The Heir of Night, by Helen Lowe, Orbit Publishing, $24.99
Early nightfall in Singapore is what inspired Helen Lowe's epic fantasy series The Wall of Night.
"Night falls quickly in Singapore," Lowe says.
"And it was while living there I thought to myself, 'What if there was a world like this?"'
And so was born The Heir of Night, the first in a four-book series that takes readers into a world of magic, fantasy, death, destruction, betrayal, friendship, hope and loyalty.
Lowe writes with such depth that readers will find themselves hearing the clash of swords and the sound of horses' hooves pounding the road.
It's easy to bring these characters to life in your imagination as they go about in a world that seemed to me to represent the 1500s.
In fact, so good was the first book in the series, The Heir of Night, it recently won the international Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer.
"Winning the award was an absolute thrill," says Lowe.
"It's quite magical getting a phone call from the far side of the world to say you've won a major international award, although I believe my first words were, 'I don't believe it'. And I did have to pinch myself a couple of times, just to be sure I really was awake.
"The award means a lot, not just because it's evidence that my books are being taken seriously internationally, but also because I am both the first female author, as well as the first Southern Hemisphere writer, to win either of the two Gemmell book awards."
Lowe lives in Christchurch, and describes herself as a novelist, poet, interviewer and lover of story.
She say she lets her characters progress from "a flash of an idea".
"I saw Malian scaling a wall and that told me a great deal about her. She had to be adventurous but at the same time dutiful.
"My characters evolve out of the events that happen to them during the series."
Lowe structures her day around writing. Every day she writes three pages of longhand without taking her pen from the page.
"It could be a shopping list or anything. I came up with the ending to The Heir of Night with this method."
She took the idea from a book she read a few years back called The Artist Way by Julia Cameron.
Her writing is a discipline she has stuck to and finds very useful.
She works five days a week, writing for a minimum of four hours each day.
"No phone calls, no talking. I have to write a minimum of 200 words or work for the full four hours before I can call it quits.
"Usually, I find if I can get past the 200 word threshold I can write 2000 words easily, but when I tried upping the word count to 2000 words, I found myself writing anything just to get the word count and would end up deleting it.
"Some days I'm on a roll and will obviously write more than 200 words.
"But I feel it's important to set ground rules and have a 'must do' minimum."
The Christchurch earthquake stalled Lowe's writing but she says seeing a room full of smiling people at the launch of Gathering of The Lost was a fantastic way to celebrate finishing the book.
She is "frantically writing" the third book in the series although she's not giving away any clues about what happens.
"I don't like to talk about the stories before they're done," Lowe confesses, "as I find doing that can actually make it harder to write, especially as stories do sometimes change course through the writing process.
"So I like to keep them close."
Book three (Daughter of Blood) is scheduled for publication in July next year and I'm sure fans are itching to get their hands on it. I know that I am.