This Kansas writer is building quite a ‘Kingdom’: Seven novels in five years

In just five years, Sarah Henning has created a staggering seven novels, snapped up by the nation’s largest publishing houses, with Hollywood sniffing around for movie rights.

The Lawrence-based writer’s works range from an eerie bygone tale of mermaids and magic (“Sea Witch”) to an inspirational football story loosely set in present-day Johnson County (“Throw Like a Girl”).

And they are all, so far, squarely situated in the profitable Young Adult zone.

“It’s a reading category that captures this experience — usually between ages 15 and 18 — that’s a really interesting time in somebody’s life,” Henning says. “Whether you’re into fantasy or contemporary or whatever, there are always a lot of choices being made. You’re trying to figure out who you are. And ‘young adult’ encompasses that coming-into-yourself bit of adulthood.”

In August, Henning released “The King Will Kill You,” the final book in her “Kingdom of Sand and Sky” trilogy. She describes it as “Game of Thrones” meets “The Princess Bride.” Kirkus Reviews raves: “a score-settling third volume that really sticks it to, and in, the man.”

The series (which includes “The Princess Will Save You” and “The Queen Will Betray You”) started as a way to turn the tables on damsel-in-distress tropes.

“But what it turned out to be was a real discussion of not just flipping the damsel role, but looking at it, critiquing it and examining the ways we treat women and how they work around patriarchal power structures,” says Henning, interviewed at a downtown Lawrence coffee shop.

The 41-year-old radiates qualities of journalist, athlete and mom – which is what she is. Petite and blond, Henning doesn’t need the light to be dim for her to still get carded at a bar.

“A few years ago, a lot of being a YA author was looking like what a teenager would want to look like when growing up,” she says. “But, really, I’m a Midwestern mom.”

Having made a living through words for nearly 20 years, Henning asserts there is one fundamental misunderstanding about the role of a YA author: being dismissed as someone “just writing for kids.”

“No, we write for human beings who are going to become adults,” she counters. “And since 2005 or so, we have a lot of full-fledged adults reading YA … and they love it. It taps into that feeling of who you were in high school. First love. First everything.”

Yet her audience isn’t just separated by age.

“I have kind of a split fan base,” she says. ”There are a lot of kids and adults who read YA fantasy. However, that doesn’t necessarily cross over with my YA contemporary work. I’ve been very lucky to have seven books out in the world. Five are fantasy and two are contemporary. But those audiences don’t actually mix, like ever.”

Another Lawrence-based YA novelist, Amanda Sellet, is a fan.

“I particularly admire the physicality of Sarah’s writing, whether it’s a sword-fighting fantasy or a sportsy contemporary,” Sellet says. “If you made a Venn diagram with ‘authors’ in one circle and ‘athletes’ in another, the overlap would be slim, so Sarah’s ability to bring a reader into the action in a visceral and convincing way is fairly rare.”

Sellet has a YA romantic comedy titled “Belittled Women” coming out in November through HarperCollins. She believes Henning’s contemporary novels “Throw Like a Girl” and “It’s All in How You Fall” (both set in Kansas) deserve a wider audience, calling them “authentic and charming.”

Sellet’s 15-year-old daughter, Gillian, has a different opinion.

She prefers Henning’s fantasy books, especially “The Queen Will Betray You.”

“I love that her characters feel real and nuanced. None of them are perfect but every character has a motive for what they’re doing. It makes her stories really believable and gripping,” says Gillian, a sophomore at Lawrence Free State High School.

Does she have any friends who read Henning’s books?

“No,” she says. “But I’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince them.”

Gillian’s admiration has paid off.

“Gilly legitimately enjoys my books —like is embarrassed when I come over,” Henning says. “So when I wrote the third (‘Kingdom’) book, I wanted to take two of her favorite characters from the first two books and do a kissing scene. I was able to tell Amanda, ‘I have a scene in there just for Gilly!’”

Henning was born in Kansas City and grew up in Shawnee and Overland Park. She pursued competitive gymnastics until an injury sidelined her prior to freshman year. She pivoted to writing, spending two summers accruing bylines for The Star’s former Teen Star section.

She also volunteered at the Johnson County Library, where she was introduced to the “Cat Who” series by Lillian Jackson Braun, in which a reporter and his cats solve mysteries. It became her first reading obsession.

After graduating from Shawnee Mission North High School, she headed to Lawrence to attend the University of Kansas and study journalism. Job opportunities took her east to cover sports at the Scranton Times Tribune and the Palm Beach Post. She eventually returned to Lawrence for a long stint in the features department of the Lawrence Journal-World.

“Honestly, I thought I would be a terrible Young Adult writer because I was a boring teenager. I was the kid who went home at 9 o’clock because my friends would say, ‘You’re not going to like what happens later.’”

