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Read local with these new books by local writers

Two local writers have new books coming out. Recently, Gig Harbor Now talked to them about their craft:

Champion of Fate, by Kendare Blake

Quill Tree Books, 480 pages. $19.99

New York Times best-selling author Kendare Blake says she usually gets an idea for a book every two years.
She might learn a new fact from a science journal. She might overhear an intriguing conversation at a coffee shop. She might meet a bee keeper who tells her how a queen is chosen.

And while she is waiting for the spark for her next young adult novel, Blake fantasizes about other worlds. She thinks about Alexander the Great, vampires, the Trojan Wars.

Kendare Blake of Gig Harbor is the author of “Champion of Fate” and 15 other young adult fantasy novels.

Her books have to find their own way, she says. Whether writing fantasy, horror or mythology, she builds a world around a character.

The spark for her most recent book, “Champion of Fate,” took longer to arrive than it did with her previous 15 books. She fears the ideas are coming more slowly than they did when she was in her 20s or 30s.

Eventually Blake settled on the words, “Behind every great man, there is a woman.”

Traditionally, that adage probably meant that someone cooks the man’s dinner and does his laundry, thus freeing him up to be amazing.

But, Blake wondered, what if there were a fighting woman behind a heroic man? What if his success actually began with a brave girl — a child who was chosen and trained by a society of women?

Blake describes her new book like this: “ ‘Champion of Fate’ is my love letter to the epic fantasies of my youth. Immortal warriors and immortal horses, secret orders, heroes on a journey. To the Amazons and the Jedi. To the Iliad and Mists of Avalon. To Lord of the Rings. And yes, to Xena, Warrior Princess.”

“Champion of Fate” is the newest young adult fantasy novel by Gig Harbor resident Kendare Blake.

Her stories are not influenced at all by her real-life surroundings, she says.

Blake and her husband moved to Gig Harbor from Kent in 2018. Their home includes two dogs and three cats, one of whom pretty much sets the daily schedule for Blake’s writing.

Her Sphinx cat does not play with the other animals. And it is impossible to write when a cat wants to sit on your shoulder, Blake notes. Luckily, he takes a long morning nap, allowing her to write more than 1,000 words a day. In the afternoon, her subconscious keeps working on what she will write the next day.

Blake is a successful author, with various of her books making the young adult best-selling lists for weeks at a time. Her “Three Dark Crowns” series was especially popular. Disney, Fox, and Warner Brothers have all been interested in turning one of her books into a movie, though none, so far, have made it to the screen.

She is busy on the final revisions to the second and final “Champion of Fate,” story. But Blake makes time to stop in Gig Harbor’s local Invitation Bookshop. “I was so excited when they opened up 10 minutes from my house,” she says of the store at 5125 Olympic Dr. No. 104. “They call me if any of my readers wants a book signed.”

The One-Way Ticket Plan, by Alexa West

New World Library, 315 pages. $19.95.

Alexa West writes how-to travel guides especially for women who want to travel alone. Her “Solo Girl’s Travel Guides” offer tips for visiting Thailand, South Korea, Mexico City, or any of a dozen more far off places.

But with her latest book, “The One-Way Ticket Plan,” West tells a larger story. She writes about not just the “how-to” but the “why.”

“Alone time is a precious gift,” she writes. “Use this time to explore outside your comfort zone whether that means talking to strangers or meditating in a park … Don’t give into loneliness. Use it as a catalyst for discovery and creativity!”

Alexa West, author of “The One-Way Ticket Plan” and other books for women traveling alone

You don’t have to choose a destination that makes you scared, she says. But don’t mistake being nervous about the unknown for being scared of crime. Just do your research and avoid high-crime areas. She points out that she is safer walking at night in Seoul than in Seattle. (Where she now lives part of each year with a man she loves.)

You will be tempted to travel with a friend, she knows. But when you travel alone, “you can break character,” West writes. “Whether you intend to or not, when you look at your friend, you will be looking into a mirror from home — and that’s not the point of the trip. The point is to break the mirror and see yourself from a different angle.”

At the age of 35, West looks back on a childhood that gave her a certain amount of freedom.

When West was a little girl, living in Texas, her parents divorced and her mom brought the children to Gig Harbor to be near their grandparents.

Growing up in small-town Gig Harbor gave her confidence, West says. She felt safe in her world — whether walking through the woods or walking to Starbucks.

And still, when she travels, she finds herself drawn to water and forests and outdoor adventures. “I think nature was embedded in me in Gig Harbor,” she says.

“The One-Way Ticket Plan,” the latest book by Gig Harbor High graduate Alexa West.

West graduated from Gig Harbor High in 2006 and went on to University of Washington. As graduation neared, she pictured a traditional future, married to her college boyfriend.

“But he broke up with me,” she says, still sounding surprised. So … she joined the Peace Corps and went to Bulgaria. And after that, she still wasn’t ready to come home.

She taught English in South Korea and then in Taiwan, then worked in a hostel in Cambodia, then began house sitting in Costa Rica and then Mexico, and then went on to more adventures.

Along the way she began self-publishing books for women. She wrote about staying safe, making money and living for a long time or a short time in all the various places she had lived. She amassed a following on Facebook.

For “The One-Way Ticket Plan,” she wanted a traditional publisher. Finding an agent, writing an 80-page proposal with a market analysis — this is what she needed to do to reach more young women, she says.

“I want to encourage young women,” West says. She wrote her book to her 21-year-old self — a person who had, so far, had the terms of her life defined by parents and teachers and community and who was setting out to become independent and find her own purpose.