Interview with author E.E Star
hi everyone! I’m so sorry excited for this interview. I just finished the ARC for The Violet Raven and it was absolutely incredible. If you love historical romance and fantasy you’ll love this book. After finishing I had to reach out to the amazing author who brought this story to life and see if she would willing to be interviewed for the blog and she said yes! I’m going to drop a bit about her and some links below. Give her a follow on socials and all the things because more is coming!
about E.E. Star:
I'm a reader and natural born storyteller. I've been obsessed with writing romance and fantasy since secondary school. Before college, I discovered the romance aisle inside a 2nd & Charles, and my life has never been the same. I am a playful person by nature, but my writing contains much more emotion than I normally outwardly show. I work hard to make my characters as authentic as possible, and draw inspiration from the people in my life. When I'm not reading or writing, I'm travelling, puzzling, listening to Mumford & Sons and raising two beautiful little girls with my husband.
Five Things About Me
- James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser is the most desirable book boyfriend ever.
- I’m a Disney Adult. If you want to talk about Disney, in any faucet, I would gladly do so, no matter who you are.
- Mumford and Sons is my favourite band.
- I have exactly one hidden talent, and it’s signing.
- By day, I’m a forensic accountant, and at night I’m bringing hunky dreamboats to life!
Check out her website to sign up for her newsletter:
Follow her on instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/author_e.e.star?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
follow her on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@author_e.e.star?_t=ZP-8wBoXaaeciV&_r=1
linktree for preorder links:
Enjoy the interview!!
❤️Carrie
What inspired the idea for The Violet Raven, and how did the story first take shape in your mind?
I hope you're ready for this short story of mine...
Like many, I’ve always found history deeply compelling. When something sparks my curiosity, I fall down the rabbit hole—binging podcasts, devouring documentaries, and chasing every thread I can find. One topic that grabbed hold of me in a big way was the Jacobite rebellion. And yes, I fully credit (or blame) Outlander for that initial spark.
With ancestral roots in both Ireland and Scotland, my fascination quickly became personal. My legal name literally means Ireland, and that’s always felt like something sacred—like a quiet echo of where I come from. The more I learned about the Celtic nations, the more engrossed I became in understanding not just the culture and myth, but the centuries of systematic oppression their people endured.
The idea for this book struck me unexpectedly—during a detour researching immigration records and Ellis Island manifests. I was hit by a single, haunting thought: What would Ireland look like today if the Great Famine had never happened?It’s a staggering thing to consider. In 1841, Ireland’s population was over 8 million. Just a decade later, over 6.6 million were either dead or displaced. And that’s after centuries of erasure, colonization, and cultural suppression. The famine wasn’t just a humanitarian catastrophe—it was a cultural one.
So if that kind of history fires you up—if it makes your heart ache and your blood burn a little—then this book is absolutely for you.
The book blends elements of fantasy, mystery, and psychological drama. How did you balance these genres while writing the novel?
I think the great thing about fantasy is that it allows you to stretch truths and break barriers in ways that aren’t always afforded to non-fantasy fiction. With this book, I leaned into that freedom—taking Irish mythology, which has been translated and reinterpreted across centuries, and shaping it to suit the emotional and thematic core of the story. Myth, at its heart, is already mysterious. We don’t fully know its origins, and that gives it a kind of psychological power.
Balancing all three genres—fantasy, mystery, and psychological drama—came down to understanding that they weren’t competing elements, but complementary ones. The fantasy gave the story its shape and scale. The mystery kept the momentum going, unraveling both the plot and the characters’ own understanding of themselves. And the psychological drama grounded everything in raw, personal stakes. If I ever felt stuck, I’d return to the characters’ emotional truths—because once I knew what they feared, what they longed for, and what they were hiding, the genre elements naturally fell into place.
I could talk about mythology all day, but I’ll leave readers with this: if you’re curious, look up The Book of Invasions. It’s the kind of ancient, layered text that makes you wonder how much we’ve forgotten—and how much is waiting to be rediscovered.
The titular “Violet Raven” is a powerful and mysterious symbol. What does it represent to you, and how did you develop its significance in the story?
It's a symbol that threads through the entire story, representing identity, transformation, and ancestral power. Ravens have long been associated with prophecy, death, and rebirth across Celtic mythology, often acting as messengers between realms. Violet, as a color, carries connotations of magic, mystery, and sovereignty. When paired together, they embody the heart of Triona’s journey: a young woman caught between the world she knows and the one calling to her from deep within.
Can you share a bit about your main character’s journey? Was there a particular personal or literary influence behind them?
A lot of Triona was shaped by the women I admire most—those who carry heavy things with grace and grit. She also draws inspiration from classic literary heroines like Jane Eyre, Katniss Everdeen, Claire Fraser, and Éowyn from The Lord of the Rings—women who resist being defined by their circumstances and who find strength not in spite of their tenderness, but because of it.
There’s also a personal thread. I wrote Triona during a time when I was asking hard questions about who I was outside of what others expected of me. In many ways, she became my answer. She’s resilient, she’s deeply flawed, and she doesn’t give up.
