Blog Tour: Master of One by Jaida Jones and Dani Bennett (Interview!)

Item: Master of One
Author: Kaity

Posted November 10, 2020 by Kaity in Book Tours, Interviews / 1 Comment

Happy Tuesday and welcome to my stop on the MASTER OF ONE blog tour! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Jaida Jones and Dani Bennett to share with you! This book is truly amazing and I’m so so excited to for you to find out more about it!

Blog Tour: Master of One by Jaida Jones and Dani Bennett (Interview!)

Master of One by Jaida Jones, Danielle Bennett
Published on November 10, 2020 by HarperTeen
Genres: Fantasy, YA, Queer
Pages: 544
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Sinister sorcery. Gallows humor. A queer romance so glorious it could be right out of fae legend itself. Master of One is a fantasy unlike any other.
Rags is a thief—an excellent one. He's stolen into noble's coffers, picked soldier's pockets, and even liberated a ring or two off the fingers of passersby. Until he's caught by the Queensguard and forced to find an ancient fae relic for a sadistic royal sorcerer.
But Rags could never have guessed this "relic" would actually be a fae himself—a distractingly handsome, annoyingly perfect, ancient fae prince called Shining Talon. Good thing Rags can think on his toes, because things just get stranger from there...
With the heist and intrigue of Six of Crows and the dark fairy tale feel of The Cruel Prince, this young adult fantasy debut will have readers rooting for a pair of reluctant heroes as they take on a world-ending fae prophecy, a malicious royal plot, and, most dangerously of all, their feelings for each other.

If you could trade lives with any YA character for a day, who would it be and why? What about a week? A month, year, or forever?

DANI: This is a tough one because I feel like so many YA protagonists have terrible lives filled with terrible things happening to them! I would love to be Sheetal from Shveta Thakrar’s STAR DAUGHTER, because she’s the desi heroine I’ve always wanted.

JAIDA: I think I would like to be Sophia Bellamy from Sharon Cameron’s ROOK, because I have always wanted to be the Scarlet Pimpernel.

What would you do if you spent the day with Rags? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?

DANI: Rags loves his filthy city as much as we love filthy New York City, so I imagine any hangout would involve an exploration of the busy streets and hidden-gem spots only locals know about, strung together by street food carts and dessert spots. A trip to Smorgasburg, maybe? A lot of shoveling food into our faces.

JAIDA: Then we would go to a mattress store and take naps on all the beds to determine which was the most comfortable. Then more food shoveling. Rags is a simple thief, and he is very hungry.

If Rags were to hang out with characters from other YA books, who would they be and why?

DANI: I have often thought that Rags would fit in quite nicely with the crew from Six of Crows! He would respect Kaz’s competence even if personally he thinks the guy has a bit of a stick up his butt, and he would forever be bugging Inej to teach him tightrope walking. Personality-wise obviously he would be friendliest with Jesper and Nina since they don’t take themselves too seriously. Matthias would hate his ass but Matthias hates everyone.

JAIDA: Rags and Percy Jackson would absolutely get along and also: cause way too much trouble. Rags would be all, “Hey, can you ask your dad to do me a favor and turn me into a fish so I never have to go on an adventure again?” It would be great.

What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?

JAIDA: I am horrible, and I make Dani do all the research.

DANI: I love research and we were lucky enough to end up using the bulk of what I read up on! I think I ended up banking a few tomb puzzles for another book, which we will hopefully get to write someday in the future!

**What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from Master of One?**

JAIDA: Probably my favorite scene is one that sprung fully formed directly into my head after our lovely agent Tamar kindly reminded us that hundreds of thousands of words of yearning are cute and all, but characters actually kissing is chef’s kiss perfection. So for me, it’s a kiss scene! Toward the end of the book! But saying anything more might be too spoilery…

DANI: My favorite quote is from Morien, regarding hope: “Like any drug, it has its uses. Like any drug, too much is fatal.” He’s such a little asshole.

Were there alternate endings you considered, or did you always know where the story was headed?

JAIDA: We never know where the story is headed. OK, that’s not completely true. (It is, however, mostly true.) Usually, we have some vague ideas, beats we always intended to hit, suggestions we gave each other, hints we either erased or amplified depending on how things began to come together. But this book really, deeply changed from its first draft to its final form, a series of constant magical girl transformations that at times tried their best to get away from us.

DANI: While it is true that we started writing without much of an idea of where we’d end up, I do feel like the ending was the thing that required the least amount of editing. The beginning and middle parts got reworked exhaustively, but the end was, ironically, fairly solid from the first iteration.

Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett are married co-authors (without wanting to divorce yet) who live in Brooklyn with 8 cats. Danielle is from Victoria, British Columbia, and works freelance as an independent editor, proofreader and plagiarism checker. Jaida is a native New Yorker. Their published work includes four novels from the Volstovic Cycle, in addition to their many twitter rants on intersectional feminism and the NYC subway system. COMING FALL 2020 FROM HARPERTEEN: MASTER OF ONE.