It’s my pleasure to bring you an interview and review for the incredible The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson as part of a blog tour hosted by Hear Our Voices! Please take a moment to view the schedule for the whole tour, which starts today and continues until April 21st.

The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson is a modern fantasy novel that turns the chosen one trope on its head. Join me as I speak with E.M. Anderson about writing her debut novel, and then continue reading below to read my full review!

Hi E.M. Anderson, thank you for joining me today at Just Geeking By. Could you start us off by introducing yourself and your book?

Thanks for having me! I’m E, a queer, neurodivergent author with two master’s degrees and a feral passion for birds, trees, and Uncle Iroh. My debut, The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher, is an adult contemporary fantasy about an 83-year-old who leaves the nursing home for a fantastical adventure when she learns she’s the Chosen One.

What inspired you to write a book about an elderly chosen one?

Many people, when I tell them about the book, say, “Oh, that reminds me of this Tumblr post—” and that’s exactly what inspired me! It actually started as a tweet from @BroodingYAHero, a Twitter account run by author Carrie Ann DiRisio (who now has a book based on the account) that pokes fun (lovingly) at certain YA tropes of the time like the hot, brooding love interest. One of her tweets read: It’s amazing how many prophecies involve teens. You’d think they’d pick more emotionally stable people, with more free time. Like grandmas.

I saw this tweet on Tumblr, went “ooh,” and saved it to my Writing Inspo folder, where it sat for a while until I needed a new story idea for a last man standing-style writing challenge and that tweet leapt out at me.

Once you decided on an elderly protagonist, why did you decide on 83 for her age?

No reason, really—that’s just the age she was.

There is a wonderful amount of representation in The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher. Could you tell us about some of the characters readers will meet?

Oh my gosh, I could go on forever about every single character, but here are just a few.

Edna loves knitting and hates stairs and her nursing home’s activity director; she adopts everyone, constantly worries about the young people in her life, and is aggressively cheerful—even when she’s nursing her own hurts: she’s convinced that she needs to be strong for the people in her life. She rarely asks for help or comfort, no matter how badly she needs it, but focuses on comforting others.

Benjamin is an orderly at the home, but he’s also a nerd about all things magical…but he’s also also hyperaware of how wrong magic can go. Even though he has an advanced degree in theoretical magic, he’s never done a spell. He has generalized anxiety but is probably the only one of the main cast resembling anything like a responsible adult.

Clem is a teenager Edna and Benjamin pick up in their travels. In another story, she’d probably be the Chosen One, but she isn’t, and she’s salty as hell about it. She often comes across as rude and angry, but really she’s a traumatized child who needs therapy but hasn’t had any. While she can be abrasive, she’s also the most competent and resourceful of Our Heroes (sorry, Edna and Benjamin, it’s just the truth).

The chosen one trope isn’t the only trope you turn on its head in The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher (Basil was a personal favourite). Did you have a list you worked through, or did they just come randomly?

Definitely random! The Chosen One trope was the only one I specifically set out to subvert, and that primarily because the whole premise depends on subverting the idea of what a Chosen One looks like. But I think because my whole premise hinges on subverting one trope, I just naturally subverted others. The world of the story is unexpected and unusual, I think, and so many things about the story are really quirky, so I leaned into that and went with whatever funky ideas I had about dragons and magic and other fantasy tropes.

The main plot of the book, in particular, is unconventional as well, focusing on a topic that is often relegated to a side plot. Was this always the plan?

No in a very literal sense, because the first draft was heavily pantsed, so there was very little plan at all at first. Edna popped into my head almost fully formed; I knew a little bit about Benjamin; and I knew two very important (but spoilery) things about the antagonist. Once I started drafting, I saw a little bit of the story ahead of me at a time and filled it in with frantic brainstorming.

That said, the main plot hasn’t substantially changed. The shape of it has—the first draft was 160,000 words and full of weird and random wanderings because of the way I wrote it—but the actual focus of the plot never changed. I just clarified and tidied it. So in that sense, you could say that it was always the plan.

There are a lot of books about knights in a fantasy or medieval setting, but in The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher, you bring them into the 21st Century. What were the challenges of writing this setting?

The single biggest challenge was making it clear to readers early on that the setting is more-or-less the real world—the contemporary real world minus a certain presidency that had just started when I was first drafting and a certain pandemic that was several years off yet—but magic exists openly. There are plenty of fantasy stories set in the real world, but often, in real-world settings, magic is hidden, known to only a few. And that’s just not the case with this book. In Remarkable Retirement, magic exists out in the open, and everyone knows about it. So you have nursing homes and iPhones and Detroit and California, but you also have wizards and elves and dragons and enchanted swords.

Early on in drafting and revisions, readers were confused when a wizard pops into the nursing home to tell Edna she’s the Chosen One. They could accept that a wizard had shown up at an apparently ordinary nursing home, but they were confused by the residents’ reaction. While the residents are surprised to see a wizard in their nonmagical nursing home, they’re not surprised by the existence of a wizard. So in the first chapter in particular, I had to write and rewrite until I was able to capture a sense of the world from the very first line.

