SASKATOON — It took Métis author Tonia Laird 20 years to complete her fantasy novel, Seventhblade.
This book delivers an action-packed and emotionally charged story with a deeply personal touch, following the death of a close friend. The Saskatoon author reconnected with her Métis roots after overcoming grief, reflecting on the inter-generational trauma that deepened the story, which features the Michief language and Indigenous culture.
She said that the book, despite taking her two decades to complete, began as a comic series to deal with her grief after losing her friend to a terminal illness a few days after she celebrated her 20th birthday. Her grief turned to anger, but she managed to channel it into beginning to write her novel.
“I was just so angry for her and her family, first having to deal with the uncertainty of the illness, then the slow decline of her health, and then the loss itself. So, to focus my anger, I personified the illness and wrote about the loss and this intense desire for revenge,” Laird told SaskToday.
“As I grew older, and not only lost more people in my life but also learned more about the intergenerational trauma in my own family and how it affected me and my siblings, my understanding of grief became more nuanced. I have also been reconnecting to my Métis heritage over the last two decades, and decided to explore that, and the story just built from there.”
Her experience working in the video game industry also taught her how to develop the characters in her novel, from their backgrounds, abilities, and primary motivations, to building up the story’s plot around them.
“The story can still take a left turn out of nowhere, so I have to adjust as I go, and if I get stuck, I usually go back to my characters and go deeper into figuring out their motivations. I’ve found that understanding the characters means I know how they’ll act in each scenario I put them in, and that saves me so much thinking in the end,” she added.
Laird, whose childhood dream was to draw comic books, said that creating fantasy worlds has always been something that interests her, as she loved understanding what makes characters and a society tick in a world of make-believe.
“But even more than the worldbuilding, I find I’ve always been drawn to fantasy and science fiction because it allows both writers and readers to explore and critique things in our world without attachment or bias. We should always question the world around us and why it works like it does, and fantasy allows us to do that at length. And, honestly, in the end, I have always just loved a good sword fight,” said Laird, who grew up in a farming community 20 kilometres east of Davidson.
She said they have a gas station that sells old comic books for $1, where she spent her allowance buying those that interest her. She went through each rack to look for comics that were close to the issue that she had read to learn the whole story arc. However, it was a rarity for her.
“So, I just bought whatever looked good and ended up with a huge range of characters and stories that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise. I drew a lot and always thought that would always be my true calling, but when I started making up my own stories around my drawings, I figured out that it was storytelling, not just comics, that I loved,” said Laird.
Growing up as a farm kid was, honestly, the best. I had a lot of freedom to explore the world compared to kids who grew up in larger centres, and I was part of a community where I always had people who supported me. I was a weird farm-goth who rode a motorbike and preferred playing Dungeons and Dragons over going out, but I never really felt out of place”.
She relied on a network of friends as artistic mentors, where some even getting in touch with her parents and grandparents to provide advice and give her supplies as gifts, to further hone her artistic abilities—something she wished her son, who inherited her love and talent, could also access, but find it difficult as they are living in a larger community like she used to.
Her previous works, such as the comic book series and video games, received positive reviews and even attracted a dedicated fan base, which further boosted her career in the fantasy genre.
“The video games I worked on early in my career had a huge and very dedicated fan base, and there was a lot of positive response from the online community when I interacted with players on forums and social media, but there were also some powerful personalities who focused their grievances on one or two people on our team, and it turned into abuse. My work, like the comic anthology I was part of, and the interactive novel I wrote, has a much smaller and more niche reader base, but they have had a lot of positive reviews and responses for their size, which is always thrilling to see,” said Laird.
She is now working on a supernatural book series, but was tight-lipped on the other details of the story, aside from the setting, which will be in Saskatchewan and is set to be released in late 2026. “I wish I could talk about it more, but since the publisher hasn’t announced it yet, all I can say is that I am working on a young adult supernatural book trilogy right now.”
Laird also advised aspiring writers in the province to continue writing and developing the story they wanted to create. Despite hearing from other authors, while she was still in school, that fantasy and science fiction are not real writing, she persevered and pursued her passion.
“Fiction writing is made up, so what makes something set in the real world better than something set in a world you’ve created? I’ve made a good career out of making things up. So just be open to trying new things and explore which genres and mediums work best for the stories you want to tell. Editors know when you wrote something that you put your heart and soul into vs. something you think will sell. And take advantage of writing workshops put on by local libraries and the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, they’re such an amazing resource,” Laird ended.
Seventhblade, which was released on Tuesday, June 17, is an anti-colonial action-adventure fantasy novel set in a fractured world grappling with the consequences of settler colonialism. The story follows a fierce Indigenous warrior on a brutal quest for justice after the murder of her adopted son. With its dangerous magic, cryptic gods, and morally complex alliances, the story delves into themes of legacy, resistance, and power.
Set in a richly imagined world fractured by colonial legacy, Seventhblade follows a fierce Indigenous warrior who is pushed to the edge when her adopted son is brutally murdered. In her search for vengeance, she must navigate ancient rivalries, cryptic gods, and volatile alliances that test the very limits of her loyalty and her spirit. Beneath the sword fights and spellwork lies a resonant exploration of grief, intergenerational trauma, and the weight of ancestral memory.
