20 Minutes of the novel Prize: The president of the jury Maxime Chattam meets the winner Estelle Tolliac -
20 Minutes
“Bleu de Lune”, which comes out this Thursday, follows on from “Noir de Lune” and it is the two volumes that won the novel's first “20 Minutes” Prize at the end of 2020.
This captivating adventure novel is written by Estelle Tolliac, a 38-year-old professor of Letters from Haute-Savoie.
“20 Minutes” organized a video meeting between the president of the jury, Maxime Chattam and the winning author, Estelle Tolliac.
"Thank you for letting me have a blast and escape with your book."
These are the first words addressed by Maxime Chattam to Estelle Tolliac, winner of the
20 Minutes
of the novel
prize
, of which he chaired the jury in 2020. Sanitary restrictions oblige, the two writers had never met.
20 Minutes
took advantage of the release, this Thursday, of
Bleu de Lune
, the second volume that follows
Noir de Lune
, to organize a virtual meeting as warm as possible, between the famous author of thrillers and our newly awarded neo-romancer.
“Finally, I put a face on your name and on your book, exclaims Maxime Chattam, amused to see that it is his which illustrates the promotional banner of the book.
It's yours, which should have been worn! He laughs.
In any case, thank you for giving us so much pleasure!
Because I must tell you that we did not see it coming, your novel full of fantasy, imagination, creativity, and writing of such good quality… I can only congratulate you!
"
A long adventure novel divided into two parts
To those who discovered
Noir de Lune
at the end of 2020, here is finally
Bleu de Lune
, the sequel that hits bookstores this Thursday.
The
novel's
20 Minutes
Prize-winning manuscript
was too long (700 pages) to fit into a single volume.
Estelle Tolliac, its author, took it up in order to split it into two more or less equal parts.
“The whole difficulty was to cut in a coherent way what, at the base, had been conceived as three small novels, then gathered in a single manuscript of three parts for the contest, explains Estelle Tolliac… It gave me some thread hard, because cutting in the middle did not make sense: the characters were in the middle of their quest and on the move.
Even if it means going back to the text a bit, we preferred to interrupt where there was the greatest possible suspense, to give readers the desire to read the rest… ”
And so the galley, can we say to summarize briefly the situation in the middle of the novel, without spoiling anything, neither of the first volume, nor of the second… All in their quest which consists in escorting Moon of Guernanor to her future husband, the king of Corélie, Vipéryne, Drachniel, Zar and Johan, our young heroes from rival peoples, will have, even more than in the first volume, to show malice and agility to thwart the bloodthirsty conflict which threatens a torn continent .
All the characters are endearing, even the most hateful, so much so that we only let go of them at the end with regret, at least the survivors ...
A sequel, of course, and an upcoming prequel
"Are you going to imagine a sequel?"
asks Maxime Chattam, a spin-off as they say?
Are you going to come back to this world?
Because there is so much material that we expect!
"Our winner of the
20 Minutes
of the novel award agrees:" I am very, very keen, says Estelle Tolliac.
The continuation, yes it is in germ, because I have the idea from the beginning of what could happen next to my characters… But there, the small project in which I launched myself, to give coherence to this what will follow is to imagine a prequel, which happens a generation before.
In the novel, one of the characters is called Vipéryne.
And I would like to explore her story, because she is presented as an orphan, but I'm sure there would be a lot to tell… ”
Even if we do not yet know the color of the next Moon, we can not wait to dive back into this exciting universe.
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Maxime Chattam
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