Cover Reveal - Thorns of War (The Smokesmiths Book 2) by João F Silva

What an honour it is to be hosting a cover reveal for Thorns of War, Book Two in João’s The Smokesmiths series. To date he has published Seed of War and a prequel novella, Ruins of Smoke. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the series have a look at the covers below, in this “reviewers” humble opinion both are fantastic!

Before we get to the juicy bit (aka the reveal), I sat down with João to ask him a few questions:

How did you arrive at writing as your creative medium?

I’ve always loved writing. I had to write mini-essays of about 300-350 words for my written exams of Portuguese in Middle School, and that was always my favourite part. I could freely write about certain topics and it was always something that came natural: writing something with a structure: beginning, middle, and end (even if it was even shorter than a short-story).

Unfortunately, the education system failed to cherish that and my high school years were marked by snobbish teachers, and an almost complete abandonment of any kind of writing I might have done otherwise. Luckily, I rekindled my love for writing after college and I have never looked back!

For those that have yet to read any of your work, how would you best describe it and what influences / inspiration do you draw on? I’m particularly intrigued how you arrived at the smoke based magic system.

There are multiple ways of answering this. The main one is that my novels and novella are epic fantasy, which I think my readers will agree with. Now, the not-so-easy-to-define bit is when we start going deeper into subgenres: is it grimdark?

I don’t know, you tell me!

When I was writing the first draft of Seeds, I had fresh in my mind some pretty dark novels and TV series, so the book started out pretty bleak. Since then, though, with re-writes, beta reader feedback, and edits, I think the final version became less dark. Ultimately, it’s a story about people with varying degrees of grey morality living in a harsh world, and just surviving. I’ve had people say it’s super dark, and people say it’s “not that dark at all”, so I just try to leave those labels to the readers now.

I was very influenced by some of the more recent giants of the genre. I’m always amazed at how well Brandon Sanderson is able to weave plot threads and character ARCs with super imaginative worlds and magic systems. On top of that, he does foreshadowing extremely well, which always makes for super interesting re-reads. I like that his prose is accessible and that he always has something for everyone: mystery subplots, romance subplots, almost sports story subplots, science-y subplots. That’s why people like his books, me included.

In terms of character work, and especially the inner voice of the characters, however, my biggest inspiration is Joe Abercrombie. I love the way each character has such a unique voice, and their level of grey morality just suits my taste so, so well. I also am a massive fan of the battle sequences in John Gwynne’s books. He manages to perfectly blend high stakes, cool action sequences, and character moments. I have a lot to learn from him.

Beyond books, I’m also heavily inspired by TV shows and videogames. Some of my favourites series are: Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, True Detective, the Expanse. I’m also pretty sure that some games I’ve played recently have at least influenced a bit some of my storytelling: Elden Ring, Ghost of Tsushima, and Final Fantasy 16.

My inspiration, however, can really come from *anything*. Sometimes I see something cool in a documentary, or in a YouTube video, or I see something cool on the streets. The inspiration for the smoke-based magic actually came from the lyrics to a song by one of my favourite bands (The Sword). The lyrics said something about ‘sacred smoke’, and I was listening to it while trying to come up with original magic systems, and it just clicked.

I’m pretty sure music from bands like TooL have also inspired some of the epic moments in my books. Their album Fear Inoculum came out when I was first outlining Seeds of War, and I think it influenced the dark atmosphere quite a bit.

How do you go about establishing connections with your readers? Any tips for the aspiring or new authors?

This isn’t for everyone: not everyone enjoys interacting with people or engaging on social media. Some people are introverts, which is fine. But if authors want to find good connections with their readers, I think the first step is to be present and be available. If readers email you, always respond. If they DM you, always respond. If they comment on your posts, engage with them. I truly enjoy doing this, so it doesn’t feel like work or a chore. If it does, the readers will probably notice it too, so if you really want to do it, it’s better to just get comfortable with it.

Another thing I try to do is give more than I ask. I give away my novella and two short stories to whoever signs up to my newsletter and I rarely pester them with emails asking to buy my books, which would just be annoying. I also try to constantly reward them by showing the mailing list subscribers and the people on my Discord how everything is going behind the scenes, and sneak peeks of upcoming things well before everybody else.

If readers are nice enough to want to subscribe to my mailing list or be in my discord, they absolutely deserve to be treated like VIPs in some way.

Also, I’m a reader too. We probably like the same books. I often nerd out about books I like or shows I enjoyed watching. My books can be a bit on the darker side, but that doesn’t mean I have to present myself with a cynical, nihilistic persona on social media. I want people to think of me as someone who brings positivity to the community.

