Books like Olivia Flies High

I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Mr. Galliano’s Circus as a child and was fascinated more by the idea of circus life than the actual performance aspect. I still adore watching high-quality circus feats performed by acrobats and love that frisson of excitement as everyone shuffles into their seats just before showtime. When I began writing children’s books, my aim was to give the child characters room to develop resilience and courage while encountering danger and adventure without the presence of adults. In order to do this, I had to somehow remove parental figures. Running away is the perfect literary device to achieve this which is how Glass Dreams came about.

I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Mr. Galliano’s Circus as a child and was fascinated more by the idea of circus life than the actual performance aspect. I still adore watching high-quality circus feats performed by acrobats and love that frisson of excitement as everyone shuffles into their seats just before showtime. When I began writing children’s books, my aim was to give the child characters room to develop resilience and courage while encountering danger and adventure without the presence of adults. In order to do this, I had to somehow remove parental figures. Running away is the perfect literary device to achieve this which is how Glass Dreams came about.

I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Mr. Galliano’s Circus as a child and was fascinated more by the idea of circus life than the actual performance aspect. I still adore watching high-quality circus feats performed by acrobats and love that frisson of excitement as everyone shuffles into their seats just before showtime. When I began writing children’s books, my aim was to give the child characters room to develop resilience and courage while encountering danger and adventure without the presence of adults. In order to do this, I had to somehow remove parental figures. Running away is the perfect literary device to achieve this which is how Glass Dreams came about.

I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Mr. Galliano’s Circus as a child and was fascinated more by the idea of circus life than the actual performance aspect. I still adore watching high-quality circus feats performed by acrobats and love that frisson of excitement as everyone shuffles into their seats just before showtime. When I began writing children’s books, my aim was to give the child characters room to develop resilience and courage while encountering danger and adventure without the presence of adults. In order to do this, I had to somehow remove parental figures. Running away is the perfect literary device to achieve this which is how Glass Dreams came about.

I’ve loved murder mysteries since I first discovered the genre. As a child, I loved watching Morse, Miss Marple, and other detectives as they got to the bottom of whodunit. I was hooked. It wasn’t long before I started to read books starring these detectives. I really love the way that female amateur detectives often have far more ideas of what’s going on and why things have happened than the men who populate the books. What woman can’t resist reading about another woman who just gets to the bottom of it all? I know I can’t, but these books are some of the very best in the genre.

I’m a military veteran who has read science fiction and fantasy since the second grade. After reading everything on my parent’s bookshelves, everything in the school and public libraries, I had a teacher recommend I become an author. I love stories about strong-willed individuals standing up for what they believe in and changing the world. I have a master’s degree in engineering, a love for well-built things and taking stuff apart to see how it works, and a fascination with people and how they behave. In addition to writing, I am an avid gamer and a dabbler in a variety of things, from metalworking to hiking. 

I love learning about history, and the more I learn, the more I appreciate my place in this world. While military history, particularly from pre-WW1 to the end of WW2, was what made me first plant my nose in a book, I can geek out on pretty much any historical period: the rise of human civilization, Rome, the conquest of the New World, the development of airplanes. But it’s the personal element that most draws me in, and the fact that we humans remain fundamentally the same in how we cope with another through the ages. It’s through fiction that we see the past in a way that makes sense.

I’m the author of two YA fantasy novels – We Are Blood and Thunder and We Are Bound by Stars. They’re set in a fantasy world, Valorian, governed by a (literally) colorful magic system and a pantheon of gods, and are all about power, fate, and discovering your true self. Both novels are dual narrative and feature a host of female main characters, who I think are complex, flawed, and relatable. As a child, I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings but always wondered why all the real heroes were men, which inspired me to write these books – partly, too, because of the wonderful female-led fantasies which have come out in the interim. 

It’s just my favorite trope, that’s all: the character who isn’t what he seems. I love the deception, I love the complications, I love the clues dropped along the way, I love the big reveal. I love the sensation I get when I, the reader, know just a little bit more than the characters do but still feel surprised and wonder when the whole truth is unveiled. When I sit down to write, I know I want to create that exact sensation in my readers.

The best fiction explores complex relationships between friends and lovers. I’ve been fascinated by this for as long as I can remember because love and friendship are the cornerstones of human existence. As concepts, they give life meaning yet can also take it away. They bring us together but can also leave us estranged. The sun-soaked cities of Europe have for so long been playgrounds for young lovers and friends, enjoying both the best of life and the most melancholy. I love traveling Europe–the grandeur, the romance, the happy-sad sentiment of it all. It embodies the topic and makes for the most beautiful setting.