I don’t necessarily want to describe her as a reformed person, but the result of Kayden’s rehabilitation as a protagonist is that readers will encounter a character who is no longer the resentful angry young woman she once was.
What it does mean is that her less praiseworthy attributes have been toned down, so her interactions with other characters won’t be confrontational by default. The above shouldn’t be interpreted as turning Kayden into a flawlessly, virtuous Mary Sue. With that in mind, I didn’t want the evolution of the character to alienate those readers who loved her depiction as an anti-heroine, while at the same time wanting to make sure that those readers who had issues with her characterisation in Book One would have an easier time rooting for Kayden this time around. The way in which the first book ended meant that she couldn’t be the same person she was at the beginning of The Exercise Of Vital Powers, and when coupled with the fact that the upcoming second novel takes place two years after the events of its predecessor, I had to write her from a new starting point. When the time came to write the sequel novel, The Apprentice In The Master’s Shadow, I was mindful of reader expectations of Kayden as a character. Reader reaction can basically be divided into three distinct groupings: those who loved the character, principally because she isn’t the typical female fantasy protagonist those who found her very unlikeable, but enjoyed the story in spite of her, rather than because of her then there were those who were conflicted about how to feel. But even among the majority who did like the book, there isn’t consensus about Kayden. Of the small number of people who hated The Exercise Of Vital Powers, those who posted reviews cited their dislike of her as a character.
In the three years since the original publication of my debut novel, my assumption that any given reader’s reaction to Kayden would ultimately determine whether or not they enjoyed the story has only partially been born out.
Though it wasn’t my intention for her to be an anti-heroine, it was, nonetheless, a deliberate creative choice on my part to ensure that Kayden was unsympathetic for the first half of the book. While writing the book, I was aware that she was a risky character to employ as the lead for a story, because her prevailing traits were guaranteed to make her dislikable in the eyes of many readers. If you’ve been following my writing career from the beginning, you may recall some of my ruminations on Kayden Jayta, the protagonist of my first book, The Exercise Of Vital Powers, during its participation in the 2017 SPFBO competition.
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