Holly Bell is a photographer and video maker when not writing her next novel. She resides in the U.K. and is a mixture of English, Cornish and Welsh. Her favorite cat is Bobby and, yes, he is acting as Tempest’s manager.
Sit back and enjoy this interview with Holly.
Denise: It takes quite an imagination to keep readers interested in a series with the same characters. What was it like creating Amanda’s world, her personality and hunger for knowledge?
Holly: It’s as though Amanda and her world always existed, and bit by bit it’s come to me. The books write themselves. It’s like standing outside in a shower and catching raindrops or butterflies landing on your shoulder. As soon as Tim (TJ Brown), my mentor suggested the name, Amanda, I knew who she was. During the course of her experiences, she’s developed, and the experiences themselves have determined that.
Then again, I do have the inside track, because I am very like her! Being on the spectrum means social cues often go over her head. She doesn’t register humans in the same way as most eagle-eyed sleuths. Amanda relies on hundreds, even thousands, of rules garnered from her grandparents, to guide her through interactions with other people. So she’s data-driven. Amanda wants to understand what makes the world tick and to acquire the knowledge she needs to make the best possible choices and decisions.
Anyone who is ‘different’ from ‘the norm’ can relate to Amanda. She is a witch with profoundly powerful abilities that she needs to conceal. Imagining the challenges that would throw up shed more light on her character. But that isn’t the only disparity between Amanda and her peers in general: she has asthma. Why did I give my heroine a disability? I read voraciously in the past because, like Robert Lewis Stephenson, the author of Treasure Island, I spent a great deal of time in less than good health. I know that a great many readers are in circumstances where they have to rest a great deal. I wanted a heroine that they could relate to. Amanda can’t run and climb and jump like Lara Croft. But she has other things that compensate.
Denise: Have you always been interested in the paranormal?
Holly: Like many small children, I had what would be termed paranormal experiences, and I regarded them as normal. I observed them and thought everyone had them. One day, I mentioned what had occurred. I was, as is often the case, told that they were my imagination or I was dreaming and that probably it would be better if I didn’t talk about them!
I heard conversations that were taking place between strangers who were nowhere in my vicinity, and sometimes I saw people one else could see. None of it was at all alarming. It seemed perfectly usual. I would say that the paranormal has always played a part in my life. I was either experiencing it, being warned about it or reading about it, especially in my favourite novels.
Denise: What led you to focus your writing about witches and magic?
Holly: My novel-writing career began the day my friend Tim told me about the then-new genre of cozy mystery. He was convinced I could write at least one, even though I’d only written non-fiction. Tim said, and how right he was, that in particular, the sub-genre of cozy paranormal mystery would suit me best because I loved Tolkein and Terry Pratchett. I’d also read about witchcraft and had encountered two professional ghostbusters. I also believe absolutely in the Shakespeare quote: There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
Denise: Being the fifth book of the series, a lot has been revealed in terms of Amanda’s life and her family’s. How have you kept the storyline progressing?
Holly: As I say, the books write themselves. Ingredients do occur to me that go into the mix. I have a series of ‘aha!’ moments. It’s also about the next logical step, and what happens in what we call ‘the real world’. It’s like chess, if moved here, then they will have only these choices.
Take Beauty and the Beast, one of the oldest stories in the world. Beauty’s father goes missing. Belle either goes to look for him, or she doesn’t. As a heroine, she is a caring person, so that dictates that she goes to look for him. If Belle found her father safe and sound, the story would end there. But no, he’s in trouble. Therefore Belle’s must act to save him. And she does. That could be the end. But no, because her action has consequences for her. How does Belle deal with those? Given her character, she overcomes them with kindness. Fairy tales want to encourage positive qualities, so her kindness yields fruit, is transformative and leads to a happy ending.
In the same way, Amanda’s personality and what has happened to far at any stage, point the ways that the storyline can progress and sometimes there’s only one path.
Denise: What has been the most difficult scene for you to write?
Holly: The battle for Sunken Madley (and indeed each of the climactic action scenes) is one I had to wait for. I’d know what was going to happen, and snatches of it would suggest themselves, but I’d just have to wait for the wave. Then, suddenly, I’d know and feel and hear it coming in my head. The battle scene wasn’t one I could have forced onto the page, or constructed intellectually. It had to be written on a wave of inspiration if the reader was going to feel swept up in the action, experience the tension and suspense. For me to write, it isn’t enough to think it, I have to feel it.
The other scenes that are rather delicate are the ones that move on the relationship between Amanda and Thomas, Inspector Trelawney. I never expected my readers to become so invested in them as a potential couple. So this romantic undercurrent has been entirely created by the demand from the discerning people who read the books, and I’m just going with it, paddling a gentle course!
Denise: Without giving away what happens, can you set up the storyline in the fifth book?
Holly: The cold case of the murder of Amanda’s unpleasant family, back when she was three years old, is progressing to its conclusion. There is only one piece missing: the link between the family and that of a rival witch-clan.
However, that has to take a back seat when Amanda finds a body at the heart of Sunken Madley. It quickly becomes a high-profile case with Detective Inspector Trelawney under immense pressure to make an arrest. The only candidate is a beloved member of the village. Amanda tries to let him do his job, but with only hours to spare, she can no longer stand by. There’s far more to Sunken Madley and its residents than meets the eye, and it takes a witch to go where no one else can to brave the danger and discover the vital clue to the real killer. As in the other books, the past has a bearing on the present, and only Amanda can travel back there to get at what happened in the case that stars in each book. As always there are people who are not telling all or any of truth, hence The Hidden Depths.
Denise: Do you go deeper into magic and secrets?
Holly: Yes, in fact, they are the underlying theme of the book. Several characters have secrets, and the village itself has an enormous one! Amanda’s grandparents show her that she has new magic to learn, magic she didn’t think was possible.
Denise: Do you feel you’ve reached the end-result you hoped for?
Holly: In terms of Book 5 concluding the story arc that began in Book 1, yes. The end result also includes being a springboard for a whole new arc over the next few books. At the same time, each novel will continue to have its individual murder mystery.
The other end-result is more of an emotional one. Given the overwhelming response of readers, I feel I’ve achieved a series that people love, that engages and delights them, transports them to another world. It makes people happy. What greater achievement could I wish for?
Denise: What will you be writing next?
Holly: The next books are sequels. Book 6 is already writing itself. The plot is set and the first chapter written. Now that’s a sort of off-shoot, but it provides a vital part of Amanda’s backstory and is important in the new story arc. It concerns an investigation by one of the main characters, former Chief Inspector Michael Hogarth, that he carried out over 30 years ago. While staying in Cornwall, Amanda and Inspector Trelawney are hearing Hogarth’s story and Amanda has a part in the telling of it. The title is revealed at the end of Book 5!
The following novel, book 7, will be set back in Sunken Madley with the startling consequences of relocation for one of the central characters.
Denise: Are you excited about this next project?
Holly: I am tremendously excited, Denise. This next book is going to be a little different from the ones so far. Also, the two books are conveying themselves to me at the same time, in a way that the sequels haven’t so far. That is, with more clarity and urgency to be written, both at once!
Thank you, Denise, for the privilege of being interviewed by you on Gotta Write Network. I’ve loved answering your insightful and thought-provoking questions, especially coming from a paranormal author. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Visit Holly’s website at http://www.amandacadabra.com.