Posted in: CW, Preview, TV | Tagged: buffy, hellmouth, Kendare Blake, slayers, spike, willow, xander

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Author Kendare Blake Talks Spinoff Novels

Set to drop on January 4, Disney Hyperion Publishing and author Kendare Blake's ("Three Dark Crowns" Series) In Every Generation is the first of a YA trilogy that serves as both a spinoff and a pseudo-sequel to the popular television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Except that the focus this time is on someone very unique- an impressive title to hold in Buffy's world. See, the new slayer isn't only a slayer. She's also a witch. And since you're already considering the possibilities that raises, then add into the mix that the new slayer's name is Frankie Rosenberg- Willow's daughter. Back in early August, fans were treated to a look at the book's cover as well as the official overview of the first novel. Now, Blake is offering some more details on her plan for the trilogy, what it was like working with characters from the original "Buffyverse," and how Frankie plans on balancing her slayer and witch powers.

Yeah. So, it's a trilogy. When I wrote the first book, I kind of thought of it as crafting Frankie Season 1. So Frankie being called as a vampire slayer, developing her own group of Scoobies, having her first big bad, and then the overarching questions would be what happens to the slayers? What is the slayer legacy? What is the fall out from this? And who is ultimately behind it? And more of that will come out in book two and then be resolved by book three.

I'm glad you think so. I think it's because those characters have been living in my head since I was young. I've re-watched the series maybe four times just over the course of my life, and then I re-watched it again right before I started writing. So yeah, it was a lot of fun working with those characters. And the characters that I get to use, just Willow, Spike, Oz, and Xander, who I didn't have clearance to use at first, so I left him out of the first a draft, and then my editor was like, "Wouldn't this be better if Xander was doing this?" And I said, "Yes, can I use him?" And then I got to write Xander too, which was really cool. But if you had asked me, "Okay, you want to write a Buffy book, who are the characters that you would want to use?" That would be my dream assembly. If I couldn't have Buffy herself, they would be the ones that I wanted.

Magic in the Buffy-verse is kind of a balancing act because you don't want to go too far with it. You want the spells to be cool. You want the spells to be useful for their plots and their plans, but you don't want to have them be so strong that you start thinking like, "What do we even need a slayer for?" You don't want to overpower your witch, at least not too early on.

She needs time to grow. So Frankie herself has been a very sheltered witch. She's always been a witch and that's always been fine, but because of Willow's experience with magic and how bad that went, she's been very, very careful with Frankie's magical training and very, very limiting.

So for me, most of the focus in book one was Frankie learning to handle the slayer powers because the witch powers she's kind of used to. She does develop them a little bit more and has to make them work in conjunction with each other, but yeah, the new slayer powers… that's the shiny new toy that she was really eager to mess around with.

To more on the novel as well as an excerpt from the novel, check out the complete interview here.

Frankie Rosenberg is passionate about the environment, a sophomore at New Sunnydale High School, and the daughter of the most powerful witch in Sunnydale history. Her mom, Willow, is slowly teaching her magic on the condition that she use it to better the world. But Frankie's happily quiet life is upended when new girl Hailey shows up with news that the annual Slayer convention has been the target of an attack, and all the Slayers—including Buffy, Faith, and Hailey's older sister Vi—might be dead. That means it's time for this generation's Slayer to be born. But being the first-ever Slayer-Witch means learning how to wield a stake while trying to control her budding powers. With the help of Hailey, a werewolf named Jake, and a hot but nerdy sage demon, Frankie must become the Slayer, prevent the Hellmouth from opening again, and find out what happened to her Aunt Buffy, before she's next.

"I have been a Buffy fan since the womb, or at least that's what it feels like. Being a fan of Buffy was the whole reason for taking on 'In Every Generation'. I had no choice. You don't say no to Buffy," Blake explained when news of the book was first announced. That said, the author is balancing the Buffyverse that fans know & love while also opening them up to a world of new possibilities that the franchise can offer. "If you want to visualize the writing of this book, just imagine the iconic scene from 'Singin' in the Rain,'" she says. "Except instead of Gene Kelly, it's me, and instead of that wet street with the lamp post, it's Sunnydale Cemetery full of vampires."

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