Debuts & gifts for all

Shameez Patel Papathanasiou turned her love of fantasy into a compelling novel that is about to have a sequel, writes

South African fantasy fiction is what you may call a rare unicorn. It’ sa category publishers don’t often put out — and it’s certainly a genre you don’t expect from the pen of a civil engineer. But Shameez Patel Papathanasiou is not your average civil engineer.

Growing up during what she calls the YA fantasy frenzy dominated by the likes of The Hunger Games and Twilight and the production of the Lord of the Rings movies, Patel Papathanasiou says she was deeply into the fandoms. “I was Team Edward, I was a hobbit, I was everything I could be at the time and something of all of them inspired me.”

As a regular attender of FanCon and Comic Con, she’s also big on Marvel and a Loki fangirl. While she’s always been a fan of fantasy, she’s also enjoyed reading and writing but never took it seriously as a career option — until the pandemic hit. “It felt like the world was ending. Why not experiment in something new?”

The idea for her debut novel, The Last Feather, came a few years earlier in the form of a 50,000 word draft for National Novel Writing Month. The story, she confesses, was a mess, but aspects stayed with her. When the characters of Cassia and Lucas — her main protagonists — formed in her mind during lockdown, the story fell into place.

“I did the research, I figured out how to write a query letter [to a publisher], who to submit to and I tried my luck.”

The first book in a trilogy, The Last Feather transports readers to a magical realm called Selene, which operates on the same timeline as Earth. When Cassia’s sister, Calla, falls ill without explanation, Cassia is abducted by a stranger with burning blue eyes who takes her to Selene. There she is reunited with her best friend Lucas, who disappeared almost four years ago.

She learns that Calla has Selene magic running through her veins, the cause of her suffering which will kill her unless Cassia can find a cure before her last feather falls and she is trapped there with no way of returning home. In her quest to finish the cure, Cassia discovers the reason for Lucas’s disappearance, learns to draw on magic of her own and is catapulted into a realm of monsters, mysteries and curses, where the glint of a future romance is lit.

“I haven’t come across many South African fantasy writers,” Patel Papathanasiou tells me. “I know they exist and that a lot of them are self-published because local publishers aren’t keen on fantasy fiction.”

To secure publication, Patel Papathanasiou approached international publisher Flame Tree Press. They decided to take her manuscript. It was only later confirmed that Jonathan Ball Publishers would distribute the book locally.

“I have encountered so many people who read mostly fantasy in South Africa so [the fantasy reading community] is growing and that is very exciting. There is incredible potential for South Africans to write fantasy.”

The second book in the trilogy, The Eternal Shadow, is scheduled for publication next April. While Patel Papathanasiou is careful not to offer any spoilers, book two will pick up on her love of romance.

“A question most readers have at the end of the book is what happens to two people. If you are interested in what happens to them, then the next book is going to be a treat.”

For lovers of fantasy, the treat starts with book one. Written with great imagination and infused with complex characters you’ll grow to like and understand, it offers the escapism only fantasy fiction can.