Where I Left Off

Unlock the Dark with Author Sasa Hawk

• Kristen Bahls • Season 2 • Episode 42

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Thank you to author Sasa Hawk for joining me to talk about her debut young adult romantasy novel Unlock the Dark. 

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For links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back. I'm Kristen Balls and you're listening to when I Left Off a bookish podcast and today I'm joined by author Sasa Haack, and today we're talking about her debut novel, Unlock the Dark. Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Speaker 1:

Hey, the first thing that I always ask everyone because I feel like authors just have the best recommendation is what are you currently reading and, if you are like really writing right now and not reading as much, which authors inspire you?

Speaker 2:

It's definitely true that I'm reading slower right now because I am deep in revisions for book two, but currently I've been reading Demi Winter's Road of Bones series. I don't know if you've read it. It's adult fantasy and definitely check trigger warnings if you need to do that. But the writing is just like chef's kiss Perfect character arcs. The plot goes places you would never predict. Um, it's a viking romanticist period to that and um, so I've been loving that. On the ya front, recently I read groban, who fell beneath the sea and absolutely fell in love with axio's writing, and so I can't wait for her next one, which I think is coming out really soon Floating World, I think, is that one, and it like the from the blurb. It sounds actually like a lot of the stuff that I have in Unlock the Dark, so I'm like, oh, I'll probably like it.

Speaker 1:

So what genres do you typically like to read in addition to adult fantasy and YA? Well, I love fantasy.

Speaker 2:

I'm pretty much of all, all flavors like. I love sci-fi fantasy, I love romanticist, um, I love contemporary fantasy, but sometimes I need a break and also like contemporary romance too, nice yeah. So there are times when I just like burn through a bunch of romance same here.

Speaker 1:

it's nice to be able to like switch up your genres kind of based on your mood, definitely. And then what can you tell us, if anything, about your work in progress? Is this a new series or a standalone? It's going to be another standalone.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of like. If you like Unlock the Dark, then you will probably like this one. It is about a girl who lives in an enchanted forest. Her village is just right on the outskirts of it and the forest is full of magical creatures and monsters and there is a mysterious enchanted well where she can talk to a boy from another realm. She doesn't really know much about where he's from and one day she accidentally summons him into her world and that does not go well. He is not okay and she spends a lot of time trying to get him home through monster infested woods. Along the way, they are very attracted to each other and they discover that there is a terrifying monster threatening both of their worlds and they have to work together to defeat the monster.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of twists and turns, lots of feelings and pining, and that's pretty much all I can say about the plot right now. It's still very much in development and I just finished the first draft of it in January and I'm doing round two revisions right now. Yeah, that one's coming out in summer 2026. But, if you want, I did get permission to share the title with you, which you? Yes, oh, my gosh, thank you. Yeah yeah, you and your listeners would be the first to know it, outside of my agent and my editor. So, if you'd like, it's going to be called A Summoning of Fate.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that. That's a really great title.

Speaker 2:

Did you have a lot of say in that and kind of Um, I went through three or four different titles that I really liked. Then they came back to me was like well, actually we can't have this one because of this or this because of that. And then there was one that we thought we were going to go with for a while, like for months, like I thought this was going to be on the cover. And then they're like actually there's a book coming out later on in 2025 with a title that's like one word off. And so all right back to the drawing board. But I'm happy with Summoning of Fate because that will play out in the book in a lot of fun ways. Summoning because she summons him into her world, but there's also a lot of other summoning going on, so it'll be fun.

Speaker 1:

I'm glad with the title now, I love that and I love anything with different realms. I don't know that just adds such like a fun aspect to it, yeah yeah, and that one's a little different than this one.

Speaker 2:

They will know each other a little bit ahead of time, so it'll be more of a friends to lovers and less of a strangers to lovers, you know.

Speaker 1:

Oh, friends to lovers is my favorite, so I'm already excited for it. Yay, that is so cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love Friends Forever, so it's going to be fun.

Speaker 1:

So when you said that you're kind of in second round revisions once you finish your first draft, is that like revisions from beta readers or revisions from your editor?

Speaker 2:

This is with my editor. I think I will be putting it with beta readers sometime in May. I don't really want anyone else to see it right now. That's fair, it's a mess. But sometime in early May I'll probably run it by my CPs and beta readers to just make sure it's tight and that I haven't like missed a giant plot hole and that everything kind of unfolds how it should and stays interesting the whole time.

