Interview: Mary Elizabeth Hall, author of Amberly

I first met Mary Elizabeth Hall at the American Christian Fiction Writers conference in 2011. At that time she was pitching a book with a hard-to-pin-down genre. As we discussed it, I thought perhaps she had an alternate history, but once I got a look at some pages, I realized that she had written a book in the lovely microniche Caprice Hokstad dubbed “sword opera.” This is fantasy, but not high fantasy. No sorcerers, no dragons, just people working out their troubles in a realm that’s sort of — but not entirely — like our own. Mary’s first book, Amberly, is set in a storyworld akin to Northern Europe in the eighteenth century. Since Amberly just came out, I thought this was a good chance to sit down with a pot of tea and have a chat.

Kristen: Thanks for joining us, Mary. How long did it take you to…