Emma Törzs in conversation about her fantasy thriller début, magical books and estranged sisters

"I  really wanted to write a book that I thought my sister would love,” says Emma Törzs as she speaks over Zoom from her Airbnb in Georgia, US, about her début novel Ink Blood Sister Scribe. “This book is for her; she’s been begging me to write a magic sisters book for years.”

Ink Blood Sister Scribe is already cooking up a storm in the industry. Although publishing as Century’s lead fantasy début, the novel was pre-empted jointly by Century and Del Rey and will be edited by Selina Walker, publishing director at Century, and Sam Bradbury, publishing director at Del Rey. Film rights have also been snapped up by MGM Television, the production company responsible for adapting Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Törzs’ magnificent début follows two estranged, magical sisters Joanna and Esther. Joanna has spent her life in their childhood home in Vermont, following in the footsteps of their father Abe, protecting a trove of enchanted books, while Esther is a perennial traveller, currently living on a base in Antarctica. Their relationship is the bedrock of the novel and Törzs’ honest portrayal of it, a homage to the beauty of kinship, elegantly captures the tenderness, heartache and frustration of sibling relationships.

I really want to live near to her, but I don’t live in Boston, and I have to live my own life. It’s always been an underlying point of contention between us

Ink Blood Sister Scribe is dedicated to Törzs’ “magic sister” Jesse, and their bond is echoed in Joanna and Esther’s relationship—and not just through the matching character initials. Like Joanna, Jesse lives closer to their family while Törzs lives further away. “I miss her a lot,” says Törzs. “I really want to live near to her, but I don’t live in Boston, and I have to live my own life. It’s always been an underlying point of contention between us.”

In a continent-spanning plot, with enchanted mirrors and ancient vampiric books, Joanna and Esther will be drawn back together and into a plan to undermine the “Library”, a family organisation with the largest archive of magical books in the world. The Library treats magic not with wonder, but as a resource to be handled on capitalist principles: hoarded with limited access. In the archive we meet Nicholas, a somewhat naïve, posh, magical Englishman, who unwittingly aids this venture. But, once he learns of the Library’s nefariousness, he escapes with his bodyguard Collins and his Pomeranian Sir Kiwi on a quest to find Esther and destroy the Library.

Making magic

In between bouts of frustration with her coffee mug, which inexplicably has the handle on the inside, Törzs tells me that her début is actually her second book—but the first to be published. Her first novel took six years to write compared to the year and a half it took to write Ink Blood Sister Scribe and interestingly it was literary fiction. Although Törzs was “totally crushed” by its lack of success, her immediate “feeling was disappointment and then, very quick on its heels, was a sense of relief”.

She has not written a word of literary fiction since, instead immersing herself in science-fiction and fantasy after her “come-to-Merlin” moment: “When I look back at those early stories, I just see myself attempting to write what I thought would make people take me seriously.” Now she has even taken down her literary writings on her website because “they just [don’t] feel representative of where I am right now”.

At first it was a bit all over the place, but I had to remove that judgement of going where people had gone before or re-tread[ing] a path well worn

Ink Blood Sister Scribe is a standalone, real-world fantasy thriller novel executing a complex magical system, lyrical turns of phrase and a pacey plot. It combines two lineages of magic—inherited power and ritualistic, pagan practice—which together create spelled books. Rather than beginning with the concept, Törzs “reverse engineered” the magic system, starting first with the opening scene: Abe lying dead next to a book. Yet, contributing to a fantasy lineage, rich with magical books, was challenging. “I love books about magic books,” says Törzs, “and I was like, ‘Whoa, can I do this? It’s been done so many times, am I even allowed to do this? How can I make it feel fresh?’"

She continues: “At a certain point I had to think, ‘Well I’m clearly doing it, so I have to stop judging myself for it’. When I relaxed, then I got really stuck into the magic system. At first it was a bit all over the place, but I had to remove that judgement of going where people had gone before or re-tread[ing] a path well worn.” 

From loneliness to fulfilment

Törzs has a “knee-jerk reaction to the idea that magic can only be inherited” as, like any form of inherited power, hereditary magic echoes entrenched systems of privilege and wealth. Speaking with friend and postcolonial scholar Alex Manglis about the implications of this helped Törzs subvert the sense of natural born right, or entitlement, that comes with inheritance by creating a spell, borne from the Library’s atavism, to ensure magic is confined to certain bloodlines.

Every year, on the same day, a certain spell hunts those who possess magic and the Library deploys its forces to systematically kill those identified. This is the catalyst for Esther and Joanna’s reunion when, pursued by assassins, Esther returns home to her sister: “I was writing towards Joanna and Esther’s reunion, and I didn’t know exactly what it would look like, but I knew it would be loving and complicated. For me, writing it was the most emotional moment in the story.”

Friend and writer Eliza Greenblatt “diagnosed” Törzs’ writing with the recurring theme of “a character going from loneliness to fulfilment”. Although the comment was made in reference to Törzs’ short stories, Ink Blood Sister Scribe is no different; not only do Joanna and Esther reunite, but they find a new, extended family with Nicholas and Collins. “I have a lot of found family in my life,” says Törzs, “but I also have an incredible family and three stepsisters so there’s a lot of different permutations of family that I appreciate”.