So speaking of that, Lily, what was your journey to publication like, you know, with agents and publishers? And how did this book deal come about for you? Yeah, it was

unusual, I'd say.

So I, as I've mentioned before, I was, I've been on TikTok for about five years.

And so I started that account before I started writing Vow.

And so I, I planned to do everything by the book.

Actually, no, I need to, I probably should backtrack here and preface that I work at Penguin Random House Australia, because that's also very relevant to the story.

Yeah.

So I do not have to research.

I'm just flat out reading it as a book, and I really, really enjoyed it.

Yeah, I think I expected it to be more like a Japanese light novel, which might be kind of a niche pool right there.

Um, but there are, there's a whole genre of, um, isekai they call it, that is quite similar to the RPG, but without the...

But sometimes they have the progression aspect, but they don't always have it, and I kind of expected it to read a bit more like that.

Um, but the, I guess what surprised me was the structure of it.

Like, it- it obviously is structured like a novel, but all those video game breakouts that kind of get the endorphins flowing just like a video game, I didn't expect that, and I, that was what really hooked me.

So that's an interesting division.

And it starts to misbehave a whole lot more.

We think about who are the monsters and what makes a person a monster and what kind of ideas did you have about exploring that in the book?

Yeah, so there's kind of many sides to that.

So the most obvious example, I suppose, of monsters in the book, and there are many types of monsters in the book, is the literal Raleigh is a vampire.

And so the idea I wanted to really play with is the idea that, it's not about who you are or what you are.

It's about what you do with the power you have.

And so the true monsters, as we kind of meet them through the book, are the people who have the opportunity to do different and choose to be monstrous instead.

So Raleigh isn't someone who wants to be a vampire.

Yeah, something as women we can just really struggle with as our experience is always in relation to how we serve somebody else.

[laughs]

Inkheart.

Um, so this is a book I read when I was about eight years old.

Um, it is about a, a girl whose father is a book binder, who has the ability to, when he reads aloud, reads characters out of books.

Um, and so two villains and a hero from another book that he has read aloud have come into modern-day Italy, um, and basically established themselves as mafia leaders for the last 10 years.

He gets abducted by them, who want him, want to use his powers.

Um, and so Meggie, the daughter, has to go and save him.

[laughs] But, um, uh, like, have you reread the other ones as an adult?