Today we have CRR Hillin to answer a few questions alongside the release of The Seer’s Bone, book two in The Orphan’s Code series.
Welcome! Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired this series?
I’ve been working on this book since I was 13. We were left homeless after Hurricane Katrina and my brain felt like processing that with Hamlet, but with a flood. It’s obviously changed a lot since then, folding in a little bit of everything along the way!
What inspired this book in particular?
Books 2 and 3 were originally supposed to be one book, but I wanted to slow down and focus on the systemic issues that led to the spreading plague, as well as give the main characters a little room to breathe. There’s also Lucy’s plotline, which formed as the most natural way to dive into the events of the past and confirm what everyone suspected all along!
Can you talk a bit about the setting of this book in the series?
This entire series takes place in one single city (over the course of maybe a year). You’d think that would get tedious, but the city has so much to explore, and it’s almost a character in and of itself. This world is quite similar to 16th century Europe, and the city is most analogous to Mont St Michel in France, with a version of the Parisian catacombs and a multi-leveled city structure that commodifies sunlight as a luxury. The castle is almost its own other world. Culturally, it’s a historically accurate blend of French, German, and British influence, but with a central Goddess instead of a God, and a lot of lore and significance surrounding the sea. A lot of love and care has gone into this world and its elaborate history, as I tried to show in this book with the quotes at the head of each chapter!
What role does magic play in this story?
There actually isn’t much magic, and what little there is…well, do you, the reader, actually believe in transubstantiation, that the host turns into the actual Body of Christ? Perhaps you do! But there are plenty of people who dismiss it as an exaggeration, a metaphor, or just smoke and mirrors. The Divinae in the story are similar priestess figures who have operated under such mysticism for so long that even they themselves aren’t aware where intuition ends and “magic” begins. Lucy’s powers are an extension of herself, with “Empathy” being a hypersensitivity to the tiny changes in other’s emotions, her “magic healing” a medieval medical degree, and her “divination” a lot of religious dogma wrapped up in women’s intuition. Wrapping it all further up in the feminine while in an inherently misogynistic world (with men in power who fully believe in the Goddess while oppressing women) is such a fun way to play with power dynamics and how women see themselves.
This book is written in multiple POVs, can you talk about that process? What are some struggles, what do you really enjoy about writing multiple POVs?
he best part about multiple POVs is that I can explore different perspectives and pick the one that works best, and sometimes that means I get to go absolutely off the rails and pick a side character, or some nobody that will never be mentioned again, or even an omniscient floating eyeball of a narrator if I want. It’s so much fun and writing books in first person just doesn’t allow that much narrative freedom. The trickiest part is deciding which chapters go where. It’s not just chronological; I like to parallel all the character’s journeys, put them in roughly the same places in their character arcs, and reach satisfying conclusions for that book all at the same time, and that is incredibly difficult!
What has changed most for your characters from book one to the start of book two?
Rose has changed the most. She’s gone from essentially being raised by wolves to settling into a normal routine, and showing interest in people other than herself. It’s only been about a month, but she’s begun to build relationships with her new friends and get particularly attached to Kayo, becoming good friends with him after an initial rocky start. Kayo is changing a little more slowly, but he’s starting to see that his brother’s vigilante justice had a real purpose and impact. He also sees that someone needs to step up and take his place, and is finally starting to warm up to the idea that it should be him. He’s promised to help Rose escape the city, but more and more, he realizes that he doesn’t want her to go–and she’s not so certain that’s what she wants either. Romero, after his “incident”, has lost a lot of power in his own life, and is both short-tempered and depressed as his paranoia grows. And Lucy, who saved his life, is consumed by a guilty suspicion that she really shouldn’t have. She’s taking more risks to find the answers she needs–and reevaluating who she thought she could trust.
What are some things you are really enjoying reading right now? Books, TV, foods, etc.?
I’m a big fan of video games, which (can) offer such depth in their storytelling in a way novels just can’t. I’m also a cinephile, and when I don’t have my nose to the grindstone, movies really help me relax. Lately, I’ve been into campy comedies like Theater Camp and Bottoms alongside endless Youtube videos about movies and video games, and I’ve been surviving off of Oreos and vanilla Coke until my kids start sleeping through the night again!
Want to know more about The Seer’s Bone?
An epic fantasy of secrets, shifting loyalties, and the dangerous game of uncovering truths that powerful men have spent decades burying.
A bargain has been struck. The Beggar’s King will rise again—if he can carry out his end of it.
Kayo must help Rose escape Bermeia once and for all. But another mystery is pulling at him—and Rose, who feels at home for the first time in her life, is beginning to wonder if she even wants to go.
Lucy never expected to survive saving the king’s life. Now she’s been elevated to his favorite, an advisor whose powers he intends to use. But everyone—inside and outside the castle—is turning against him. And Lucy has plans of her own. There are secrets hidden in these walls, magic the king cannot begin to comprehend. She aims to pick apart the careful lies he’s spent decades weaving and expose the truth at last.
As clandestine plots prepare to plunge the country into war, as unrest grows in the streets, and as the most dangerous people on the Peninsula begin to circle, only what lies buried in the past—and glimpsed in the future—can quench the fire before it consumes them all.
Dark, intricate, and impossible to put down—The Seer’s Bone raises the stakes of The Orphan’s Code with secrets that could shatter a kingdom.
Meet C.R.R. Hillin:
C.R.R. Hillin (she/they) is from Beaumont, Texas and Austin, Texas, but now lives in Bavaria, Germany, where she pretends she isn’t three alligators in a trench coat. Originally pursuing a career in medicine, she took a detour into childcare and social work, got kicked out of therapist school, taught science and ELAR, and then ditched all of that to pick up graphic design and disability/queer advocacy. As a proud AuDHD she picks up skills and hobbies all over the place, usually book-related, and is now proficient at digital art, cover design, graphic design, audio and video editing, video game writing, languages (Spanish, Italian, German, French), Tae Kwon Do, and a dozen different softwares as well as writing. Her toxic trait is painstakingly researching any and all things pre-1600 A.D instead of working and then ditching it all to write fanfic instead. She’s destined to die petting something she shouldn’t. Probably a polar bear, but her husband’s cat Weasel is definitely plotting something.
You can find her on her website, as well as Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky and Bookbub!
