Author Spotlight ~ Blog Tour: Sandy Butchers
Sandy (she/her) Butchers’ life has been like a giant cake but instead of ingredients like sugar, spice, and everything nice, her cake was layered with travel, exploration, myth, and folklore. In a time span of only 5 years, she visited Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Scotland, and decided to live 350km above the arctic circle in Finland for a year.
There, in the company of the Northern Lights, the magic happened: Sandy started her first full-length novel, inspired by the myths and folklore she found herself surrounded by in real-world situations.
Today, Sandy works as a freelance artist for clients such as Urano Publishing USA, Crit Harder!, and Authors & Dragons. She regularly takes on commissions, too (really, go and check out the Technomancer collaboration with M.K. Gibson!). Apart from that, if she is not working on artwork for clients, you can find her working on her next manuscript.
Represented by Charlie Serabian, Global Lion MGT
Author Links:
Website (direct to book page): sandybutchers.com
Facebook: @AuthorSandyButchers
Instagram: @SandyButchers
Bluesky: @SandyButchers.bsky.social
Add to GoodReads: Bonds of Blood and Silver
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Bonds of Blood and Silver Book TrailerYour new novel, Bonds of Blood and Silver, is an exciting fantasy adventure with the premise that the gods are dead as a result of deicide – all except one. Where did this premise come from and what were your influences for this book?
We live in a world that’s slowly unraveling. We are constantly confronted with division, chaos, and uncertainty. Now, more than ever, we need hope: hope for a better future, hope that we can mend what’s broken, and most of all, hope that we can find our way back to one another in a world where we all seem to be strangers.
Bonds of Blood & Silver zooms in on that sentiment. Even when all seems lost and the world is spiraling into madness, there is strength to be found in the connections we forge.
Tell us what we can expect in terms of the style – is this a single POV or multiple POVs? How did you develop the narrative voice/s for this novel?
Bonds of Blood & Silver is a multi-POV story that gives you as much insight into the minds of the bad guys as it does into the world of the good guys.
I’ve always been fascinated by the motivations behind the choices characters make, and at some point in developing this story, I started wondering: why should the motivations of the good guys matter more than those of the villains? Spoiler: they don’t. The line between light and dark is thin. Sometimes, people make the wrong choices for the right reasons — and vice versa. This concept became the foundation of this story.
If I was going to tell a tale of a god making difficult decisions, then I also had to shine a light on what led to those choices and the people involved in them. So while the story begins on opposite sides of the continent, as it progresses, we see those choices and decisions pulling everything closer together — until they collide, and all hell breaks loose.
Skjall – Character Art by Sandy Butchers
Let’s spotlight some characters! The novel follows Skjall, the only surviving god, and a group of local, shape-shifting warriors and witches, who are his allies. Introduce us to Skjall, your protagonist, and tell us more about his alliance with the shape-shifters – I know shape-shifting magic users feature in Nordic, Flemish, and Germanic folklore, so did you draw upon any of that for these characters? What other elements influenced their development?
Skjall is old – older than memory itself. He is a god, once revered in forgotten temples, his name carved into stone now ground to dust by the ages. He sees the threads of causality that bind the universe, the inevitabilities hidden within chaos. To him, coincidence is an illusion, a mask worn by truths waiting to be revealed. He carries this burden with quiet acceptance.
The concept of shape-shifters in this story is heavily inspired by old Norse mythology. Shape-shifters aren’t the result of a curse but rather an agreement between two different creatures. It is through that connection that the gods in this story came into being. Gods aren’t all-powerful — far from it.
Much like in Norse mythology, they have as many flaws as they do supernatural abilities. They are vulnerable, they have emotions, and they are far more human than one might expect.
With that understanding, it follows that no man — or god — is an island. We need allies to survive in a world determined to erase any form of divinity.
Hjalmar – Shifter Character Art by Sandy Butchers
The antagonist of the novel is a king harvesting people in pursuit of immortality – and an alchemically enhanced monster-soldier army, which sounds amazing. Tell us more about your antagonist and how you developed this character, and how you came up with the monsters for the book.
Avix is born different – he holds a power the world deems too great to be trusted. Cast out as a child, he learned to live on the edge of humanity’s fear, always trying to prove himself. Now, in his Silver Spire, he waits. The blood of the last god is the key to prove the power of alchemy and live forever.
Whether it will redeem him or condemn the world is a question he no longer cares to ask. Avix emerged from the extinction of the gods — some might say he was the very cause of their downfall.
Driven by a deep-seated grudge against the injustices he suffered, he is consumed by the need to prove his worth without divine intervention. Where others once wielded magic, Avix wields science. Where gods once shaped the world, he has created monsters — proof that no divine power is needed to bind one being to another. And in doing so, he has become addicted to the power he now commands.
We all know that addiction clouds judgment, so it should be no surprise when we find Avix stumbling down a spiral of twisted morals and… interesting decisions.
Map for
Bonds of Blood and Silver As with all great fantasy novels, yours comes with a map! How did you go about mapping the terrain of your world, and what was your process for working out its geographical features? Where in the plotting process did this come in – at the very start, as the drafts progressed, or did things coalesce at the end and influence rewrites?
The map is almost a story in itself. I never truly considered working with one until my agent pointed out how much it could enhance the experience—making the locations, distances, and passage of time more tangible. When you see the map, you’ll notice it covers only a small corner of a much larger world. Who knows? The next book might unveil another part of it. But that’s the beauty of this approach—by narrowing the focus to a single, carefully chosen region, the world doesn’t feel smaller. It feels richer, more immersive, drawing you deeper into the journey unfolding within it.
Bonds of Blood and Silver mock-up paperback image
What can you tell readers in the Netherlands about the NL-only special release edition?
You know what, the Release Edition is not even exclusively for people in The Netherlands anymore. I’m more than happy to take on orders for people outside of NL.
By the time this interview goes live, everybody should be able to order a release edition through the website. In any case, the Release Edition is pretty awesome.
It contains a signed copy of the book, an art print of the map and a super cool bookmark. What’s there not to love? You can head on over to https://www.sandybutchers.com/bobas to order your copy today!
Do you have any early reader feedback to share with us? What reception has your book had so far?
Despite there not being any full reviews yet (the ARC-team is working hard to fix that though!), early presentations of the book are being received with a lot of enthusiasm. [This is in February 2025: by the time this interview is posted, there will be reviews to share!]
Many local stores here in The Netherlands are setting up events for a book tour, many book bloggers have applied for a chance to spend some time on it, and I’ve received a whole bunch of messages from people telling me they can’t wait to sink their teeth into Bonds of Blood & Silver.
And I’ll tell you a little secret; all that is worth as much as review, haha. But keep an eye on sites like Goodreads or Amazon. Reviews are coming, and I’m as curious to find what people think of the book as you are!
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