Where does Olivia Kelly hide the one thing she fears most?
If you were to be eaten by cannibal, how would you like to be prepared?
Barbecue, of course! I have made North Carolina my home, and I would be insulted if he tried to stew me or make a casserole. Imagine the sheer humiliation of topping a garden salad. No, it has to be barbecue.
Now, of course the above question wouldn’t be related to her Regency romance novella, but it’s funny to just ask! 🙂 And I do like some NC barbecue. Especially Smithfields. Yumminess. But I digress because this is not about me, it’s about Olivia! So let’s learn more!
Wouldn’t it be fun to chuck it all and go live on a sailboat?
No. No, it would not. Because I have a fear of deep water. Okay, more of a phobia. I only go into the ocean when my husband drags me in, and then I spend then next 20 minutes scanning the waves for fins and screeching every time a fish brushes by me. My kids think I’m a wimp. I do not disagree. Whatever gets back to my beach chair fastest.
What is the most annoying thing that someone could do to you?
Call me on the phone and want to chat. Agonizing! I would rather run laps. I would rather clean toilets. I would rather find my high school-aged neighbor and beg him to let me do all his calculus. (That’s pretty dire, because I can add 2 + 2, and get 5. What?) I would MUCH rather you tweet me, email me, chat me up on my blog, Facebook me, write in the sky. For the love of Pete- Do. Not. Call. Me.
Are you cheap or thrifty?
Haha! I say I’m thrifty, but I’m pretty sure I’m cheap. I love a bargain. I’m that woman you hate getting behind in line at the grocery store. I have a book full of coupons, and yes, I will make the cashier call the manager over if the coupon expired yesterday. Seriously, dude, just give me the discount and I’ll go away. Works like a charm. Just sayin’…
If you could meet any famous person living or not, who would it be?
Oh, I’ve got this. Julia Quinn! I loooove her novels. She writes historical romance novels, set in the 1800s, but they are so funny and they read very modern. And I fall in love with her characters. I’m pretty sure if I met her, however, I would go all “fan-girl” on her. I’d probably giggle a lot. Then I would say something really embarrassing, like “I love you!”. And then I would spill my coffee on her. Sigh.
Now, before we get to the last question, let’s look at Olivia Kelly’s novella …
In OLIVIA KELLY’s It Could Only Be You, Harry Connelly has crossed an ocean and pushed his half-healed, battle weary body to its limits to confront the man who stole the life he should have had; his grandfather, the Duke of Danby. Wounded, Harry collapses in a small village’s church, and is nursed back to health by the vicar’s beautiful daughter, Lily Beaumont. A man haunted by the demons of war, he should know better than to become involved with such an innocent but he cannot stay away from her. Harry’s forced to make a decision. He can wield his decades old anger and bitterness against his grandfather, to compel him to acknowledge the damage he caused, and demand that the duke make monetary amends. Or he can turn his back on the past, and create a future with the woman he is beginning to think he cannot live without.
Favorite 6 sentences from the book
“The new viscountess looked at Lily with a smile.
“He’s absolutely miserable, you know.”
Lily did not pretend to misunderstand her friend. She wasn’t sure how to respond. She stared back in silence, until she remembered there was something to say.
“He lied to me. And he left, and has not been back since.”
Why’d she write her novella?
I was offered a chance to be part of the Regency Christmas Summons Anthology, and I thought it would be a great way to get my feet wet. I haven’t been published before, I only started writing about a year ago, so how could I turn down such a great opportunity?
Buy it now …
Amazon
But before you go, one last question …
What scares you the most?
Failing. I think it’s a big fear for most of us. Who wants to feel passionately about something, put forth their best effort and then be told they suck? And I know I’m supposed to say it’s not about winning but how you play the game… but I really want to win. So, I am just going to shove my fear into a little box, tape it shut, shove it under the bed, leave the room and go have a Pumpkin Spice latte at Starbucks, because I’m NOT going let it beat me!
Congratulations, Olivia! Good luck with It Could Only Be You!
Have more questions for this author? Ask in the comments!
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Olivia,
I’ve never met anyone else who felt the same way about water! I’m TERRIFIED of the ocean. Every year my hubs and kids go frolic in the waves while I watch from the sand. NO THANK YOU! And I too hate phone calls. Text or email. I don’t like the phone.
Great interview, Olivia & Aimee!
I have no idea why people think it’s relaxing to go into the water at the beach. WATCHING the water, yes. IN? No. Thanks for commenting, Andris!
OMG! Oliva, AndrisBear and Ava…we SO need to go vacationing together! I hate the ocean so much!! We’re heading to the Caribbean in January and I’m already plotting how I’m going to get out of snorkeling with my hubby. I hate it so much! I’ll sit on the boat, on the beach, by the pool…and I’ll wade up to my knees AS LONG AS I can see to the bottom…which limits me to exotic spots with clear waters. lol.
I also hate talking on the phone. I have no choice but to talk to my mom and dad on the phone, so they take up my phone-talking quota every week. Everyone has to text or email or FB. It’s the only way to get ahold of me.
This was such a fun interview!!! 🙂
Jerrica, I would love to vacation with you, since you like exotic spots with warm, clear waters, haha! I think I can safely include Ava and Andris in that acceptance, lol…
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the water. I’d rather be in water than … at the doctors office this morning. 🙂
You are more likely to get hit by a bus than eaten in the ocean. Just saying.
I hate phone calls from anyone but friends. Of course more telemarketers call me than friends. I wonder what that says about the fact that we keep up online more than in person….
Beth, for some reason, a bus doesn’t have the same horror factor as an over-sized fish with three rows of razor sharp teeth, that you never see until it grabs you by the leg, a-la opening scene in Jaws. Ooo, now I’ve freaked myself out out all over again. ;D
Hilarious blog, Olivia!
