The room at Hotel Rosewood Villamagna where we meet Cassandra Clare (Iran, 1973) could easily be part of one of her fantasy stories. There is something legendary, almost epic, in the atmosphere. Several wooden armchairs covered in red and green velvet surround one of the most prominent young adult writers of the century. Some tapestries and paintings of ancient - and unknown - rulers decorate the walls. A large window overlooking the garden fails to illuminate half of the room, where a bar serving cocktails is located. Around it, witches, werewolves, and vampires could gather as night falls.
But we are in Madrid, at noon, with 33 degrees in the shade.
The same shade that the protagonists of the saga that has brought her worldwide fame for exactly two decades face. Shadowhunters is a success among teenage audiences, with 50 million copies sold worldwide and translations into 35 languages. "I can't detach myself from that universe, they are my children. I never tire of them, and the ideas never run out. I don't even remember what my life was like before writing City of Bones," she confesses, loquacious, when asked if the bestselling author's ghost prevents her from undertaking other projects without pressure or excessive expectations. "It's true that there came a time when I needed to write something that would accompany those readers who started reading my stories at 15 and are now in their thirties. They are all grown up. I wanted to offer them something different, something to keep them hooked, you know."
From that need arose Sword Catcher (Crossbooks), a novel inspired by Renaissance France that opens the tetralogy Chronicles of Castellane and has already been signed for adaptation as a television series, aiming to replicate the success of ABC with Shadowhunters, available on Netflix in Spain.
"I began to realize while writing about Lin, who is a doctor, about Conor, who is a prince who has to marry, and about Kel, his bodyguard, that they were not teenage characters, but rather facing adult problems. They talk about marriage, work, and children. I couldn't imagine how the story would work if they were much younger. So I called my agent and said, 'I think this is a book for adults,'" she explains.
Clare does not tour much outside the United States, where she resides with her partner. For Judith Rumelt - the woman behind the literary pseudonym inspired by a short story by Jane Austen - traveling is exhausting, as she spent her early years traveling the world with her family and several trunks full of fantasy books, including The Chronicles of Narnia.
It is not surprising, then, that she has not set foot in Spain for over 15 years. She did so when only the first three volumes of a saga that now includes nearly thirty titles had been published, including prequel trilogies, storybooks, and special editions exploring the genealogy of the Shadowhunters. The coronavirus prevented her from visiting us in 2020, but Clare was determined to return.
"The first time I came, I was expecting 15 or 20 people at the book signings, and there were long lines. The signing was at the Madrid Book Fair (Feria del Libro), and people were banging on the booth like soccer fans. It made a huge impression on my husband," she recalls. Now, Clare is coming to present The Sword Catcher in the middle of summer, first in the capital with two signing dates at the Espacio Fundación Telefónica and the Casa del Libro on Gran Vía - with full capacity reached in a matter of minutes - and then at the Celsius Festival held annually in Avilés (Asturias).
Social media drives virality: all books seem to be the book of the year, the one no one can miss if they want to stay up to date with the conversation on TikTok. "FOMO [Fear of Missing Out] has done a lot of damage, it's true. It's harder for stories to endure as they did a decade ago. We change our minds all the time, and it's a much more competitive world than when I started," acknowledges the writer.
Is the term bestseller being cheapened? Does the promotional label of the new Harry Potter matter more than the quality of the work? "I think literary quality is still relevant. And I think being very successful also works against us because critics, when they see something is a bestseller, think, 'Oh, it can't be that good.' I remember that Stephen King had to wait almost 40 years to be awarded because he was so popular and wrote horror and fantasy, and this world was very reluctant to acknowledge that he was an incredible author."
Cassandra Clare argues that, despite judgments about the "use and throwaway culture," today's readers are very demanding. Extremely demanding, in fact: "The fact that people now expect more diversity I think is very positive. In The Mortal Instruments, I was strongly discouraged when I talked about including couples like Magnus and Alec in my books because they wouldn't fit in libraries or schools. And I think the new generations expect to see characters of different races and ethnicities, nationalities, and sexual orientations, not as something exceptional."
So, is there LGBTQ+ representation in Sword Catcher like in Shadowhunters? "It's a world where being queer is very normalized, bisexuality is integrated very naturally into the story. Conor is forced to decide who to marry from a series of candidates. The important thing is that he gets married, regardless of whether it's to a woman or a man."
In her novels, Clare weaves her own created universes with formal references to classics like A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Doing so is not easy, especially with sagas that take decades to develop. "I am a very methodical writer. I spend months reading and researching, and then I organize myself with 200 or 300-page notes and outlines to make everything fit perfectly, like a puzzle," she explains. Just in case any fan had doubts, the author promises that her foray into adult literature does not mean abandoning the characters that have brought her to the top: "My readers have nothing to worry about. I am writing several books at once, and I do not plan to distance myself from the shadowhunters, for now."