Featured Interview With C. Attleya
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I live in the Garden of England, otherwise known as Kent, where I found the inspiration for my first two novels.
Caila in ‘The Cool Breeze of Spring – A new beginning’ loves this small but beautiful part of the world, and it becomes Rebecca’s (The Cool Breeze of Spring – Rebecca’s diary) new home.
Personally, I love pets, especially cats, but I can’t have any. That is why I gave Steve and Richard (A new beginning) two cats, and hence the appearance of another rather famous local cat.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
As soon as I received my first library card, I started reading the maximum number of books I was allowed to take out every week. My worst memory is of one particular week, when I didn’t have time to go to the library and left the selection of my weekly ration to someone else. This person ignored my requests and returned with the only genre I absolutely hated: the real girly girls’ stuff.
I dreaded the week that would follow, being starved of my regular portion of action and adventure. However, that was also the week in which I started to make up my own stories and write them down.
I didn’t start writing full novels until many years later. But that mini disaster sowed he seeds for a future career.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Asking me for my favourite authors, or genre, is like asking me about my favourite ice-creams.
It depends on the weather, the season and my mood.
But, I still love action and adventure, and science fiction.
Some of my all-time favourites though are:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)
The Stand (Stephen King)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson)
My own writing is more inspired by my environment and current events, than by other authors: An item on the evening news, the person in front of me at the supermarket checkout, an oddly shaped tree. There lurks a story behind every item and person.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I published The Cool Breeze of spring – A new beginning and The Cool Breeze of spring – Rebecca’s diary simultaneously in August 2018.
Rebecca’s diary is a companion to the main novel, A new beginning.
One evening, I was watching some disturbing items on the evening news, and the following two questions popped into my head:
1. If I was consulted by aliens, would I agree to have most of humanity removed, to save the Earth?
2. Who would I choose as my seven companions to restart a new population?
I decided to present Caila, the protagonist in ‘A new beginning’, with these two dilemmas and see where she ended up. It was the start of quite an adventure.
Rebecca doesn’t arrive until halfway through the main story, and I never expected her to develop the way she did. However, when she did, I decided that she deserved more prominence. As a 12-year-old, she is not made partial to everything that happens in the main novel, but she is clever and has her own explanation for what she’s experiencing. I let her write it all down in her diary, uncomplicating the world around her, like only a 12-year-old can.
18 September 8.40 am – Will you be removed from Earth, when you smell that cool breeze of spring?
The Neteru are a species who seeded Earth as an ecological experiment, but now humans are about to mess up so catastrophically that Earth needs a reset. Caila and 12 other descendants of the first human seedlings are asked to advice on the future of Earth’s human population. Caila senses an instant strong connection with her Neteruian contact Mateos. But after Caila shows unexpected Neteruian skills Mateos is forced to admit that she is different from the other Khered.
After the reset Event, Caila and her group pick up some unexpected survivors. 12-year-old Rebecca is feisty and frighteningly intelligent and decides to start training as a doctor.
After an attack by self-pronounced Prime Minister Baldwin Caila is forced to confront her own complicated background. This confrontation finally fills in the blanks for Caila but comes at a great cost. Then, a second more sophisticated attack by Baldwin has catastrophic consequences for Caila’s group and threatens to derail this new beginning.
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