So you can imagine my excitement after a cheeky email to Kelley Armstrong via her assistant came back with a fantastic little interview. So without further ado, I present to you an interview with THE Kelley Armstrong about the Women of the Otherworld series, its final book '13' and what comes next....
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When I wrote Bitten, my goal was to create the kind of werewolves I wanted to read about. The idea was sparked by seeing an X-Files episode on werewolves. As much as I liked the show, I didn’t care for their version of werewolves, which were the typical man-killing monsters. I’d always been fascinated by the idea of combining humans and wolves, and that show gave me an excuse to write a story about that kind of werewolf.
When the question of turning Bitten into a series came up, I gave it a lot of thought. As much as I loved the stories and characters, I couldn't imagine writing a long series about just werewolves. I decided to instead create a linked series with changing narrators/protagonists. In the second book, Stolen, I introduced other supernatural characters, and spun off to one of them--a witch--for the next novel.
You have mentioned on your website that you
and the character of Elena share the same year of birth. Would you say the
character is based on yourself? Or is that where the similarity ends?
All my characters have a trait or two in
common with me. That just makes them
easier to write. With Elena, she's my
age, from my geographic area, with my education level, etc, which made it easy
for me to get into her head as my first narrator. Paige and I share a common interest in
computers (I was a programmer) so I could easily write that part of her life
and personality. Eve and I both have
daughters around the same age, so that part of her character came naturally.
Even my teen characters share something in common with me. But it’s only a
trait or two. Ninety-five percent of their character is very different from me!
Are any of the other characters based on
people you know?
None of them are based on anyone I know. I
pull bits and pieces from everywhere--friends, family, acquaintances--and mix
it together.
What can we expect from the final book in
the series, Thirteen?
I’m going to answer that with a quote from
the book that one of my publishers used.
“Anything you thought you knew about our world? Forget it. Someone has tossed out the rulebook. Ghosts can cross the divide. Hell-hounds can manifest. Demi-demons can possess living children. And it’s not going to get any better until it’s over.”
As you might guess from
that, 13 is my Otherworld upheaval book, when everyone comes together to fight
the biggest threat they’ve faced.
Is this really the end of the Women of the
Otherworld series? I am so sad to see it end!
I do hope to write more stories—and maybe
even a future novel or two—but I’m ending the book-a-year schedule and
launching a new adult series.
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I think you will agree these are some fantastic answers. I did get very excited when I first saw them in my email inbox. With just over a month until the release of Thirteen
(July 24th) I had to share them with you. And with the announcement she is writing a new adult series I am over the moon!
(July 24th) I had to share them with you. And with the announcement she is writing a new adult series I am over the moon!
If you want to know more about Kelley Armstrong you can check out her website, Goodreads profile or read the other blog posts I have written about both her, the Women of the Otherworld series, Darkest Powers or Darkness Rising series.
Thank you for reading,
Love Rie x
and almost three more to revise
it (13 times!), and it was an incredibly frustrating, exhilarating, painstaking
process (my wife deserves a martyrdom for sticking with me through all that),
but I did it. The very best part, though, wasn't finishing the book, but
itching to start the next one. That was the moment that I truly felt I was
doing what I should be doing. 
. 