Olga Gibbs ~ Interview

Hello people !

This is a first on my blog, but today I have an Author’s interview for you all! Olga has been very sweet to me, and her book was my first and an AWESOME Ya fantasy – which include a powerful badass young female character, what more would you want ?! Oh and it has angels too.

 

If you haven’t yet, please go check my review of her book right here !

Her book is available on Amazon; “Heavenward” by Olga Gibbs

(grab a coffee or tea, this is gonna be a long one – heheh ! )

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More about our author ; 

• Tell us some things about yourself

I live in England, a small green town surrounded by picturesque fields and hills. (I have attached a picture from one of my recent walks). I have a family: husband and two teenage daughters. And not to forget a moody ginger cat, called Fluffy. I started to write when I was a teenager, mainly novellas and for a while I was writing small columns for teens in a local newspaper. Currently, I’m doing outreach work with teenagers, who suffered a physiological or mental trauma, helping them with coping strategies, inspiring them and helping them to move on, and not to let their past to define their future. This book is for them.

 

• Is Heavenward the first book you’ve written?

No, it’s not the first one written, but it’s the first one published. I’ve written a few novellas before, but they’re still sitting in my draw. Maybe one day they’ll come out… 😊

 

• Do you have other ideas of future books after this series will end? If so, what genre will those be?

As a matter of fact, I have just started active planning of another book. I’m researching and working on it along with writing the second book in the Celestial Creatures series. That one will be a stand-alone crime thriller. Again featuring a strong female protagonist, this time she’s a mother and a wife and that in return would determine the actions she’d take. You’d be surprised how far seemingly ordinary people can go when they’re put in a desperate situation and what they’ll do to protect their family. And that mother is no exception. But that’s as much as I’m going to tell you at this point.

All the characters in my books are females. I guess it’s not a surprise really. After years of working with struggling teenagers, and being a mother myself, I’ve decided at some point to write a parenting book as well. But that plan is further down the line.

I have one more book in research stage. That one will be about war veteran – the hell of war, PTSD and the struggle of getting the life back together after surviving a war zone. And a few more ideas floating about, so put it by this way – that’s not the last time you’ve heard of me. 😊

 

 • On the side of writing, do you also find the time to read; Can you tell us your favourite genre/authors/books?

I love reading. My taste is very eclectic. I’ve read War and Peace – first two books I’ve read completely, third I just skimmed through, and with fourth I’ve made more of an effort, but still War and Peace is not the easiest of reads. I’ve read Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and absolutely adore Jane Eyre – re-read this one countless times. But I like light upmarket readings too. I’ve read Cresley Cole’s books, especially enjoyed her Arcana chronicles, read Hush Hush, Mortal instruments, love Martina Cole’s books. I like Stephen King and in particular enjoyed his “Big Driver” story – that’s been made into an excellent movie. I just like to read about strong women. A strong woman I can relate too.

Not “Super Woman” strong women, but every day women who fight back, every day, against all odds. Women who stand up for what is important to them, fight for it, even when it’s tough, desperate. That kind of strong woman.

And that’s the reason why my main character is always a female and she’s a kick-ass lead heroine and I want to shake up the status-quo in the romance. I don’t think that girl needs to be a weak one in the relationship to get her “ever-after” and to be loved. She damn well can be in charge! She can be smarter, more successful, richer, whatever, and maybe she can slay the dragon herself. She doesn’t need to be rescued.

One genre I can’t and don’t read is romance, rom-com, chick-lit if you wish. I’m getting bored after just a few pages.

 

About Heavenward ;

• How the Heavenward came to be?

First I had my character – Ariel. I had her for a few years now. She lived with me, inside me and one day when I was ready to write, I wondered what I could do with her. For her. She lived an incredibly tough life and I wanted her to have something good for a change. I wanted to give her her power back and for good measure to throw a humanity in it, to put us all at her mercy.

I’ve written this book for all girls out there, like Ariel, powerless at this moment, struggling, emotionally and mentally. With this book I wanted to tell them, that they’re an incredible universe of their own, an archangel, who can change the world if she wishes, that her past does not define her. I hope I’m making sense here.