Speaker 1:

Nice, that makes sense. Well, I cannot wait to read it. Thank you so much for sharing the title. That is huge. Okay, now we can get into the questions a little bit more about Unlock the Dark. So, with this book, what made you decide to write it as a standalone versus putting it into a series?

Speaker 2:

Sure, yeah Well, when I originally wrote it a long time ago back in 2020, I wanted it to be a duology. I had made the world actually a lot more complicated than it is now and I had left the ending open from book one so that I could tie everything up in book two. And after revisions with my agent once I got an agent this was the book I got an agent with she kind of made me tighten it up a little bit more so that we could sub it to publishers with, like, the option for it to have a duology. But when Harper offered, they're like we only want this to be a standalone. So in revisions with my editor, with Harper, we wrapped everything up in book one. So that that was kind of what decided things and I was happy with that decision too. By the time we were done with revisions, I think, um, I was like I feel good about this being a standalone, that the story kind of comes to a conclusion. But yeah, it wasn't.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't necessarily like I started off on one path and it's really interesting because, um, whenever I think I was about like 70 through the book, I'm like, oh my gosh, how is this all gonna wrap up? Because I know it has to wrap up in this book. So it kind of created, like you know, a little bit more urgency whenever I was reading and I'm like, okay, stuff's gonna happen. So it was very intense in a really fun way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I I think you know, if I ever get the chance to go back to this world, I think there are side characters I could explore and stuff. There's nothing on the horizon for that right now, but there's also nothing saying there couldn't be someday, True.

Speaker 1:

Yes, please. So did you draw any inspiration from, like myths or legends or historical events whenever you were trying to shape this magic system, because it's so unique?

Speaker 2:

I'm a huge mythology and folklore fan anyway, so there's probably always subconsciously like a just a steady drip of fairy tales and folklore in my work anyways. But when I wrote Unlock the Dark, we were in lockdown. Everyone was trapped at home and kind of out there in the world. It was scary. There were scary things happening Back then.

Speaker 2:

We were still embroiled in our forever war that felt like it had no hope of ever ending and there was just a feeling of general helplessness and being trapped inside of you know, a horrible nightmare situation with the pandemic and all of the other things going on in 2020. And I just it kind of started with the idea of like what if you could open a door in your house and go anywhere? What if there was a way to end our forever war and end the horrors caused by that with one person and one spell? You know what if we could do that? And that was kind of some of the early parts of the idea soup that went into the story. And then I've always thought that libraries have their own magic and I knew I wanted to have a magical library, like a literally magical library, and I wanted it to feel almost like its own character in the story. So that was something I've always wanted in the book and it's going in this one.

Speaker 2:

In the middle of all of that lockdown, I was also kind of dealing with feeling sad about the first book that I put in the query trenches, did not make it. It's on my shelf and it will probably stay on my shelf until I don't know the distant future. And I decided while I was on vacation with my family and I was reading Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson, I was like I'm going to write a book that just has everything in it that makes me happy, because there's so much in that book that made me happy and I just kind of dove into writing this with, like you know what, this magic library? It's going to have lemurs in it. Do there have to be lemurs in the magic library? No, but it makes me happy. So there was a lot of stuff like that. Grevia was one of the early characters that I wrote that was like she just makes me happy. I want a grumpy witch in there, like looking after these teenagers and rolling her eyes at them, you know.

Speaker 1:

That describes her perfectly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. There are a lot of little touches like that. That I'm like does it have to exist? No, but it makes me happy. So it's done and, fortunately for me, it made other people happy too. Yes, too yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

Whenever I read the lemurs in the library I was like, oh, that is so cool, I've never heard of that.

Speaker 2:

And especially when they were sleeping, that was adorable yeah, that was just me being my own hope witch.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Um, how did you balance some of the fantasy elements kind of with the romantic elements, because they really, of course, play in tandem throughout the book?

Speaker 2:

I'm gonna try not to be spoilery when I answer this, because I don't know if your listeners will have read the book yet or not, so I'm gonna assume they have it. For me, the romance pushed Elia forward with her magic, even though he wasn't directly like teaching her how to do it or, like, you know, putting out a clear path for her or anything. I think that because of the situation that he ended up in and her desperation with her brother, she found the strength she needed to do the thing that she needed to do, and I think that that was kind of her fuel for solving the problem that she might have stayed inside her shell and never really pushing herself without him and without the desperation that made her need him in the first place. So yeah, I mean, I think she found a lot to respect in him, his courage and bravery, and I think in a lot of ways, that fueled her own courage and bravery.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense and I feel like also just Elia, having to go on that entire journey really pushed her, and even one of the witches said something about like you know how her magic, how she didn't even know what it could unlock yet because she had only done the things that she was used to and for her family and to help them, and so she hadn't ever tried to push herself, so that that totally makes sense, that it was kind of a driving force for her. Definitely, which character's growth are you most proud of and why?

