The surprises the characters give her couldn’t be more startling than in the case of Casey Riordan, who she had originally thought would be a secondary and very minor character. The characters have a life of their own, so they don’t necessarily do the things that I think they should do.” I don’t know what’s coming so I’m just as surprised as the reader is sometimes. “That’s what I love about the whole process is that it is very organic. Cindy shared that she will often have chapters written for the end of the book before she’s written the beginning. It seems contrary to high school English, but there are no outlines – beyond that of the historical framework which underpins the entire series – as the story is revealed to her, sometimes in small snippets of dialogue, or descriptive passage, a bit of narrative or secondary story lines. I don’t always necessarily know what they mean when they first present themselves,” Cindy explained, “but eventually as the book grows and becomes a bigger entity they start to make sense and I see where they fit.” “At the very beginning of the process of just imagining the book itself, it’s like everything is in a fog and I only see bits and pieces coming out of the fog. I began by asking Cindy what the process is like for her when starting on the journey to write a novel. Sitting in the comfort of the familiar surroundings, I ventured into unfamiliar waters as interviewer. We took care of the uncomfortable photography part that Cindy really doesn’t care too much for and settled in the living room to chat. So, when I sat down with Cindy Brandner in her home to discuss her new novel Flights of Angels the third instalment in the Exit Unicorns series, we were in pretty familiar waters. I had the pleasure of doing this exact thing recently, only she’s not just my favourite author, but also a dear friend. If you were able to sit down with your favourite author and interview him/her on their latest novel, what would you ask?

Cindy brandner exit unicorns series