Ask the Author: Odelia Floris
Answered Questions (2)
Odelia Floris
My most recent book is Beguile Me Not, a historical novel set in 1880s New Zealand. The ideas came from a variety of places. Wellington and Aramoana Beach are places I know well. The idea of a grand house as a setting partly comes from having visited and loved these places. Gravemore House is inspired by Duarte House in Havelock North.
I not entirely sure where Anna came from. She is not inspired by any real or fictional person. I think she was a creation that embodied some of the feelings that people in a certain place in life can struggle with, particularly people in Smaller, remoter communities. She is very constrained by social convention and the expectation that she will conform. But she finds this life, with its outer respectability and material wealth, suffocating and unsatisfying. But a lot of the conflict and unhappiness that she experiences is not caused by others, but by herself. She is her own jail keeper.
Sasha was the perfect hero for Anna. He has none of the inner shackles that she does. He is free. He was inspired by classical Russian literature and by Russian music, and his being a painter came about because I have done quite a bit of painting and drawing. His physical characteristics are based on a real person, but I'm not saying who, because I like my readers to paint their own picture of the character using the words in the book.
The core theme of Beguile Me Not is freedom. So the main idea of the book really is inspired by that yearning which I think we all have - the yearning to be truly free and truly ourselves.
I not entirely sure where Anna came from. She is not inspired by any real or fictional person. I think she was a creation that embodied some of the feelings that people in a certain place in life can struggle with, particularly people in Smaller, remoter communities. She is very constrained by social convention and the expectation that she will conform. But she finds this life, with its outer respectability and material wealth, suffocating and unsatisfying. But a lot of the conflict and unhappiness that she experiences is not caused by others, but by herself. She is her own jail keeper.
Sasha was the perfect hero for Anna. He has none of the inner shackles that she does. He is free. He was inspired by classical Russian literature and by Russian music, and his being a painter came about because I have done quite a bit of painting and drawing. His physical characteristics are based on a real person, but I'm not saying who, because I like my readers to paint their own picture of the character using the words in the book.
The core theme of Beguile Me Not is freedom. So the main idea of the book really is inspired by that yearning which I think we all have - the yearning to be truly free and truly ourselves.
Odelia Floris
I am writing book two in my medieval mystery series The Chaucy Shire Medieval Mysteries. The book is called The Cockcrow Curse, and presents lots of new adventures for my two main characters from The Heart of Darkness, Sir Richard and Rowena.
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