 

2. Star Wars: Ahsoka by E K Johnston - made me love this cartoon character (Now Live-Action!!!!) even more.

3.The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken- An amazing story about freedom and friendships.

4. Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas - A brilliant world with badass characters.

5. The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccareli- Who else got a How to Train Your Dragon vibe???

Saw a write up about this one a little while ago, so I was thrilled when it showed up at the store in a box of ARCs from the publisher rep. I was not disappointed.

We all know those epic fantasy stories of a noble, dangerous quest. The heroes triumph in the end and everyone goes home and lives happily every after... or do they? Those epic fantasy stories rarely ever deal with what happens after the grand and glorious quest, how the heroes move on in their lives. The Afterward by E.K. Johnston does just that.

They saved the kingdom, destroyed the old God and his fanatical followers. They returned to the kingdom as heroes, greeted by a King restored to health and rewarded handsomely. And then they had to go back to their lives. For Kalanthe Ironheart this means looking for a husband in order to pay the loan for her knight training, despite the fact that it means turning away from her heart. For Olsa it was back to the street and a thief’s life. But when everyone knows your name and your face, stealing gets to be a tad difficult. How do these two heroes move forward?

The thing I love most about this book is the way the characters are treated. Both men and women can be knights (in fact, all the knights on the great and glorious quest are women), can be mages, can be scholars, can be thieves. The knight who led the quest goes on to be Queen (and was the King’s love long before that). Women can love women, men can love men, people can love anybody or they can love nobody at all. Sometimes doctors and midwives get it wrong, but you have to wait for the child to be old enough to speak to realize it. And check out that cover... the armor makes sense! I really do appreciate how this book simply treats everybody as people, all equally worthy of love and respect. It was amazingly done without being preachy or in-your-face.

Guys, I was Queen Amidala for halloween when I was five. I was obsessed with her. I was obsessed with Star Wars. Phantom Menace gave four year old me two things that made me irrationally happy: a protagonist that was close to my age (my age! and he was a jedi in training! MY AGE!) and another girl.

 I was still an only child. My cousins were still toddlers, babies, or non-existent at this point, even the ones closest to me in age. Princess Leia was my imaginary best friend. So was Padme Amidala then. I had this whole thing in my head with them having a secret hide out in my attic which was a futuristic room (which in my head looked a lot like the bowling alley/arcade???) and of course they both had lightsabers, because of course.

And I know that I’m not the only one with a story like this. So many of us girls have been waiting twenty years to see Padme Amidala get the story she deserved. I almost started crying when I started the novel too: it opens with her floating on Naboo, white flowers in her hair--the same imagery as her funeral, but instead she stands up and the flowers fall out and she’s surrounded by her handmaidens as if to say She’s woken up becuase there’s more to tell.