There are so many funny moments in The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher; what part did you have most fun writing?

…the part I had the most fun writing is not a funny moment, oops. It’s a pivotal scene in the book. I knew it would happen from very, very early on in the drafting process despite my lack of planning; I couldn’t wait to get to it. I had a great time writing it, but it’s a deeply emotional scene that left me feeling drained. So I had to take a couple days off after that.

(I still kind of grin when I read it, though. Sorry, Edna.)

I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to know whether we’ll be seeing Edna and co again?

I am very much a standalone kind of person (as both an author and a reader), plus Edna is 83 and deserves a rest after all she’s been through! That said, there’s a short story in the works—a prequel set shortly after Edna first moves into her nursing home, showing how she and Benjamin start becoming like family to each other—and I do have another novel set in the same world with a different cast that I love possibly more than any other cast I’ve ever written. So if I ever get around to revising that, hopefully you’ll at least see a story set in the same world, with similar trope subversion and a similar vibe! I’ve been lowkey working on a revision plan in my spare time, but I have a long way to go until I find a direction I’m happy with.

What’s next for you?

I’m agented now, so we’re hoping to go on sub with my next manuscript some time this year! It’s another adult contemporary fantasy starring another elderly protagonist—but this one is a ghost-hunter cursed with immortality, except instead of looking like a hot 25-year-old, he looks like he’s in his seventies. It’s a quieter book with subtler magic, but it’s extremely cozy, extremely queer, and again has very central found family.

You're never too old for adventure.

When you're a geriatric armed with nothing but gumption and knitting needles, stopping a sorcerer from wiping out an entire dragon-fighting organization is a tall order. No one understands why 83-year-old Edna Fisher is the Chosen One, destined to save the Knights from a dragon-riding sorcerer bent on their destruction. After all, Edna has never handled a magical weapon, faced down a dragon, or cast a spell. And everyone knows the Council of Wizards always chooses a teenager-like the vengeful girl ready to snatch Edna's destiny from under her nose.

Still, Edna leaps at the chance to leave the nursing home. With her son long dead in the Knights' service, she's determined to save dragon-fighters like him and to ensure other mothers don't suffer the same loss she did. But as Edna learns about the abuse in the ranks and the sorcerer's history as a Knight, she questions if it's really the sorcerer that needs stopping-or the Knights she's trying to save.

This book was provided for free by Hear Our Voices and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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I adored The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson. From start to finish, this rollercoaster of a modern fantasy novel was absolutely brilliant. Anderson has spun a rich tale that subverts the usual chosen one trope, putting an eighty-three-year-old at the centre of the story rather than the usual young person.

Edna Fisher had been preparing herself for life in her retirement home without one of the few people who brightened up her days. One of the nurses, Benjamin, who is really the only one on staff who puts up with Edna and her eccentricities, is heading off to follow his dreams and study magic. It’s something Edna has supported fully, but she’s going to miss him when he’s gone, and he feels the same. So when a wizard from the Council of Wizards suddenly turns up to inform Edna that she’s been named the chosen one to fight the current big bad, they’re both up for one last adventure together.

It’s an adventure of a lifetime, that’s for sure, and they pick up a few other people along the way. To name a few, there’s Clem, a teenager who’s out for revenge, the mysterious elf Kiernan, and Amir, a famous carpet maker. Every character that Anderson has created is wonderfully written, with witty, snappy dialogue and strong backstories. They’re also so very messy in a way that echoes life because life is messy. I found them all to be incredibly relatable, and this made the emotional scenes pack a punch. There is a huge twist that you will definitely need some tissues for!

Everything about this book is just so well written, and Anderson has found the perfect balance of light-hearted fun and humour with dark, serious topics. She handles difficult issues with care and sensitivity, giving them a prominent place in the story rather than shuffling them off to a side story. It’s no surprise then that The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher is chock-full of representation and damn proud of it. With multiple LGBTQIA+, BIPOC and disabled characters, this isn’t a tick-box type of book. Characters come in every shape, size and colour – and age, as The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher pointedly reminds us – and it’s fantastic to see.

From a disabled perspective, it was great to see scenes with Edna and Benjamin, and him caring for her as a friend. Little things like her asking for her pain meds, and struggling with pain or stairs. Benjamin has anxiety, and the representation of anxiety in this book is brilliant, especially in the way that Edna notices things about how Benjamin interacts with others socially. Additionally, there’s another character whose condition is not formally identified on the page but looks similar to ME/CFS or fibromyalgia and is cared for by their teenage daughter.

The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher brings the traditional elements of fantasy into the modern world and successfully mixes the two together. This is a fun-filled adventure about found family, magic, dragons, and so many subverted tropes. There’s a serious heart to this novel that just makes it even more special. This is one fantasy novel you do not want to miss out on.

Thank you for joining me today for my spot on the blog tour for The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson, hosted by Hear Our Voices! I hope you enjoyed my interview with E.M. Anderson and my review 🙂

Please don’t forget to check out the schedule for the whole tour, which continues until April 21st.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of my reviews if you’re looking for some more book recommendations, 🙂 You can also now sign up for my newsletter to get an email each month with a list of my new reviews!

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