The world came together first when I saw NASA’s announcement about the discovery of potentially habitable planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Much of the basic details of Nova Vita are based off that system, including the red dwarf star and five planets in the habitable zone, which are close enough to see each other in the sky. The graphics NASA made, including a super cool fake travel poster about “planet hopping,” really sparked my imagination. I started to imagine a water planet, an ice planet, a world overtaken by jungle, and more. But that universe remained in the back of my brain, interesting but unpopulated, for about a year. Until one day, when I was watching the show Animal Kingdom and thought: I would love to write about a family of criminals. When I mashed the two ideas together and came up with the concept of a family smuggling contraband between the close-together planets, Fortuna was born.

What were the challenges in developing this new system where humanity has found its home?

It was definitely challenging coming up with five different planets with distinct cultures and geographical traits, and making sure that they each come through clearly on the page. In terms of the overall system, it was difficult at times to keep a clear image of a universe so different from the one I’m used to. The fact that the planets are tidally locked and it’s always daytime tripped me up in the first draft; I kept envisioning scenes taking place at night, and had to remind myself it was always light out for Nova Vitans.

Did you do any specific research to build the technology and universe?

Lots of it! Though it’s not my usual process, I put in quite a lot of research before I even began to write. Much of my early research revolved around what life would potentially look like in a system like TRAPPIST-1, including a red dwarf star and tidally locked planets. One of my favorite details was plants being black to absorb as much light as possible. When developing Devan flora, I researched strange plants that exist in our own world: for example, touch-me-nots, which have explosive seed pods, and the stinging tree that can cause painful rashes lasting upward of a year. And, while it only shows up briefly in this book, figuring out how an underwater prison would work was a bit headache inducing. I eventually based its structure off the designs for Dubai’s Water Discus Underwater Hotel, and looked into the effects on divers of extended periods underwater.

Scorpia and Corvus have such vivid voices. How did you tackle making each of them sound so drastically different, especially using a first-person voice? Was one of them more difficult to write?