With her career in journalism stalling, she began contemplating a bold move toward publishing.

“I always wanted to write books as a kid, but I went into journalism because that seemed like a stronger choice. You know, go to an office every day, be told what to do. This is your job and you go and do it,” she recalls.

But she took inspiration from an aunt, Andrea Warren, who lives in Prairie Village and writes award-winning children’s nonfiction such as “Orphan Train Rider.”

“So I knew it was possible to be a person from Kansas who wrote books,” Henning says. “I just dabbled in it when I was a journalist. I didn’t really try to get an agent until after my son was born.”

Her dabbling went nowhere until she embraced the YA fantasy genre.

“I went from something that was less competitive to something that was way more competitive and somehow found a foothold,” she says.

Henning wrote her first novel, “Sea Witch,” in 2014 while on maternity leave. It came out on Katherine Tegen Books (an imprint of HarperCollins) and became an immediate commercial and critical hit.

Publishers Weekly wrote: “Deftly transforming a fairy tale into a richly layered exploration of culture and relationships, Henning tells the origin story of the Sea Witch from Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid.’”

Amazingly, Henning has managed to corral all of the Big Five publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster) into publishing her books.

Not everything has worked out exactly as she expected, though. She was laid off from her marketing/editing day job during the pandemic. This seemed to expedite pursuing all her original projects … even while the execution of them proved trickier.

“The last three years have been extremely distracting, and I’ve had to change my entire flow of how I work. It’s very hard to write about made-up people in your head when you’re stuck in your house with your family,” she says, laughing.

She reveals her husband, Justin Henning, enjoys her books. Her kids? Not so much.

“My son, who is 13, loves to tell people his mom is an author but then doesn’t actually read my books,” she admits. “His friends have read my books, and he likes that. Plus, he has teachers who read them. My daughter, who is 7, her goal is to be a ‘cat lady book writer.’ She wants to live in a cabin in Colorado with her many cats and then write books about them.”

Her children’s interest may perk up in the future. Henning has already sold the theatrical rights to “Sea Witch.”

“It was purchased by this British outfit that wanted to turn it into a stage musical. They were workshopping it, writing songs. Then the pandemic happened, so they shifted to film rights,” she says.

Her agents are also fielding movie interest for the “Kingdom” series and contemporary novels. Additionally, she has two more books coming out. “Monster Camp” (summer 2023, Simon & Schuster) follows an 11-year-old who role-plays as a vampire but finds herself in a real gathering of spooky creatures. And Henning is part of an anthology titled “Out of Our League” (winter 2024, Macmillan), this time bypassing football and gymnastics for a track and field story.

“The connection between all these books is I end up writing about female characters who are tossed into a hyper male-dominated world,” Henning says.

“I wrote a princess who was literally the most powerful person in her country and couldn’t get what she wanted because she had to get married and become a queen. Then I wrote a female softball player who played football as the way to get on a team again after she had down-spiraled. I write these women who move around these worlds with men, and they are all very different … but I feel like they would all be friends.”

Jon Niccum is a filmmaker, freelance writer and author of “The Worst Gig: From Psycho Fans to Stage Riots, Famous Musicians Tell All.”

An excerpt

Sarah Henning’s “Kingdom of Sand and Sky” trilogy starts with “The Princess Will Save You” (Tor Publishing Group, Macmillan Publishers). Here’s how it begins:

The whisper and clang of steel rang out over the foothills of Ardenia, a princess and a pauper meeting swords.

Left. Right. Cross. High cut. Mid-cross. Hanging parry. Stab.

“You’ve been practicing,” the princess accused the boy with a laugh that played across the little meadow they called theirs. The palace grounds of the Itspi had plenty of rolling land but not much that provided privacy. But this patch of mostly flat earth surrounded on three sides by fragrant juniper trees was one they’d claimed long ago as children.

It was an open secret within the castle that Princess Amarande of Ardenia spent far too much of her time here and with this boy. Luca. It hadn’t been anything to worry about until recently.

“Simply trying to avoid a devastating injury.”

“Come, Luca, I think you want to do more than avoid injury.” She tilted her head as their swords met at chest height, their faces and flushed cheeks inches apart. They were dressed alike— training breeches, tunic, chest and wrist armor, but their heads bare. The princess’s auburn hair had already begun to abandon her hasty braid, swirling in curled wisps about her face. “I think you want to win.”=

At this, Luca only grinned, dimples flashing as he lunged forward. His sword—blunt for practice but still hard-as-nails Basilican steel — tapped Amarande against the waist, right under the protection of her chest plate. A warning of what could be done for real.

“Always, Princess.”

“Then let’s make things more exciting, shall we?”