In between teaching courses in business and sustainability, Oregon State University professor and award-winning author, Inara Scott, is now working on a new novel that will kick off a series of books.
Scott has previously published 16 novels, including romance and urban fantasy, but her upcoming project is her first foray into high fantasy. She describes the project as being a work in progress, but the premise of her novel centers around a battle between humans and non-humans, called Kai.
The protagonist is a girl who seeks revenge for a mysterious event in her past, related to the Kai. She is in search of a magical item to help her on her journey and the story is a “classic battle between good and evil,” Scott said.
Additionally, Scott describes her new novel as being about magic and the fight between those who have power and those who do not. She also mentions that her novel includes romance, something that she loves to write.
Scott described her writing process as putting together all of the things she wanted to write about, including dragons, magic and heroines with tragic pasts on one whiteboard. From this, she built her world and expanded upon her plot.
Scott said she asked herself, “What are all of the things that I most love in fantasies?”
This project has been somewhat different for her than most of her other novels, as she describes her previous work as being primarily character-driven romance plots. This novel, however, is much more plot-heavy than previous works, and has allowed her to explore a different style of writing from what she is familiar with.
“I’m just really having a blast,” Scott said.
Scott teaches environmental law and sustainable business, and has taught courses on storytelling previously.
The series is expected to be four books long but due to her busy working schedule, she says that there is not a timeline of completion currently. For anyone looking to read her work in the meantime, other titles from her include the Delcroix Academy series, Rules of Negotiation, and Heartbreaker.
