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Katie O'Connor: Hi, listeners. I'm Audible Editor Katie O'Connor, and today I'm excited to be speaking with debut author Frances White, whose novel Voyage of the Damned is best described as a magical gay murder mystery cruise. Welcome, Frances.
Frances White: Hi. Thanks for having me.
KO: Thank you so much for being here. And I say best described, but also just best description. I mean, what a tagline. It immediately caught my attention. And now, just to set the stage for our listeners a bit, Voyage of the Damned takes place in the empire of Concordia. There are 12 provinces, each very different and named after a different animal, and 12 heirs to those provinces. Each heir has a blessing, or a magical ability, that has been gifted to them that signals that they are the heir and next ruler of the province. The 12 heirs embark on this voyage at sea together, really to celebrate a long-held peace in Concordia and look towards the future before they take over their provinces, when, one by one, the heirs start to get murdered. Our hero, Ganymedes, or Dee, of the Fish Province, becomes the de facto detective as he tries to figure out who among them is the murderer. There's so much here. This was such a rich narrative. What was the originating idea for the story?
FW: Yeah, that's a tough question because when I started the book, I was kind of in a difficult place with my writing. I was trying to get an agent for a long time, a literary agent, and it took me five years. And then the book I got an agent with died before it got published. Like, it got rejected. So, it was like six years in, and this was my fifth book that I'd written. I was getting to a stage where I was worrying too much about fitting the right trends or writing something that would definitely get published, definitely tick the boxes, and it was taking the joy out of writing for me a little bit.
So, my main focus when I wrote this book was, I just really wanted to write something that I love. Like, all the things that I love in a book, and don't listen to all the other voices. Just sort of indulge myself a bit. Fantasy is like my main genre that I love writing in. Magical, the whimsy, the politics. But also I really like murder mysteries as well. I always have. Sort of the classical setup that you get in an Agatha Christie book. And I thought, "Well, I've never combined them before," not in the very traditional sort of murder mystery way that you have a set of characters who are in a closed setting, a ticking clock going down, and them dying off one by one. But I thought that would be so much fun to combine with magic and see what different twists magic can bring to a murder mystery story. That's sort of the original idea where it started, to enjoy myself and write all the things I love and see what comes from it.
KO: You can definitely feel that joy come through when listening to the book. There is murder, but there's also humor. There are moments of joy in this, and you can tell that you had fun while writing it. And as you've just said, Voyage of the Damned is such a genre-bender. As you mentioned, Agatha Christie, right? Specifically, her novel I'm thinking And Then There Were None because of that locked-room murder mystery element here, and there is those comparisons. But talk to me more about your origins. Like, what authors and stories have shaped your tastes?
FW: This is a really good question because I read in a lot of different genres. I studied English literature, so I've read historical stuff, a lot of fantasy, sci-fi as well, murder mysteries, romance. I don't really have any particular authors that I follow, but I definitely have books I adore. One of the stories that inspired this was Gideon the Ninth, which is a very voicey sci-fi, which is, I wouldn't call it murder mystery, but it's similar. There's a lot of characters who are sort of thrust together and put in a sort of locked setting and hijinks happen. And because that book was so voicey and so much fun, I was like, "Maybe I can write something that's also really voicey and embraces that."
"I just really wanted to write something that I love... Just sort of indulge myself a bit."
KO: There's definitely a strong voice here. And we will get to our hero in a minute, but I'm curious, there are so many players with the 12 heirs to the provinces, and they have very different backgrounds. And then, of course, there's the crimes to keep track of and the clues. How did you keep yourself organized while writing?
FW: Yeah, with great difficulty. It was, without a doubt, the hardest challenge was to keep it all organized. I got to a point where I realized that I needed to use spreadsheets. So I really like using spreadsheets after this. They kept me sane. I had loads of different spreadsheets for different things. Like, I had one that had all the 12 characters on it, so every chapter is one third of a day, and there's 12 days. So I'd map where they are and what they're doing. So that way, I've got an eye on all the characters, and it made sure that nobody was in a crime scene when someone was being murdered and there wasn't any confusion there. So, yeah, there was a lot of spreadsheets and a lot of planning.
KO: See, kids? Even if you take a creative pursuit, you're still going to need those Excel skills.
FW: [Laughs] You can't escape them.
KO: So, our hero, Dee, was such a joy to listen to. Despite the tragedy going on around him and the sorrow that he's been dealing with as well, his humor is just infectious. How did you get into the head of the character?
FW: So, Dee originally started off—this surprises a lot of people—as a side character. He wasn't the main character. The main character was more one of the other characters, which is an awkward, sort of more soft boy [laughs]. I'm trying not to spoil it, but one of the other characters.
