The Book Room Presents Hannah Kaner

 The Book Room Presents Hannah Kaner

Artisan @ the Biscuit Factory, 19th March 2025

Last night's book event with Hannah Kaner was a fun and fascinating discussion about Hannah's new book, Faithbreaker, the third book in Hannah's Fallen Gods trilogy.  Hannah was in conversation with Naomi Kelsey, author of the historical novel The Burnings, and the upcoming The Darkening Globe. 

With two north-eastern authors talking in front of a Newcastle audience, we started with a discussion of the numerous Geordie terms that Hannah was able to sneak into her books, terms that apparently had her American editors questioning whether they were actually typos! Apparently a lot of the geography in her series is inspired by the coastline of the North East, from beaches of golden sands to hard, black rock sills, and though none of her characters are actually Geordie, it being a fantasy world and all, those influences crept in in their language.

Talk then turned to food, and the range and quality of the bread descriptions within the novels. Hannah talked about the cultural significance of different breads, how every culture has its own variation of it, and how it so often becomes a food type that invokes memories of home, referencing her grandmother's love of Irish soda bread as an example. She also talked about baking as a labour of love, not to mention technically difficult, a chemistry opposed to the alchemy of cooking. When she was looking for what her knight did after laying down his sword, baking was a very good fit.

This wasn't the only time talk turned to different cultures, and there was a lot of discussion about what happens when different cultures meet, and the blending of architecture, traditions and faith that you can often find on the borders of two distinct cultural groups. There was also talk of the darker side of this, with the loss of cultural knowledge as one group systematically disposes of the stored knowledge of another culture and how often this is linked to regime changes, tyranny and despotism. Modern links were not hard to find!

Diversity was a huge topic of conversation. There were two major threads to this, as Hannah was praised for both her queer representation and her disabled representation. She talked about how, so often in fiction, the queer experience is portrayed as one of isolation and aloneness, but how her own personal experiences were that people sought out other people like them, and found understanding, support and community. That sense of community was one she really wanted to portray in her own writing. Her disabled representation came out of the need for a sacrifice to open the novel, of blood and flesh and bone, and then her realisation that this meant that she'd be writing a disabled character. She spoke eloquently about the dangers of writing a disabled character, of trying to do it justice, but as a bare minimum being respectful. Her research showed her that often in fiction, the disabled experience is portrayed as one of isolation and aloneness, but how people actually sought out other people like them, and found understanding, support and community. She also talked about her use of authenticity readers and sensitivity readers, to make sure she was getting it right. 

One area that didn't need that expert eye was world building. Hannah talked about her city of bridges, and how a structural engineer friend of hers told her that it was impossible, the city just wouldn't stay up. Her answer to this was simple, "It was built by gods!" These are, after all, fantasy novels and where would they be without a touch of the fantastical? The city was described as "Ponte Vecchio meets Argonath from Lord of the Rings" and structural issues were insignificant in the face of gods!

There was also a discussion of Hannah's next project, which had my companion squealing in excitement at each line, so we're eagerly looking forward to that coming out next year!

In the mean time, Faithbreaker sounds like a wonderful new fantasy novel. Hannah described it to her editor as "Gawain and Furiosa travelling across Troy" and although her editor suggested that be changed to "Witcher meets American Gods" it's still enough to get me reading!

The Book Room Presents Hannah Kaner was organised by Forum Books.

Faithbreaker is out now, published by Harper Collins