Goodreads asked E.M. Johnson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

E.M. Johnson In middle school I loved Brian Jacques' Redwall series. Martin the Warrior was my favorite, but I hated how it ended - so I decided to try and write my own ending. It resulted in a HUGE fanfiction with lots of my own characters intermingled with Brian Jacques'. I didn't like it very much though - because it wasn't entirely mine. So, I started working on an idea with my own original characters. Malkarai, Cypha, and Dyspro were the first three, and they were in a war scenario. That changed VERY quickly. I hate war. I enjoy battles of one on one, but not war or the politics behind it. What developed after I removed the war element was pretty close in plot to the finished project in print now.

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