The setting in The Violet Raven is vivid and atmospheric. How did you go about world-building, and were there real-world inspirations for any of the locations?
Much of the setting is inspired by real places in Ireland and Scotland. I spent months studying landscapes, old maps, and the histories tied to them—not just the well-known sites, but the forgotten, the weathered, the sacred. Uisneach Hill, for example, plays a key role in the story. It’s considered the mythological center of Ireland, and it carries this quiet gravity that I tried to reflect in the scenes that take place there.
Connemara Castle, known as the world Keiss Castle, also became a symbol of the thin boundary between worlds—the sea behind it representing what’s lost, what’s waiting, and what’s calling.
But world-building went beyond geography. I thought a lot about how trauma shapes a place, how songs and silences pass through generations, and what it means to walk through land that remembers what people would rather forget. The goal was never just to create a setting—it was to build a world that felt haunted, hallowed, and unmistakably home.
Did any part of the writing process surprise you—either in terms of plot developments or character growth?
Honestly, how much I cried while writing this story took me by surprise. There were moments it felt like I was breaking open parts of myself I didn’t even know existed—pouring my soul onto the page in ways I hadn’t expected. I feel a deep, almost unshakable connection to these characters. They mean so much to me.
That’s what’s wild about it all—because not even eighteen months ago, they were just scattered thoughts, bits of dialogue, and half-formed ideas in a notebook. Now, I know them better than I know most people. I know what they would or wouldn’t do, I know their deepest flaws, and I see clearly what they’ll have to face in order to grow. Some of that growth is going to be painful. Some of it will be beautiful. And I genuinely can’t wait for readers to witness that journey right alongside me.
What was the most challenging part of writing this book, and how did you overcome it?
Believing in myself was the most challenging part. Trusting my instincts. Not second-guessing every decision. I had to come to peace with the idea that—even if the book flopped—I still did what I set out to do: I turned my thoughts into action. I gave this story a voice. That alone felt like a triumph.
But it was also about learning to sit with emotional discomfort—both my characters’ and my own. This isn’t just a story about magic or mythology; it’s a story about grief, identity, trauma, and love that doesn’t always fit into the boxes it’s expected to. Writing those themes authentically meant going deep—into old memories, into fears I hadn’t fully faced, and into a kind of raw vulnerability that doesn’t come easy.
There were entire chapters that left me emotionally wrung out. I’d finish a scene and just sit there, stunned—because something in me had shifted. That’s a hard place to write from, but also the most honest.
What got me through was remembering why I started. I kept coming back to the characters—how real they’d become to me, how much I wanted to do right by them. I also gave myself permission to write badly, cry often, and revise when I was ready. Some days, the only goal was to show up and trust that even the messiest draft held something true.
That trust—and that emotional risk—ended up becoming the very heart of the book.
Themes of identity, loss, and transformation run through the novel. What drew you to these themes, and what do you hope readers take away from them?
These themes have always fascinated me—probably because they’re universal. We all, in one way or another, wrestle with who we are, who we’ve been told to be, and who we might become. I didn’t intentionally set out to write a book centered on those themes, but they emerged naturally as I wrote. The more I understood Triona—her grief, her power, her doubts—the more I realized this story was about becoming. Not just surviving loss, but being changed by it. And choosing to keep going, even when everything you thought you knew about yourself has been stripped away.
What I hope readers take away is this: You are allowed to mourn the versions of yourself that no longer fit. You are allowed to question your path, to feel lost, to grieve deeply. But you are also allowed to rise. To evolve. To become something more than you ever imagined—something powerful, even if it’s still a little broken. Especially if it’s still a little broken.
How has your journey as a writer evolved since starting The Violet Raven? Has your perspective changed on storytelling or authorship?
When I first sat down to write it, I wasn’t thinking about craft or market trends or what made a story “work.” I just had this persistent feeling—this need—to tell a story that felt ancient and personal all at once. I wrote from instinct, from emotion, from a place that wasn’t always logical but was deeply honest.
I used to think of being a writer as something separate from who I was—as if I had to earn the title. Now I see it differently. Writing is how I make sense of the world. It’s how I connect, how I heal, how I fight back against silence. And once I embraced that, the fear started to fall away.
I still second-guess myself sometimes, but now I understand: the story matters more than the doubt.
Are there any hints you can give readers about what’s next—perhaps a sequel or a new project in the works?
We’re currently in the pre-production stages for the audiobook, which is set to release this fall—and I couldn’t be more excited! There’s something incredibly special about hearing a story come to life in a whole new way, especially for those who love to experience books through sound. This will be a multicast production, performed in duet narration by five incredibly talented voice actors. I’ll be doing a big reveal for the cast early next month, and trust me—you’re going to fall in love with them.
As for the series itself… I couldn’t possibly stop at one. Everyone deserves their HEA. So far, I’ve plotted three full-length books and two novellas (because let’s be honest—there’s no way I was going to give you just a sliver of James and Ellen’s story 😘). There’s so much more to explore in this world, and I can’t wait to take you deeper into the lore, the love, and the legacy of these characters.
thanks for reading!
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