Fictionally speaking, you could be forgiven for thinking so, at least in the fantasy genres. Sure, there are older female characters, some even powerful: queens, sorceresses, seers, etc. But how often do you find a fantasy where the main character is a mother?
Off the top of my head, I can think of … umm … none. (And if you know of any, please point me at them in the comments!) You can find strong female leads, particularly in urban fantasy, which is great. I love to see strong, competent women take starring roles. But they’re nearly all single young women. Some of them have partners, but nobody has kids.
It’s as if life somehow stops when women give birth. And, sure, I can see how fitting kids into the life of a busy demon-slayer or white witch could be tricky, and why authors choose to free their characters from such complications. But it makes me feel as if, being a mother, I’m invisible, or that it’s not possible for me to have any adventures any more. Only young women are interesting enough to write about.
And hey, I get it, I really do. Being young and single is more glamorous than being a middle-aged taxi driver for a brood of children. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with stories about kick-ass young single women, or that I don’t enjoy them, because I do. I’m not trying to insist that authors should write stories about middle-aged mothers if they don’t wish to, or suggesting that there’s anything wrong with their choice not to.
But life with children can be complex and beautiful and interesting. It’s not all soccer practice and dirty socks. Love comes in many flavours. Romantic love and the bonds of friendship—even the bonds between siblings—are well represented in fantasy, but the relationships between parents and children aren’t often explored. And yet they are such a big part of many people’s lives. It seems an untapped area just waiting to be explored.
So after I had my big moment of inspiration in the bathroom of the local cinemas, I had some decisions to make about the story that would eventually become Twiceborn. I had a woman changing disguises to evade pursuit. What was she carrying? Who was following her and why?
As the idea developed I decided to throw in memory loss, since I love stories about amnesia so much. Dragons too—I love dragons!
And I also chose to make Kate, my main character, a mother. In the end I chickened out on making her middle-aged. She’s only twenty-nine, so she still qualifies as young and glamorous, but she is most definitely a mother. Love for her son drives a lot of her actions and has a huge influence on the outcome of the story’s main struggle. There is nothing so fierce as a mother’s love for her children, as the dragons of Sydney discover.
There’s a little romance in the book too, as well as the love between friends and siblings, but Kate’s love for Lachie is at the heart of Twiceborn. What will a mother sacrifice for her child? What won’t she?
Twiceborn is available now at Amazon
. For all the kick-ass mums out there!
