Q&A with Rachael Craw

Allen & Unwin
2 days ago
4 min read

We chat with author of The Lost Saint, Rachael Craw.

A&U: Hey Rachael! Thanks so much for chatting to us! Can you tell us a little bit about The Lost Saint?

RC: Recently dumped, heart-broken Ana struggles to put the past behind her on a high school fieldtrip exploring landmarks where a 14th Century mystic is said to have performed wonders.

When the students sneak out to party in a sacred cave, a catastrophic earthquake hits. The survivors emerge in a world they don’t recognise, stumbling into a battle between medieval knights and Northmen. The students flee and Ana is chased off a cliff by dutiful lieutenant Leon, who is badly injured in the fall. Sparks fly between Ana and Leon: to survive, they need to rely on each other and as their trust grows, so does romance. They must endure a perilous journey through the forest, escape a superstitious mob, and evade the Northmen who hunt her with dark and mysterious purpose.

Together they must find the legendary mystic everyone calls ‘The Saint’ who is said to have the power to send Ana home… until an unexpected twist changes everything.

A&U: What inspired you to write The Lost Saint?

RC: The Lost Saint was inspired by a dream where I found myself in a medieval architect’s workshop where he kept enormous ‘blueprints’ (for lack of a better word) in a wall of cubbyholes. He selected a set and unrolled the heavy parchment across a workbench, revealing the layout of a castle. The details were drawn from bird’s-eye-view, a great rectangular structure with corner turrets and wide ramparts. What struck me was the interior void, known as the bailey – the open area inside the castle. It was packed with trees.

I woke up fascinated. Why would there be a forest inside a castle? My imagination launched itself at the question. I knew it would relate to the magic system of the story and rather than witches and spells, I wanted to explore a semi or quasi-historical context and leaned into the idea of mystics and miracles in the 14th Century Holy Roman Empire.

A&U: You’ve written multiple YA novels now. What is it about the YA - and specifically speculative YA Fiction – that you love?

RC: I think it’s some sort of a combination of the thrill, horror and tenderness of the ‘anything’s possible’ stage of life.

A&U: We love both your leads, Ana and Leon. How did you go about writing them and crafting their stories?

RC: This sort of connects with the next question even though I had chosen a medieval setting I knew I wanted a contemporary heroine. Ana is all here and now, a modern young woman struggling to deal with recent heartbreak and worrying about her future university prospects after a major academic meltdown. She is naturally traumatized by her ‘displacement in time.’ She invariably finds her modern world lens confronted by the realities of her new environment. Leon was pure fun to write. I loved imagining how a man from his time would view Ana. There’s a line in The Lost Saint that says nothing about Ana fit inside his head. She is truly an anomaly to him in every way. His voice came easily to me, he’s practical, down to earth, no-nonsense and deeply suspicious about this scandalously attired girl with the shocking hair and foul mouth.

A&U: The time slip element in The Lost Saint is a LOT of fun, but we imagine also a little daunting to write. What sort of research did you have to do for this book?

RC: I did so much research, often just looking for correct terminology for things like armour, architecture, religious language, customs etc. However, I would never claim perfect accuracy. I definitely made fast and loose with creative licence! I was also very conscious of stepping into a faith tradition that wasn’t my own. I wanted to be respectful about where and how I drew inspiration. While the mysterious saint in this story, and her wonders, are entirely fictional her deeds are (very loosely) inspired by 2 celebrated saints. Saint Gregory – the 3rd Century wonder-worker who did quite fancy things with large bodies of water, along with healing the sick and shifting mountainous boulders; and Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th Century abbess, polymath, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, healer and all round badass. Research took me down many fascinating rabbit holes, exploring wonders across a variety of faith traditions.

A&U: The Lost Saint kept us on the edge of our seat the entire time! Did you plot everything out from the beginning, or did you just write and see where the story took you?

RC: I’ve never been a plotter. I have always lacked the capacity to know much in advance, preferring to climb into the skin of the characters and discover the world through their eyes. However, I do have vivid images and scenes I want to reach and general feel for how I want a thing to end and then trust the discovery process as I feel my way towards those moments.

A&U: And finally, for any budding writers out there, do you have any advice you’d like to give them?

RC: Learn how to receive feedback. It can be painful and uncomfortable but it’s only ever the truth that can enable you to make progress. Invariably when being told that something doesn’t work it might make you feel a bit sad or defensive at first but let it percolate. Your subconscious is an amazing problem solver and the satisfaction of being able to ‘solve’ a plot problem or fix something that wasn’t working is profoundly satisfying.