KO: I was like, "Wait, are you allowed to say who this other character was that was your original main character?"
FW: We'll put it this way, that they switched roles because that person became more of the assistant and Dee became the main character.
KO: Okay. Ooh, interesting.
FW: So, Dee was the sort of wise-cracking assistant to the detective kind of person. But when I was in the planning stages, I just was way more interested in him. I was like, "Who is this guy that while all these horrible murders are happening is, like, cracking jokes and seems sort of above it and so confident and says whatever comes into his head?" I found it really exciting, so I was like, "Let's just put him the focus instead." And then once I did, that's when I cracked him open and was like, "Okay, he is seemingly confident, but it's more of a mask. It's a front.” Like, beneath it, he's struggling with his own feelings of inadequacy and his own worth. He struggles a lot with his own worth, and he uses humor to sort of push people away, in a way, before they really know who he really is, because he worries that if they see who he is, they will be disappointed.
Getting into his mindset wasn't that difficult because he's quite similar to me like that. I also have struggles with self-worth, and, yeah, that was a bit of me. I'm not quite as confident as him, and I've got more of a filter, so that part was fun because I was like, "Ooh, I could just write all the things that I would say [laughs]—"
KO: Freeing, in a way, to kind of embody Dee.
FW: It was so much fun. He was such a fun character to write. Usually, those kinds of characters are the side characters. They're not often the main characters, so it was really exciting. Because whenever he was in any scene, it was just like, "What's he gonna say next? Who knows?"
KO: Yeah. Again, that humor. You have such a great comedic talent, particularly as you're dealing with a lot of nuance and a lot of gore and tragedy as well. To be able to balance that with humor was truly impressive. This is also a very inclusive book. There is LGBTQIA+ representation, disabled representation, body positivity woven really seamlessly throughout the novel. And I just wanted to say that I appreciated the way you achieved this feeling of casual representation that we need more of in our literature. Was that your intention from the beginning?
FW: Yeah, definitely. Originally, I knew that it was going to be in an empire, and I wanted it to feel like a vast array of people. I didn't want it just all to be white straight men to represent an entire empire that's meant to be vast and varied and different. So, I really wanted to make sure that it sort of was representative of a wide range of people. And for me, there are lots of stories that deal with homophobia or fatphobia or anything like that, but I didn't want this story to be about that. I wanted the representation, as you say, to be more casual. [Dee] is gay and he's chubby, and there are also disabled characters. There's lots of people of color. But that's not really a plot point in it. He happens to be gay, happens to be fat, but the main thing he has to do is solve a murder mystery. I wanted it to feel like people who might feel marginalized could read the book and not be subjected with sort of the marginalization they feel in real life. I mean, Concordia's not a wonderful place. It has a lot of issues, but those aspects are not one of them.
"[Dee] was such a fun character to write. Usually, those kinds of characters are the side characters. They're not often the main characters, so it was really exciting."
KO: Yes, yes. To your point, it's a whole other slew of problems going on there. But at least, you know, a more diverse world, and very well and sort of seamlessly represented throughout Voyage of the Damned. So, I want to talk to you about the narration. Nathan Foad does an outstanding job with his performance. And similar to you, he's an actor, but this was his debut audiobook-narrating gig. And not only does he embody Dee and all of the intricacies of his personality and his internal and external conflicts, but he also embodies all the characters and delivers such distinct voices and accents of the heirs based on which province they're from. Did you help inform any of those choices as he was preparing for the narration?
FW: Yeah, so I absolutely adore the narration. Initially I was like, "I'm not sure if I will hear the audio. Because will it feel funny?" And as soon as I started, I was like, "I love this. I'm in. I'm fully in." It made me feel like I was experiencing the story new, which as many times as I read it, that is an achievement. But like you said, it's his first audiobook narration. I've seen him as an actor, but I had no idea if he could do accents or not. So, I sent a list of accents that I was like, "It would be nice if we could maybe do a few of these to make it feel vast like an empire.” There's loads of different accents, loads of different places. So, yeah, I did give him a list of the accents, and he did them amazingly, so I was so happy with that.
A couple of them, he sort of put his own spin of them as well, which I loved. Like, I didn't really give him one for Grasshopper, and then he made her Irish, which I adored. It was so perfect for her. So, yeah, I sort of gave him the instruction, and he went for it and did a great job.