What has been your experience in entering writing competitions (such as SPFBO) and would you recommend any of these to other authors?

I highly recommend entering SPFBO, not only because it’s free to enter and the chance for exposure is huge, but also because it’s a really good way to find other authors who might be in your shoes and don’t know anyone in the community. You just never know when and where you might find a really good friend, or when a judge might really like your book. So, yeah, my overall experience has been great.

With SPFBO, even though I didn’t move past the first round, I managed to get a pretty decent review of my book and met some authors who I now consider friends, so I’d say that was a net positive!

So, lets imagine that Hollywood / Netflix comes calling and wants to make a movie or TV series of The Seeds of War, who are you casting?

Very, very easy: Mads Mikkelsen as Rednow, Riz Ahmed as Orberesis and Rosario Dawson as Gimlore. That’s who I see when I picture the characters in my head!

Are there any of your characters (in any of your books) that were your favourite to write?

Orberesis is the most interesting to write because of his complexity and unusual character ARC, but he’s also damn hard to get right. Rednow is a blast to write, especially in the battle scenes. And Gimlore might be my favourite of the three. The idea for the story came with her character first, and she’s still my favourite, I guess.

That being said, it’s weird, because writing all three of them is a cathartic experience for different reasons. With Orberesis, I get to unleash my inner selfish villain. With Rednow, I get to moan about everything and just be grumpy. With Gimlore, I get to curse a lot and activate my short temper. All of their flaws and shortcomings as characters are also deeply related to me in some ways, so I don’t think I could write just one of them. I find that they all complement each other quite well.

When it came to writing Thorns of War, did you feel any particular pressure with it being a sequel? Especially since Seeds of War been so well received.

There was massive (self-imposed) pressure, but I actually wrote the whole first draft a few months before Seeds was published, so the pressure wasn’t really from the publication deadline or about meeting readers’ expectations, it was more from me finding out if I could write a sequel, which I had never done.

Now that I’m starting to outline the third book in the series, I’m having to deal with that again: can I keep the series going? How well can I make the character arcs flow? Am I running out of things to say?

It’s always a thin line between self-belief and self-loathing!

With Thorns of War being the second book in The Smokesmith Series, how many books have you got planned in this world?

I’m taking it easy with the planning. Book 3 is definitely planned, and I already have some ideas for Book 4, but I’m not sure if I will continue beyond that. I can see it being just 3 or 4 books, but I can also picture myself just writing on and on, until I run out of things to say.

This world, though, still has a lot of uncharted territory, so I will write in it for a long time, even if it’s in spin-off series, sequels or prequel series. I love the world and the setting and the magic system, so I will definitely continue to write in it and explore different parts of the Known World a lot more.

The Thorns of War will be emerging into the world on 5th May. And excitingly, I understand that you going to be stepping into the Kickstarter arena (running from 1st-21st March). What can you tell us about what drove that decision and what the offering will entail? Where people can go for more information / to sign up?

The cover reveal is on the 15^th of February (today, yay!), and the decision was very simple: I wanted to let my readers have the chance to have signed versions of the book, preferably with a lot of goodies, illustrations and other things that Amazon just doesn’t provide. By launching the campaign, I can handle all of those things myself and, if it goes well, it also helps me pay for the upfront costs related to the whole book production side of things: editing, proofreading and cover design.

To sign up, people can find a link in my bio! It’s all there.

Without any further delays, we have the awesome cover for Thorns of War below. Could you share a few derails on what inspired the cover and who the cover artist is?

The cover design was done is MIBLART, the cover design service who also handled the covers for Seeds of War and Ruins of Smoke. They did an awesome job and the cover features Orberesis, one of the three main POV characters. He goes through a pretty surprising ARC in this book, so I thought I had to capture how ominous and imposing he can be in this book cover. That’s really all I can say without going into spoilers!

So without any further ado …..

THORNS OF WAR

One breath. One jump. One death.

The Known World is in peril once again. Old grudges are made anew and settled only on the battlefield, with threads of smoke flowing in the air.

Gimlore saved her town and her family, and she has even learned that trusting people may not always be a bad thing. But with ancient powers stirring, her whole world is shaken again, and the pains of the past come back stronger than ever.

Rednow’s retirement plan was successful but didn’t last long. He is both in the eye of the storm, and the storm itself. Blessed or cursed by powers he wants to reject, he questions whether the faith everyone seems to deposit in him is even warranted. After all, he’s still just an old man with bad lungs.

Orberesis blossoms under the tutelage of a new master and awakens ancient, forgotten arts. He rose from thief to the impersonator of a god, and now true divinity might just be well within his grasp.