1.- Could you introduce yourself to Jamreads’ readers?
Hello, and thank you for spotlighting me on Jamreads! I’m L. D. Colter, a speculative fiction author who primarily writes contemporary dark fantasy novels for adults, though my short stories span the speculative spectrum of science fiction, horror, humor, and fantasy from secondary-world to contemporary. I have two previously published novels, A Borrowed Hell, a contemporary adult fantasy, and The Halfblood War, my stand-alone epic fantasy. Currently, my set of three stand-alone, contemporary (or near-modern), myth-based dark fantasy novels are releasing from Solaris Nova at Rebellion Publishing, the first in the Perilous Gods set is While the Gods Sleep.

2.- When did you start writing?
I began off-and-on novel writing with an eye to publication about twenty-five years ago, and my short stories first started getting published about fifteen years ago. I’ve always been drawn to reading and writing, though, and I daydreamed about writing my own novels for many years before I finally started.

3.- How did the first idea for The Perilous Gods series appear?
I’ve loved stories of mythology from around the world and fantasy books dealing with folklore for almost as long as I’ve been able to read, but I’ve always had a special love of Greek mythology. It was great fun to begin my set in an alternate 1958 Greece, and send my character into an underworld filled with my own versions of the Greek deities and monsters, especially getting to play with some of the lesser-known ones. Even as I wrote the first one, I knew that I wanted it to be the start of a set of books based on myths from different cultures.

4.- Talking about the overarching series, why did you choose those three particular pantheons (Greek, Slavic, Mayan) to develop your stories?
Greek because it was my earliest passion, reading and re-reading both the actual myths and the fantasy re-imaginings written by other authors. However, after finishing While the Gods Sleep, I wanted to pivot from the most commonly retold cultural myths to lore that’s less frequently used.
Slavic because I’d been exposed to some of the stories but not many, and I wanted to learn more. One of the earliest books I owned was a lovely illustrated children’s book of Russian fairytales. I still have that book today. As an adult, I read Katherine Arden’s Winternight series, plus a handful of other novels that had versions of Chernobog and the Zorya sisters, Baba Yaga and Koschei, vodyanoy and rusalka, and other characters that made me want to delve deeper into researching the tales.
Maya lore was one I was almost entirely unfamiliar with. I was casting about for ideas for my new book and ran across an Aztec goddess of filth, sex, sin, purification, and absolution. I was hooked! Although I eventually decided to go with Maya lore and set the book in 1960 Guatemala, I couldn’t discard that goddess. I ended up combining Mesoamerican lore—similar to the way the Aztec and Maya cultures often came together in ancient history and influenced each other, along with smaller groups like the Pipil and Lacandón. Like my other books, even the Greek one, it took a lot of research, and each of my books ended up taking two to three years to produce a final draft.

5.- Could you tell us more about how the acquisition process for this series was?
As with so much in traditional publishing, a lot of it came down to good luck. I’d been querying the novels individually as I completed them. (People who read books cover to cover, like myself, may notice that the copyright date on While the Gods Sleep is 2018, since I had briefly self-published the book while I wrote the other two. Books two and three have never been published before.) When all three were completed, timing was on my side since Solaris Nova had recently opened as a digital-first arm of the speculative-fiction powerhouse, Solaris Books, an imprint of Rebellion Publishing, Ltd. Unlike other publishers, who will usually only consider one book at a time—even if they’re willing to factor in “series potential”—Solaris Nova requested series information…and here I was with all three books completed and the queries and synopses already written! The first book had never fit a self-pub model, being a standalone with years between it and the next book I completed, but it had a flattering Publishers Weekly review and had won the Colorado Book Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy. I was beyond thrilled when I received an offer for all three books from my editor, Amanda Raybould.

6.- Regarding While the Gods Sleep, why did you choose to use such a character as Ty as the lead?
It was my goal from the start to use an “everyman” as the main character for each book and intentionally avoid the “chosen one” trope. I’ve always loved the tortured hero, the ordinary guy who has been beaten down by life or faces overwhelming odds he has to overcome to survive: Billy Harrow in China Miéville’s Kraken; Nhi Vanye in CJ Cherryh’s Morgaine series, Nate Tucker in Peter Clines’ novel, 14. In While the Gods Sleep, Eutychios Kleisos (with the Americanized nickname of Ty) is a locksmith who gets manipulated into progressively more dire circumstances by the powerful beings who invade his life.

7.- Is there a particular character you want the readers to notice?
That’s a tough one without introducing spoilers. China Miéville and his style of “new weird” fiction were a huge influence at the time I was writing this book. Outside of Ty, my “everyman,” I really pushed all the other characters to be as unique and weirdly eerie as possible. The book begins in a slightly alternative 1958 Athens, Greece, as shown in the first chapter with the conjoined twin queens on a coin. I had great fun developing the queens, but honestly, I had great fun developing every single character in the book as well as the fully developed underworld of Erebus, where most of the book takes place.

8.- What can we expect from L.D. Colter in the future?
When the Winds Sing, Book Two of The Perilous Gods (Slavic), is coming out November 20th and is available for preorder now, and the third book, Where the Shadows Dwell (Maya), will be out January 2026. Book Three will be the final book in this myth-based set. After that, I plan to begin working on an unrelated, literary-leaning fantasy novel. I have some ideas outlined for it already but, due to other commitments, it’ll be a few months before I’m able to start on it in earnest.