L.A.Weatherly

ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF ANGEL...


 to see her official page go to this link ---> http://www.leeweatherly.com/

Her name is Lee Ann Weatherly. Welcome to Bart’s Bookshelf, Lee! Can you let us know a little about yourself to start with?

L.A. Weatherly: I’m originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, and have lived in the UK for 15 years now. I live in Hampshire with my husband Peter and cat Bernard (the cat likes Pete better than me!), and have lots and lots of books.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, from the time I was a very little girl, so I feel extremely lucky that I actually get paid for it and can do it full time.

I’m also sadly addicted to my iPhone.

Next, can you introduce us to your main characters, Alex and Willow, and tell us a little about what happens to them in the book?

L.A. Weatherly: The premise of the world is that angels, far from being benign and compassionate beings, are actually alien creatures who are preying on humanity. Alex is a 17 year old Angel Killer, part of a covert CIA groupwho’s one of the few who knows the truth about angels in our world. He’s been trained from childhood to hunt down and kill angels.

Willow is a 16 year old psychic misfit, thought of as ‘Queen Weird’ by her peers in the small New York town where she’s from. Unbeknownst to her when the story begins, she’s actually a half-angel…and might be the key to destroying the angels once and for all.

When Alex is ordered to kill Willow, he realises that all is not what it seems. An epic road trip follows, where they must somehow avoid being killed while they try to work out why the angels want Willow dead…and along the way, the hunter and the hunted find themselves falling in love.

Both Alex and Willow are quite strong characters, did they ever insist that their storyline took a different path from what you were planning?

L.A. Weatherly: Yes, definitely! From the very start when I first conceived this story years ago, the one thing that I was absolutely certain was going to happen was that Alex would kidnap Willow to take her to New Mexico to speak to Cully, his old mentor. You will note a distinct lack of kidnapping in the finished book! The characters went along with it when I tried to write it, but so sullenly that I realised that element just wasn’t working. (They were right, as it turned out!)

Alex in particular has an interesting back story which Willow learns about as the book progresses, but they must had spilt some silly guilty secrets when they were holed up. Can you betray their trust and let us know one from each of them? – If they were guilty of anything in the last question, feel free to consider this your chance for revenge! 

L.A. Weatherly: Heh, revenge on my characters, excellent!

Willow’s is that when she was 7, she was being bullied by the popular girls in her class. She used her psychic skills to find out the ringleader’s secrets, and exposed one of these secrets to everyone in the class, freaking the bully out and stopping the behaviour immediately. She was probably justified, but as she got older she felt really guilty about it, and made a point of never betraying anything that she found out psychically since.

Alex’s is that when he and Jake were 9 and 11, they used to play stupid pranks on the other AKs at the camp, and one of these resulted in someone having a minor accident. They tried to hide their involvement and were found out, which got them into severe trouble from their father. Alex can laugh about it now, but for some months afterwards he felt pretty annoyed at Jake, who was very much the ringleader, even though Alex got half the blame.

Other than Willow and Alex, who do you think is the most interesting character (hero or villain) and what is it about them that intrigues you?

L.A. Weatherly: I love Jonah as a character. He sees himself as being spineless, but he actually has the moral courage to pursue questions even when he doesn’t want to know the answers, and then to take action about them. I find him especially intriguing because (minor spoiler alert!) he was actually meant to die at the end of book 1. He completely refused to, and (another minor spoiler alert!) is now in both books 2 and 3, becoming a fairly major character as the series goes on. He has a really interesting story arc ahead of him, and I’m very glad that he insisted on sticking around!

I know you probably can’t tell us much about what happens next to Alex and Willow, but of course I have to try! So is there anything you can tell us? 

L.A. Weatherly: What I’ll say is that the story has an urban setting, and that there are some new characters being introduced – one in particular who I’ve been dying to write about since I first conceived the series. There are also some major surprises in store for Alex and Willow, who are going to find both themselves and their love for each other tested in ways they never imagined.

In the bit I just wrote today, Willow is thinking of a line she learned in her English class about ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men’ … and wondering uneasily if the same is true of the best-laid plans of men and half-angels.

HOPE IT WAS FUN TO HER ABOUT LEE ANN WEATHERLY

xx MISSY