Hello, dear readers! Today, I’m interviewing Zita, a character from Claudie Arseneault’s latest novel, Baker Thief.
Arseneault describes Baker Thief as “the first in a fantasy series meant to reframe romance tropes within non-romantic relationship and centering aromantic characters. Those who love enemies-to-lovers and superheroes should enjoy the story!”
I thoroughly enjoyed this story, and Zita was a bright spot in it. If you find Zita as delightful as I do, you should pick up a copy on Amazon or Gumroad!
Adèle has only one goal: catch the purple-haired thief who broke into her
home and stole her exocore, thus proving herself to her new police team. Little does she know, her thief is also the local baker.
Claire owns the Croissant-toi, but while her days are filled with pastries and customers, her nights are dedicated to stealing exocores. These new red gems are heralded as the energy of the future, but she knows the truth: they are made of witches’ souls.
When her twin—a powerful witch and prime exocore material—disappears, Claire redoubles in her efforts to investigate. She keeps running into Adèle, however, and whether or not she can save her sister might depend on their conflicted, unstable, but deepening relationship. (via Goodreads)
Hello, Zita! Welcome to the blog! Tell us a little bit about yourself!
Oh hum, hi! I am Zita. I’m a girl and huh … a lesbian, and … you know what’s even better than talking about myself? Talking about others. You wouldn’t believe the latest news from the Quartier des Érables! Did you hear about Flavien? No? Ugh. Well, I guess that would be long to explain. Anyway… Back to me? I’m also a Seeker! That means I can use magic to detect and track down other witches. It’s pretty handy when you’re paid to deliver secret messages to them all over town.
What is your favorite baked food, and why?
The choco-almond deliciousness that Claude bakes. And his, specifically. I was the main taster on these so they have been tuned to my idea of perfection, and really, what could ever be better than amazing almond paste topped with thick chocolate, all encased in fresh, puffy pastry? Nothing I tell you.
What’s the most important trait to you in a friend or romantic partner?
Honesty and trust. At least in a relationship with me. Look, I’m an oversharer. I will tell people everything, and if we’re gonna be close, then I expect some reciprocity. Not that they have to tell me everything, but it feels like the very least is to not lie to me, even if honesty is telling me they prefer to keep a secret. We all have boundaries, but I like knowing where others’ are.
When do you consider it an appropriate time to lie?
Any time it protects others. That’s a really easy question, no? Unless you’re some absolute morality type of people. I hate being lied to—that’s an important break of trust, there—but sometimes there are bigger things happening, or even smaller, private hurts that can be avoided.
Where would you live, if you could live anywhere in the world?
Right here in Val-de-mer. Why would I even pick somewhere else? I know all the gossip here, and every year we get to taunt people from the Quartier des Chênes about their losing streak at the Tournois, and for half a year everything is white and cold and lovely.
If you could teach everyone in the world one thing, what would it be?
I would give us all fear-mongering detector, so every time someone starts to rile up crowds against a group and try to paint them as dangerous for some bullshit reason, it could go HONK super loud and we’d all know better! It’d be fun, and we’d all know better than to fall for it. Lives saved, laughter had!
How do you measure success?
By how much money it gets me. Just kidding. I have no idea. I don’t measure success, I live my life. Most days it’s a really cool one.
If you had a free day with nothing to do, what would you do?
Nothing. Isn’t that the point? I could be like a cat and stretch in sunshine and do sweet, beautiful nothing.
If you could spend a day with someone you admire (alive, dead or fictional) who would it be?
My parents. Don’t make me choose. They both left too soon, and I wonder what they would think of me, y’know? On most days, I believe they would be proud. I bet we would do really silly stuff, too! Everyone tells me they had no patience for pretentiousness and loved to play games regardless of what others thought of them. I don’t remember but, so mostly I admire what I’ve been told, but that totally counts, right?
What made you come up with your spy nickname?
Well, fishes are cool, and paddlefishes can become really big! I wish I got to grow to up to seven foot tall! Plus they’re really hard to catch, because they don’t feed like other fishes and bite stuff? So you can’t just cast a line. A spy has to be hard to catch, am I right? So if everyone could stop mocking or distorting my very important informant name, that would be great.