Speaker 2:

There are a lot of characters so this might be hard to choose. Yeah, it kind of is hard to choose, but I have to say Elia, I really wanted to portray a character that had to learn not to hold back from her own potential, but also how and when and why to pursue her strengths. Because one of the lessons she learns, kind of off page, in her earlier life is that pursuing your own potential can be dangerous to people around you and can cause harm, and that's why she's kind of stuck in her shell, just getting by coming up with a solution to her financial problems. That she does, which is not a great solution for anybody, but it's because she's not embracing her own potential, because she's scared of the outcome.

Speaker 2:

If I push my magic, if I reach as far as I know that I might be able to, people will get hurt, and because of everything that happened when she was younger. And so one of the things I really wanted to bring out in her is that it's not just that you are stronger and more capable than you ever imagined yourself to be, which definitely is a theme I wanted for her, but it was also that part of reaching for your potential is the wisdom of learning how to do that that part of experience and growth is learning, like when is it appropriate for me to push myself? And like kind of considering others and the impact, the wider impact, of reaching for your potential. But I think that her trauma and fear in the aftermath of the things that she did early on kind of paralyzed her from growing her gifts in a healthy way. So that was kind of her journey in my mind was reaching this point where she could embrace her own growth.

Speaker 1:

And nope, that would be a spoiler. Nevermind, I can't say that. I know it's really hard to talk about. Yeah, I was about to say something about. Um, yeah, no, I can't Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a lot to talk about with how that plays out, but, um, I really don't want to ruin it for anybody.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, we try, try to keep it spoiler free. Um, it's definitely hard sometimes. Uh, speaking of that, what, uh, what was your favorite scene to write? Do you have one that kind of stands out in your head?

Speaker 2:

yes, and it's not spoilery. Um, it's actually a character art of it. Um, it's ellia and tris in the library when they go and they see the lemurs and they have, you know, a few romantic moments and some banter and you kind of see both of them in their magical element. You see a little bit of his lormance magic and a little bit of her condoresa magic and a lot of romantic tension and it was really fun to write and you can see the character art on your instagram, which I will also link in the show notes so just throwing that out there, you can, you can see it too yeah, jelly cow did a great job.

Speaker 2:

And will it be available with pre-orders? Yes, that's part of the pre-order package. If you order from parnassus or the bookshelves, um, you can get, uh, character art with it, so yeah, um, and then what side character did you enjoy most writing throughout the book? I well, this is hard. I think Revia though.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I love, I love Maisie so much. Um, she is like the big sister, like I will go to the mat for my family and friends. And Revia was like, yes, you can drag me to the mat, you know, but she was just so fun to write. I loved writing her gross little shop and, um, just how sarcastic she is with Isaac and, yeah, like she has no shame about like putting a child to work in her shop in exchange for something she probably should be giving them anyways. Yeah, she was just so much fun and I love that she had this like whole life and history and connections off page that she was willing to, you know, use to help them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, she definitely added a lot of layers to the story and, of course, maisie was so fun. It's so nice that, even though Aaliyah has a lot on her plate, she can always you know, she has someone kind of in her corner, like that that's not necessarily expecting something from her, like her family or you know, that's just there because they love her yeah, I get, and I love the idea of an enchanted bakery. Yes, is there anything else that you would like listeners to know about the book?

Speaker 2:

You know it comes out on Tuesday. A lot of love and hope went into it and I hope that when people read it, if you are in a hard place, that it sits with you in the dark and holds your hand and just provides a moment of relief and comfort. That's why I wrote it for myself and that's what I'm hoping that it gives to people when they read it.

Speaker 1:

It definitely did for me. And yeah, not only is the magic system really good, but it will suck you in and you'll be very very invested in it and I cannot wait to get my physical copy. Thank you so much, Sasa, for coming on today. That's it. Thank you for listening to when I Left Off a bookish podcast. You can visit the links in the show notes to order and, of course, follow Sasa on social media. Unlock the Dark is available anywhere. Books are sold starting February 25th. Thank you.