KO: I love that. What a great collaboration. It truly is impressive and just helps, too, right, when you're dealing with that large of a cast of characters and, to your point, being able to then more fully feel just how vast Concordia is. It really added to that narrative as well and that understanding that these people don't see each other a lot and they live in very different places. It was wonderful. It was so, so much fun to listen to. We learn that the blessings that each heir is bestowed, their magical ability, is meant to represent in some way who they are at their core. What would your blessing be?
FW: You know, I've never been asked that.
KO: Ooh [laughs]
FW: I know what I would want it to be, which is sort of an ability I sneakily gave Dee, which isn't a blessing but just something I would love it to be, which is being able to speak in any language to anyone. Because I love traveling, but the inability to communicate is the thing that's really annoying, because I just want to speak to everybody and find out about the country and explore. So, I would love to be able to do that. If I had one, though, maybe it would be more like Russell’s, standing invisible.
KO: Getting to pop.
FW: Yeah, popping out
KO: That's a great answer though. I love that, that ability to communicate in any language. Now, I do want to bring up the TikTok of it all. Some of our listeners may be surprised to know that when a book is made, it's not just made everywhere. So, you’re from the UK. The rights to this book were sold in the UK and other related territories, such as Australia. And Voyage of the Damned actually came out there in the beginning of 2024. So now, we're here in August and it's releasing on this side of the pond. And the messaging around it is the TikTok sensation from the UK is finally coming to North America. So, talk to me about the role that TikTok played in helping launch this book to a wider audience.
FW: Yeah, it definitely was a huge help, because I think the people who get this book and it speaks to them, they really get this book. Like, the fandom has been so enthusiastic about it. They've been drawing the characters. Some people ask me if they could fan fiction. I'm like, "Yeah. Go for it. Sounds great to me." So, they've really embraced it. And, obviously, the way that persuades me to read books is other people speaking really passionately about them rather than being marketed directly. So, if I hear somebody say, "Oh, it's this or this..." I mean, if I heard magical gay murder mystery cruise, I would be in. I know it's my book, but [laughs]…
"I think the people who get this book and it speaks to them, they really get this book. Like, the fandom has been so enthusiastic about it."
So yeah, I think the fans sharing videos talking about aspects of it they liked and all the different characters has definitely really helped in the US, because initially it did struggle there. I think it's because it's such an unusual genre blend. It's probably seen a little bit as a risk because we're not 100 percent sure how it's going to do, but I'm so glad that Mira have taken it on. It's a dream come true, honestly.
KO: Yeah, a risk definitely worth taking, I would say. It is so much fun. I read in your bio that you love cosplay and that you've been a cosplayer for about a decade now. I definitely felt your love of that come through in the novel with the different hair colors and the outfits and the costumes that they were wearing on that first night of the voyage. You also share in your bio that you love musicals and you love Shakespeare. So, I'm curious what your favorite musical and your favorite Shakespearian play is, but then also whether either of those passions might factor into your next work.
FW: Favorite musical is hard. I recently saw Hadestown, and I absolutely adored it. It was so good. But my favorite of all time is Les Mis, which is a bit of a standard answer, but I just adore it. It breaks my heart every time, but it's so good. The songs are incredible. And Shakespeare play, I kind of don't want to be cliché, but I really love Hamlet and also King Lear. I think those are my two favorites, Hamlet and King Lear, neither of which I've performed, but that would be amazing to do those.
Whether they go into a future book? Not deliberately, but I think that anything that you have a passion for does feed through, even if it's subliminally. I'll probably rewatch, like, Les Mis or something and I'll be like, "Oh, gosh. I've taken that sort of aspect of that relationship and fed it into these characters." So, never on purpose, but undoubtedly it goes into your writing psyche and bleeds out in some way.
KO: Yeah, that makes sense. What you love can be infused into what you create. Absolutely. So, what is next for you?
FW: So, my next book, which I don't know how much I can say about it, but to give a very vague overview, so if Voyage of the Damned is a magical murder mystery, I would say this is a sort of fantasy escape room. I do like situations where a load of characters get shoved together and they can't escape, and this is literally that. A load of children wake up in this strange and creepy labyrinth with no memory of how they got there, missing body parts, and they have to escape room by room. They get set different tasks, and they have to complete the task to open the door and go on to the next room.
KO: All right. Sign me up again.
FW: It's not quite as creepy as it sounds. I swear.
KO: Just some casual missing limbs, not like creepy missing limbs. Well, still, I have no doubt that that signature humor will be there as well, even as you're dealing with some morbid subject matter there.
FW: Hundred percent. It always has to be.
KO: Frances, thank you so much for your time today.
FW: Thank you.
KO: And listeners, you can get Voyage of the Damned by Frances White right now on Audible.