And I’m sure you’ll be a winner! Take that box out from under your bed and chuck into the ocean. Er, on second thought ask your husband to do it for you. hee! 🙂
No joke. Funny thing is that it doesn’t even bother me when he has the kids in the ocean. I know my fear isn’t logical, but there you go. 😀
What a fun interview. I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing, Olivia, and good luck with your release.
Thank you so much, I’m glad that you enjoyed it! I had fun answering the questions-they were all pretty funny.
Olivia! ~ Finally a kindred spirit re:the beach. You and Andris Bear! I am most definitely a chicken when it comes to the ocean. My teenage son is a certified scuba diver and he makes me go snorkeling with him whenever we’re near the ocean. You can hear me hyperventilating in my snorkel. I sound like a whimpy Darth Vadar. The whole time I’m in the water I hear the Jaws theme music… thank YOU, Steven Spielberg!
I have no idea where you hide the one thing you fear the most. What is that thing…? That might give me a clue as to where I should guess.
Ava, I have to tell you this story! I went with my hubby on a snorkeling trip
(5 miles out) in Key West…what was I thinking?! I made him swear up and down not to leave my side for a second, once we hit the reefs where we would be snorkeling. He, of course, promised me that he would be RIGHT THERE. I think you know what happened. Yup. About 5 minutes after getting in the water, and trying (not very successfully) to calm my breathing, I looked to my side to show him something and….nothing. Yes, my darling husband had swam off to inspect a reef closer, and left me in the middle of the freaking ocean BY. MY. SELF. I don’t think I’ve ever swam so fast in my life. I was back on the boat in under a minute, and that’s where I stayed for the rest of the trip! Lol…
OMG! I would sooo kill him.
One time we were in Barbados and got into the deep water. Everything seemed fine even though my heart was racing. Then I put on the mask and put my face in the water and THERE WERE LITTLE FISH EVERYWHERE! TOUCHING ME, I just couldn’t tell it when my head was out of the water. I swear I nearly had a panic attack right then and there.
But this last summer in St. Maarten I saw a baby octopus. That one didn’t scare me because it was hovering above the ocean floor and I was hovering on the ocean surface. That was really cool to see. Had it been a shark, I would have had a heart attack on the spot. 🙂
So fun to get to know more about you, Olivia! And about that bus vs. deep water thing – you obviously haven’t ridden the buses in L.A.! I’ll take my chances in the water, thank you very much!
I haven’t been to LA! I have been past St. Louis precisely ONCE, and that was a trip last summer to visit my girlfriend and her newborn in Berkley. Which I LOVED, by the way. What an awesome area, and we didn’t even get into SanFran, which I think I would really like too. I’m really, really looking forward to RWA’s National Conference in Anaheim next July, I can’t wait to try a part of the West Coast that I haven’t been to. 🙂
What a great interview. Funny that you’re so afraid of the water. My dream is to live on a sailboat.
If I lived in the islands like you do, Ella, I might push myself to get past this crazy fear. But, I live almost 3hours in-land, in North Carolina. I guess I should be more worried about a Mad Cow taking me done, but again- those teeth!
Great blog, Olivia. I adore the water, and I’m with Ella in that I dream of retiring and sailing around the world. My husbands uncle did this and then settled in Tuscan to spend the rest of his days. I cannot imagine a more perfect retirement. When I’m afraid of something, I MAKE myself do it.
You know, I did actually try to get past it, but it’s hard to enjoy the water when your heart rate is pushing seizure high, lol! That sounds like a great plan for retirement! I would like to travel, but oddly enough, I would prefer to fly. Weird, right? Because I’m sure more people have been in plane crashes then shark attacks. Agggh! How did we get into such a crazy discussion?! Hahaha….
Olivia, I can’t believe how much we have in common! I have a fear of deep waters, too. And…I’ve met Julia Quinn. She’s AWESOME!!
What a great interview. It’s good to know you better. 🙂
~Phyllis~
You’ve met Julia? Julia QUINN?! She seems really nice, and I just love her novels. I hope I get to meet her next year at the RWA conference…and I hope I’m not holding a cup of coffee at the time.
You all have been such fun to have commenting today. I’m so glad you like the interview and Olivia, THANK YOU for letting me dig into your psyche a little bit. 🙂 I hope we can all have this much fun with our debut novels in the future! 🙂
Amiee, thank you for having me! This is such fun -and I loved answering your questions. What a great blog. 🙂
Olivia, you never fail to crack me up! You know, I will never, ever forget when I was a marine science student in college, and we were on a class trip to the coast. About 10 of us had waded out to the sandbar and played around as the tide was coming up – no big deal, we were all excellent swimmers.
And that was when a ray washed up on the sand bar – with a 6-inch diameter shark bite still bleeding where its left wing/flipper should be. With the tide rushing in around us, we had no choice but to swim the whole way back. I have never in my life swam so fast and with so little of my body actually submersed. We were in such a tight pack, we were kicking and smacking each other the whole way, all of us in full panic mode. I look back on it and laugh – what shark would have dared attack a mass of writhing, screaming, ninny-headed college students with ten heads, twenty legs, twenty arms, and a whole helping of mass panic!
OMG, Erin. That would be a nightmare! Buuuut, A) You would never actually get me OUT to the sandbar in the first place and 2) I would have hysterics to the magnitude that not only would it scare away any potential attackers, but most of the Eastern Seaboard would be devoid of marine life.
One shark clutches his head with his fins.”What IS that noise?”
“Geez, I don’t know. Here I am, just trying to grab a bite for lunch, minding my own business and she completely flips out. Have you ever heard a human hit that register? I didn’t know they could do even DO that.” says the other shark as he swims toward Argentina, while looking over his shoulder warily….
;D
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