When I wrote a throwaway line six years ago about my main character’s love interest having a brother who’d gone missing while backpacking in Thailand, I had no idea I would eventually write the story of what happened to him.
At the time, Ben Miller barely existed as a character. He was simply Sarah’s missing brother – a convenient bit of backstory that helped explain something about her.
But somewhere along the way, Ben became Benji: a myth hunter who is very good at what he does, has a habit of showing up at exactly the wrong moment for my protagonist, and eventually became important enough to the Mythical Menagerie series that I started wondering: How did this guy become that guy?
The answer became Hunter’s Calling.
And to tell Ben’s story, I had to take him back to where it all started: Thailand.
Why Thailand?
When I was fresh out of school, I visited Bangkok and Phuket with friends.
It was my first experience of Thailand, and that trip has stayed surprisingly vivid in my memory all these years later.
Bangkok was a culture shock.
The heat was the first thing that hit me. I’m from South Africa, so I’m certainly no stranger to a warm climate, but the humidity in Bangkok was something else. Stepping out of the air-conditioned airport felt like walking into a wall.
Fortunately, there were also gorgeous blue-sky days and tropical evening storms – and I happen to love a good thunderstorm, so I couldn’t complain too much.
Then there was everything else.
The temples. The food. The traffic. The strange smells. The sheer number of things happening around you at any given moment.
Bangkok felt like sensory overload in the best possible way, and as a wide-eyed young tourist encountering a culture very different from my own, I couldn’t get enough of it.
Eventually, though, we left the hustle and bustle of Bangkok behind and headed for Phuket.
And when I think about Phuket now, my memories are mostly in shades of blue and green.
Blue water. Blue sky. Green forests.
Paradise, basically.
I don’t know if Phuket was as well known for its party scene then as it is today. If it was, we somehow managed to miss most of it. Instead, what stayed with me was the natural beauty of the island, the friendliness of the people we met and that wonderful feeling of being somewhere completely different from home.
Those memories sat quietly in the back of my mind for years.
Until I decided to fill paradise with monsters.
Monsters in Paradise
When I started exploring Thai mythology for Hunter’s Calling, I discovered an absolute treasure trove of creatures.
One of them was the nguek – a mermaid-like creature from Thai folklore that became an important part of Ben’s story. I’ve already done a deeper dive into the wonderfully weird world of Asian mermaids, including the nguek and the Japanese ningyo, so I won’t repeat all of that here.
But once I started digging into the mythology of the region, I realised I had plenty to work with.
And suddenly those beautiful tropical waters I remembered from my own trip took on a rather different character.
What if there really were creatures hiding beneath that perfect blue surface?
What if a young backpacker wandered a little too far from the tourist trail?
And what if he discovered something that was never supposed to be there?
I won’t tell you exactly what Ben encounters because that would spoil the fun.
Let’s just say the nguek isn’t the only mythical creature waiting for him.
Paradise Is the Perfect Place to Be Lost
The monsters weren’t the only reason Thailand worked so well for Ben’s story.
When we first meet him in Hunter’s Calling, Ben is adrift.
He’s a young man backpacking through paradise, but the trip is also an escape from the perfectly respectable life waiting for him back in London. He knows what he’s supposed to do next. He’s just not convinced it’s what he actually wants.
I loved the contrast in that.
On the surface, Ben is a young guy having an adventure in paradise.
Underneath, he’s completely lost.
And Phuket gave me the perfect setting in which to explore that. This beautiful, postcard-perfect place becomes the backdrop for someone who has no idea where he belongs or what he wants to do with the rest of his life.
Of course, getting involved with mythical monsters turns out to be a fairly effective way of forcing him to reconsider his options.
Especially once he meets Masuyo.
Becoming a Myth Hunter
Long-time Mythical Menagerie readers will already know Masuyo from Myth Bringer, but in Hunter’s Calling, we get to meet an earlier version of her.
She’s already an experienced Japanese huntress when she crosses paths with Ben, and she’s the one who begins teaching him about the hidden mythical world he has stumbled into.
Bringing Masuyo into the story also gave me an excuse to sneak in a creature from Japanese mythology that existing readers might recognise.
Because apparently Thai monsters weren’t enough!
More importantly, though, writing Hunter’s Calling finally allowed me to discover how Ben Miller became Benji.
When I wrote that throwaway line all those years ago, I knew that Sarah’s brother had disappeared while backpacking in Thailand.
Much later, I knew where he eventually ended up.
I just didn’t know what had happened in between.
Now I do.
And it turns out that one little throwaway line had an entire story hiding behind it.
Travel, Mythology and Storytelling
Thailand isn’t the only real place that has found its way into my fiction.
I love taking places I’ve visited – or places I desperately want to visit – and asking what might exist there just beyond the ordinary world we can see.
What could be hiding in that forest?
What ancient creature might still be living beneath that water?
What if the stories people have been telling for centuries aren’t just stories?
That collision between the familiar and the impossible is one of my favourite things to explore in fiction.
Or, to put it another way: I like taking perfectly nice places and putting monsters in them.
Sorry, Thailand.
Read Hunter’s Calling
Hunter’s Calling is a standalone novella set in the world of my Mythical Menagerie contemporary fantasy series.
You don’t need to have read the main series first, so if the idea of backpackers stumbling across mythical creatures in Thailand sounds like your kind of adventure, you can jump straight in.
Existing readers, however, may recognise a few familiar faces – and there are some easter eggs in there just for you.
Hunter’s Calling is available as an e-book and paperback, and Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read the e-book as part of their subscription.
And I’d love to know: is there somewhere you’ve travelled that you think would make the perfect setting for a fantasy story?
