Fans of Agent Carter and X-Men will want to pick up a copy of At the Table of Wolves ASAP. To celebrate the book’s release, Kay Kenyon answered some of our most pressing questions.

About ‘At the Table of Wolves’

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy meets X-Men in a classic British espionage story. A young woman must go undercover and use her superpowers to discover a secret Nazi plot and stop an invasion of England.

In 1936, there are paranormal abilities that have slowly seeped into the world, brought to the surface by the suffering of the Great War. The research to weaponize these abilities in England has lagged behind Germany, but now it’s underway at an ultra-secret site called Monkton Hall.

Kim Tavistock, a woman with the talent of the spill—drawing out truths that people most wish to hide—is among the test subjects at the facility. When she wins the confidence of caseworker Owen Cherwell, she is recruited to a mission to expose the head of Monkton Hall—who is believed to be a German spy.

As she infiltrates the upper-crust circles of some of England’s fascist sympathizers, she encounters dangerous opponents, including the charismatic Nazi officer Erich von Ritter, and discovers a plan to invade England. No one believes an invasion of the island nation is possible, not Whitehall, not even England’s Secret Intelligence Service. Unfortunately, they are wrong, and only one woman, without connections or training, wielding her talent of the spill and her gift for espionage, can stop it.

Kay Kenyon talks with us about moral ambiguity, female empowerment, and more!

1. What inspired you to write this interesting alternate history? Was it something that has always been in the back of your mind, or did it just hit you one day?

It hit me suddenly smack dab in the middle of reading a biography of Winston Churchill! I wish I knew how my brain suggests stories to me, but like so many writers, I haven’t a clue. However, I’m especially interested in the World Wars (and their lead-ups)–times with amazing contrasts between self-sacrificing idealism and staggering villainy. I just had never considered adding magic to the mix. I wasn’t sure how to go about it, but I knew, with a clear flash of insight, that I had to.

2. Interestingly, At the Table of Wolves doesn’t take place during either WWI or WWII but in the time between the two wars. What made you choose the time leading up to WWII instead of choosing WWII as the setting itself?

I knew that my female protagonist would have a psi-power especially useful in espionage–hearing truths that people most wish to hide. Although war-time is always an exciting backdrop, I wanted to combine the moral ambiguity of spy craft with the conflicted politics of the 1930s in England. It was a fascinating time when people thought they could ignore the Nazi menace and when the battle had to be waged in secret. So you have layers of deception and pretense, unlike the moral clarity of, say, World War II.

I also wanted to introduce a theme that will continue in the Kim Tavistock books: how does the gentleman’s club of espionage respond to women as powerful assets and agents? The 1930s was a great transition period in women’s empowerment.

3. What was the most interesting thing you learned while doing research for At the Table of Wolves?

That the first escalators in the great department stores in London in the 1930s only went up and not down! The second most interesting thing was that to bolster RAF capabilities, Winston Churchill approved development and testing of floating aircraft landing surfaces made of wood chips and ice. He was always one to entertain unconventional military tactics. Ultimately, the floating islands were abandoned as unworkable. But since my story is about a planned invasion of England using ice, I was fascinated by this footnote of history!

4. In the novel, you describe the Talents certain individuals possess as the result of the mass trauma of WWI. Do the powers themselves all relate to trauma or the resulting grief somehow?

During my research on the 1930s, I was struck by the catastrophe World War I really was for Great Britain. Nearly every family lost friends and relatives; some families lost several sons. It spurred a desperate interest in spiritualism as grieving families sought contact with departed loved ones and was an important factor in the appeasement of Hitler. This fraught environment suggested to me that WWI could be a point of departure from the historical time line, ushering in (with the bloom) the era of psi-abilities. The story also proposes that Talents had–in general–lain dormant within humanity before this time.

5. Many times, powers or abilities are seen as exciting, but the characters in this novel don’t react to them that way. Are all of the Talents in the world you’ve created here viewed as particularly undesirable?

Several major characters in the story find it difficult to have special powers because of distrust and discrimination. Society is having a hard time integrating the idea of the Talented few. Yet some, like the Nazi officer Erich von Ritter, exploit their Talents with little compunction. Part of the growth of the major character, Kim Tavistock, is how she comes to relish her Talent, at least in service to a great cause.

6. In this first novel, we’re only introduced to a few different varieties of Talents. What and how many other types exist?

As the story opens, there are about 19 known Talents, but it is presumed the Germans have discovered more of them than the English. There are only three types of Talents (at least up through Book 2): Hyperpersonal (influence over others); Mentation (higher knowing) and Psychokinesis (ability to change objects and the environment.) Each novel’s premise will involve the discovery that the Nazis have found a new Talent and are using it in operations aimed at the West.

7. I noticed that Goodreads has At the Table of Wolves listed as the first in a series. While I thought this novel worked well as a standalone, I’d love to explore this world more. What, if anything, can you tease about where the story will go next?

In Book 2, Serpent in the Heather, Kim Tavistock hunts a Nazi assassin at a forbidding cliff-side castle in Wales. The murderer’s targets are young people with Talents, and the conspiracy hits Kim in a particularly personal manner. In subplot threads, Julian faces a major dilemma with his love interest and also an ultimate face-off with Kim about his fascist stance. Kim’s best friend Alice tries to reconcile what it means to have meta-abilities that conflict with church doctrines, continuing the exploration of prejudice against differently-enabled people.

About the author

Kay Kenyon is the author of thirteen science fiction and fantasy novels as well as numerous short stories. Her work has been shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick and the John W. Campbell Memorial Awards, the Endeavour Award, and twice for the American Library Association Reading List awards. Her series The Entire and the Rose was hailed by The Washington Post as “A splendid fantasy quest as compelling as anything by Stephen R. Donaldson, Philip Jose Farmer, or yes, J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Her novels include At the Table of Wolves, Serpent in the Heather, Bright of the Sky, A World Too Near, City Without End, Prince of Storms, Maximum Ice (a 2002 Philip K. Dick Award nominee), and The Braided World. Bright of the Sky was among Publishers Weekly’s Top 150 books of 2007. She is a founding member of the Write on the River conference in Wenatchee, WA where she lives with her husband.

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At the Table of Wolves is available now, so be sure to pick up your copy!