Today, I’m chatting with author Beth Cato. Beth Cato hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in Red Wing, Minnesota. She usually has one or two cats in close orbit. A 2015 Nebula finalist, she is the author of the cozy mystery CHEDDAR LUCK NEXT TIME as well as fantasy like A THOUSAND RECIPES FOR REVENGE. Her short stories can be found in publications ranging from Beneath Ceaseless Skies to Uncanny Magazine. In 2019 and 2022, she won the Rhysling Award for short speculative poetry. Her website BethCato.com includes not only a vast bibliography, but a treasure trove of recipes for delectable goodies. Find her on BlueSky as @BethCato and Instagram as @catocatsandcheese.
Photo Credit: Corey Ralston Photography (2013)
ANTHONY: Hi Beth! Thanks for taking some time to chat. Your latest release, which was an Amazon First Reads pick for September, is A House Between Sea and Sky. Tell us a bit about the plot.
BETH: It’s a cozy standalone set in 1926 Carmel-by-the-Sea in California. A grieving writer and a secretive silent film star are adopted by a sentient cottage with a dark past.
What inspired you to write A House Between Sea and Sky?
After I wrapped up my Chefs of the Five Gods series, I asked my then-editor what she’d like to see next. She said she wanted historical fantasy set in the real world. From there, I started mulling. I’m a native Californian, so exploring that setting feels right.
House is historical fantasy, much like your Blood of Earth trilogy. How much research did you have to do into the time period this book takes place in, and how did you go about that? (I loved all the details you incorporated about the Silent Film industry of the time, even the unsavory aspects of it.)
I spent a solid three months on research before I could even finish a synopsis, and then I kept researching through the writing and revision process. For me, worldbuilding really needs to come before fleshed-our characters or plot. Our world shapes everything. I was truly blessed to find a wealth of scanned Carmel 1920s newspapers on Archive.org, plus a tourism book that was published in 1925. There is a very special famous person cameo appearance in the book, and that person’s involvement determined the exact days of the plot. As for the silent film elements... I actually have a trunked novel I wrote a few years ago that I think is one of the best things I’ve ever written, but my agent wasn’t able to sell it. My main character in that book was a scenarist in 1923 Hollywood. I had kept the most interesting research books and had tons of information on my computer, so I was able to repurpose that material, which felt wonderful!
I would love to see that trunked novel be published some day! Without spoiling anything, I think it’s safe to say that Russian folklore plays a large role in the book. Was this folklore that you grew up with?
In my teens, I collected a number of century-old Andrew Lang Color Fairy Tale books and other mythology tomes that were discarded from my local library. (There’s a reason those Lang books get a mention in A House Between Sea and Sky!) I still have them all, too. That’s really the first place I encountered a broader variety of stories that were identified with their places of origin, and I was then able to connect creatures and elements to the AD&D books I was also reading at the time.
While I don’t think it’s ever explicitly stated in the text, I got the very strong feeling that Fayette is asexual/aromantic (although those terms probably didn’t exist in the 1920s), and thus her relationship with Rex is one of mutual respect and quickly-developing friendship, but nothing more. I think we still don’t see enough of this in historical fantasy (the lack of a romance between leads). I’m not sure I have a question here, other than “is my understanding of the character correct?” But would you like to talk a bit about how you approach representation in your books (which always have diverse casts)?
You’re 100% right. I wrote Fayette to be ace. I love a good main character romance, but I don’t think that should be a requirement even if it appeals to the big trend. People CAN just be friends. I want my books to be realistic, and for me, that means diversity is natural. That includes a spectrum of queer rep as well as different skin tones and ethnic backgrounds. By the way, the racism shown in this book was directly inspired by reading Jack London’s book The Valley of the Moon, which is partly set in Carmel, and is also horrendously racist with very particular ideas on who is a “real American.” So I guess my approach to representation is sometimes inspired by active defiance against a book that is over 100 years old!
I would love to know what your writing process is like, and if it varies when you delve into different genres (you know how much I loved your foray into cozy mystery/thriller territory, Cheddar Luck Next Time) or different story lengths (novels vs. novellas vs. short stories for instance).
I’m a hardcore outliner and researcher. Even for a flash fic, which is normally about a thousand words, it’s not uncommon for me to have a few sentences of outline to guide me! Poetry is the only thing I write spontaneously. So many of my recent fantasy books have been historical, and the research has been immersive. A Feast for Starving Stone had a 25,000-word outline, but that was also long because my characters were talking a lot in my head, and that dialogue was sketched in. Cheddar Luck Next Time was nowhere near as intense, but I still had to research details on running a cheese board business. The details on the many cheeses included were largely drawn from my own personal cheese log, which is over 200,000 words and is nearing 2,000 cheeses. Bird’s taste note on cheese are pulled from my own experiences.
Speaking of Cheddar Luck Next Time (which I reviewed HERE … is there any word on whether we’ll get to see more adventures of Bird and company?
I hate to be a tease, but I hope to be able to talk more about that soon!
I’ll take whatever teases I can get! What do you have in the pipeline/coming out next?
I do have one contract signed that I can’t talk about yet, and I’m in a very early research stage for something else. I’ve been very busy recently!
And my traditional final question … what is your all-time favorite book?
There is one recent stand-out for me, and that is The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer. It’s really a suspenseful love letter to the power of children’s fantasy novels and how they can save lives. I recently read it again because I proposed it to a local book club, and the other members loved it so much that they all immediately picked up her second book, The Lost Story, which is also excellent. It’s a queer take on Narnia-style portal fantasies. Really, you can’t go wrong with Meg Shaffer’s books! Her third one will be out next year, and I can’t wait.
I am adding Meg Shaffer to my To Be Read list as soon as I finish posting this interview. Thanks again Beth!