Jadah was introduced to the world as the ill-fated younger cousin of Amber in WolfSong. Known for her sharp tongue and off-beat sense of humour, being dead hasn't stopped her following Amber and the squad around the Crescent and beyond.
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Q: Thanks for agreeing to the interview. Tell us a bit about yourself?
A: You do know I'm dead, right? Life-challenged? I suppose you could call me an ex-hawk.
Q: The life-challenged thing has been mentioned, yes. What are the hawks? Can you give us some background?
A: Hawks are one of the three main races in the Crescent, the country I'm from. The other two are humans and the Clans - the werewolves. There are others, like the fey, but they tend to keep to themselves.
Q: There are exceptions, though? Brin, for instance.
A: The fey king, yah. He has a thing for Amber. I hope it passes soon, but I think he's well and truly smitten.
Q: You sound concerned. Is that a bad thing? I'd think Amber deserves a bit of happiness, to be honest.
A: He's an immortal royal who loves politics. Amber is a half-blood hawk who thinks with her sword first, and has all the tact of a drunken buffalo. There is no way this will end well, for either of them, and she knows it. Why do you think she left the Crescent so fast? Happiness would be nice, but I'm not sure Amber would know what to do with it.
Q: Why are there mixed squads on the borders and not the internal Crescent, where your squad is from?
A: The short answer is: because people can be bastards.
Q: A little more detail would be nice…
A: That entails a bit of a history lesson, then. Hawks were on the Crescent for a very long time. Then the wolf folk came, followed closely by humans. Best I can tell they were fleeing a war of some sort - you want Garliaan for the historical stuff - and they entered the Crescent as refugees. The folk that settled on the borders mixed well and thoroughly with the hawks and the werewolves both. The ones that had a problem with the species difference headed for the interior, hoping to find their own place. The result is a bunch that don't play well with others, and there's a lot of resentment of the hawks because of certain laws. The little things, like mandatory education and women having the same status as men. There's a certain kind of person that doesn't like that.
Q: Wouldn't it be easier to just leave those communities alone?
A: Our country, our rules. And here's the thing: thoughts like that spread. It's like a disease, and it doesn't take much for them to catch hold. Even some hawks fall to it, and that is intolerable. Our job is to hold the Crescent safe, and you can't do that if you hate your charges.
Q: So the squads are the Crescent police?
A: More like a combination between your police and army. We ride the borders as well as internally, and if it comes to a war, we're the ones on the front lines. And most of your police don't use magic.
Q: None of our police use magic. They use technology and forensics.
A: You keep telling yourself that, if it makes you sleep better. We have science, and scientists. Magic and science are pretty compatible, when you use them the right way. Stating something doesn't exist because you don't believe in it makes no sense at all.
Q: But you have the Shrike cult, which doesn't believe in it either. They've caused a lot of trouble on the Crescent in the past.
A: There's a difference in not believing in something, and loathing it. And the Shrike cult is still causing trouble; that won't stop.
Q: How come you came back as ghost?
A: Because it was better than coming back as a garden slug? Because I needed a hobby? Pick one.
Q: In WolfSong, you said you were sent.
A: I was. Look, I can't go into too much detail about who runs the afterlife. But I'm back for a reason, because if something isn't done, there won't be any more hawks. I can't stop geology, and you know what is going to happen to the Crescent. But I can help try to save my species, and to do that, I need to be with my squad. To be specific, I need to be with Amber.
Q: So whoever's in the charge of the afterlife wants to save the hawks? Does Amber know this?
A: Would you want the entire species camping out on your doorstep at once? There are some things my cousin doesn't need to know just yet. Confusing someone who likes to solve problems with a sharp blade is not a good thing.
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You can catch up with Jadah in WolfSong and Blood Moon Dance, both available on kindle at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