And I didn’t want to write a realistic book about Ariel’s abuse. I feel that someone who never lived through such things wouldn’t want to read about it, the way it would come out of me would be too disturbing. You’ve read this book, right? And it’s me diluting it for the YA market 🙂 .  And girls, who lived through it, would never want to relive it, so that how this book became a fantasy.  But I felt it was important to give Ariel a voice, to speak about the abuse that some girls are suffering on a daily basis.

 

• Is any of your character based after yourself? What about Ariel? How did she came to be?

Ariel is a fused character. She is every girl. She can be any girl. Ariel’s childhood is written from my own. The first line of the story echoes my constant childhood fear. She’s any girl who has a difficult family life, every runaway, every abused girl. She can be anyone: a girl you see every day at the bus stop on your way to school, that quiet girl in your class, or maybe the one who lives in the house down the street, with constantly closed curtains.

 

• The Love triangle between Ariel, Sam and Rafe..

I feel that I need to address that one. I didn’t mean to write Ariel into a love triangle. No, let me re-phrase it. Is it love when someone loves not you, but something that inside of you, that belonged to another person? Rafe loves the essence of his soul mate and we’ll see later if he loves Ariel ;).

 

• Heavenward is the first book of a series, do you have a general idea on what will happen in the next books, or do you prefer to let the story “write itself” through you?  And how many books will this series contain?

I have decided that it will be a trilogy. I don’t think there’s a need to spin it any longer, but I couldn’t let Ariel to overcome the struggles, her demons, to grow, to develop, to change, have her due in just one book. Then it might’ve been as thick as War and Peace 😊

Like every one of us, Ariel will be fighting for her happiness and as much as I love her, I’m not letting her to have an easy time here. And I know that she’s a strong girl who can do it! I absolutely trust that she can. With this book I wanted to let girls, who went through something like Ariel, to know, that they can do it! No matter how hard, no matter how long, but they can go through it, they can survive it, not to let it to over-run, swallow them.

I can tell you that Ariel’s sister will appear in the second book along with one more blast from the past. But I haven’t yet decided what will be an ultimate end for Ariel or humanity for that matter. With the first book, for example, I have started with one plan, but somehow ended up with a different book. So we’ll see what happens….

 

• Is there a reason why you decided to write angels specifically? Where did you draw your inspiration of the characters?

It all started with Ariel and my need to give her the power. A realistic book was out of the question, so we comfortably settled on fantasy. But then I was thinking who to make her into?

Vampires?  Too bloody, I would’ve ended up with a Stephen King’s kind of blood bath there.

Aliens? Not feeling it.

Werewolves? Didn’t want her pretty face covered in fur, even if it’s once in a blue moon (pun intended)

Fairy? Too fairy-ish. Her see-though wings wouldn’t have managed to carry her and all the ammo I was planning to give her.

Fairies have wings.. wings.. wings.. angel wings.. Let’s make her an angel!

And it had slotted perfectly with apocalyptic vibes I was going for. And the Bible’s Book of Revelation was a perfect starting point. So a few months later, after the daily relentless research into Jewish and Christian eschatology, Jewish beliefs, Christian doctrines and old Sumerian beliefs and language, and a few angelic and celestial thesis books later, I arrived to my characters and the story.

Each character, apart from Ariel, is an angel in Christian mythology, some fallen, some not.

 

• Talking of the ending .. No spoilers, but do you know beforehand which of our “three” team will win //which one you would want to see winning? 

As we all know, Ariel has the ultimate power at her disposal, she is the one who can swing the scales either way once and for all. But I still haven’t decided what ending I should let readers have. As much as I want to give humanity a happy ending, my dark streak now and again calls for the ultimate annihilation, maybe at the hands of Baza but maybe from Ariel herself. I mean, how long and how much can a girl take before she says enough? Like with every one of us, sometimes we cross a point of no return, cross the final line, so let hope nobody crosses it with Ariel. But talking of an ending, I’m happy to hear readers’ suggestions! It’s always interesting to hear readers’ input and wishes on the characters, but as it stands at the moment, the ending still hasn’t been written.