Switching Gears by Jana Oliver

Jana Oliver

As a huge big fan of Jana Oliver's I jumped at the chance to host her on her blog-tour for the release of her new novel: Demon Trappers: Forbidden.  Her previous novel, the first in her Demon Trappers series, received much love from reviewers and bloggers alike.  And it is after visiting Jana's site that I realised that Jana doesn't just write YA fiction with a kick-ass heroine.  She also writes fiction urban fantasy set in Victorian England.  How does an author shift one hundred and thirty years of mental gears from Late Victorian England to a future Atlanta, Georgia? Jana Oliver gives us insights as to just how that gear shifting works.


Because I love a challenge, I chose to write about two entirely different time periods: 1888 London and 2018 Atlanta. Each comes with their own perils.

As to Victorian London, there are a significant number of people who are knowledgeable about that time period and those folks aren’t shy about letting you know when you mess something up. Also, I’m a Yank. Where we might have invented baseball, the culture in which you live teaches you certain basics without you even realizing it. Like the fact that folks in Britain drive on the left side and add milk to their tea rather than cream.

In the case of the Victorian London in the Time Rovers Series, I needed to think like someone from 1888 so I immersed myself in the time period, read books, newspapers, court transcripts, wandered through Whitechapel back alleys and trolled through libraries’ archives. I’ve worn period-authentic gowns and visited gunpowder factories. I learned how Victorians lived: how they thought, what they ate and how they buried their dead.

But with that comes one bitter fact: No matter how hard I tried, I am a child of the twenty-first century. I will always view 1888 through the lens of someone from my era. A sad fact, but true.

In the end I grew very fond of the Victorians. They never saw a challenge they couldn’t conquer, a feat of engineering that they wouldn’t attempt. They were the masters of the universe in 1888. By the end of WWI that indomitable spirit had begun to grow thin, worn down by forces out of their control. But in 1888 they ruled the world.

Switching to Atlanta in the year 2018 for the Demon Trappers Series wasn’t quite as dramatic a mental adjustment because it’s closer to my own time period. The biggest issue was trying to see into the future. Just how bad would it be? Instead of depicting a city at rock bottom, I decided my Atlanta would be on the downhill slide. That way I could explore how the average person coped with an increasingly dysfunctional metropolis.

It wasn’t until I started writing the novels that I began to see the similarities between my “future” Atlanta and 1888 London. Where there might not be hansom cabs rolling through the streets or London-style “particulars”, there are wagons and carriages because of the high cost of fuel. As my future Atlanta’s economy falters, citizens are adapting Victorian survival tactics without knowing it. They’re recycling everything they can and secondhand markets have sprung up, along with little one-owner shops.

But from that point on my future Atlanta is its own creature. My heroine is schooled in a shuttered coffee shop, Holy Water is vital commodity and Heaven and Hell have decided to make the city its battleground. Luckily the Victorians never had to face those sorts of dangers.

At the heart of word building is research. You need to determine the various elements of your new world: agriculture, religion, politics, legal and educational systems, science and magic. Sometimes you will know these elements before you write your first world. Often you learn them by discovery as the story takes shape. You can base your new world on an existing one, on a society from the past or create one from whole cloth. Just ensure that the characters remain the most important part of your story. The world should add to the tale, not detract.

Over the course of my career, I’ve learned that my vivid imagination can easily switch from the backstreets of London to the gritty streets of Atlanta. Once I can “see” my characters inside the world I’ve created, the gears mesh seamlessly. All I have to do is feed research into that marvelous engine of imagination and stories are created. For me, that’s magical.

http://www.janaoliver.com/

http://www.demontrappers.co.uk/

Macmillan Children's Books (U.K. Editions)

Demon Trappers: Forsaken - Jan. 2011

Demon Trappers: Forbidden - Aug. 2011

Demon Trappers: Forgiven - Mar. 2012

Jana Oliver chats to MFB

Hi Riley, Jana

Thanks so much for agreeing to chat to My Favourite Books. 

Elizabeth May is the face of Riley Blackwood

Riley, if I could start with you.  

• What was your life like before you decided to join the Trappers?

Pretty boring. Normal, even. I’d go to school three days a week and the rest of the time I’d spend studying with my friend Peter or hanging around the apartment and watching TV.  Sometimes I’d go to visit my friend Simi at the coffee shop. Since Dad slept most of the day because he’s out all night, I had to find ways to keep busy without making a bunch of noise. 

• What sort of training did you have to undergo? Was there martial combat instruction as well as lore research?

For an apprentice like me there are two ways to learn: reading the Demon Trappers Manual and trapping Hellspawn. The manual is interesting, but it’s written like a text book. Catching the demons? Never dull. They’re smart and quick and don’t have to worry about what kind of mess they make. I haven’t had any martial arts training, but I think that would be fun. Beck keeps telling me I should lift weights, but I’m not so sure about that.

• Why do you think there is such dissent / hostility in the Trapping community – I get the idea that no one seems very comfortable around each other, really?

My dad said these guys are a lot like the old wilderness fur trappers. They’re independent, territorial and stubborn. And because they’re guys I think it’s harder for them to get along. Some of them are really nice, others not so much. 

• I’d like to know about you before you decided to become a Trapper.  Obviously you and your dad miss your mom a lot.  Do you remember those good old days and take strength from them, before everything changed?

I do miss when things were good, though thinking about when my mom and dad were alive makes me really sad sometimes. They were cool parents. They were strict, but fair, and not all ’rents are like that. (Peter’s mom is a good example.) Dad was into his Civil War research and where sometimes I thought that was a snooze he always had these amazing stories to tell. I miss Mom because I could talk to her, tell her stuff and not get a lecture if I did something stupid. I was lucky with my parents. I just wish they could have hung around longer. 

• What did you first think when they told you that you would have to guard your dad’s grave after he was killed?  To us norms, necromancers are things from Dungeons and Dragons but they sound nasty!

I just couldn’t deal. I mean, what is this craziness? My dad’s dead and now some necro could steal him out of his grave? Make him a servant? That’s so wrong. I mean, I knew about the reanimates and all that, but I never figured my father could be like that. It’s creepy. It was great that Simon was there that first night to help me set the circle and everything. He was *so* sweet. If I’d had to face those necromancers on my own I would have freaked out.

• Beck is such a mystery.  What is your gut feeling about him at the moment.  What do you think he’s going to get up to next?

At the moment? I’m confused, big time. Beck is so hard to understand. One minute he’s nice and then the next he’s doing his Third World dictator thing and ordering me around. I know he’s trying to help, but I’m smart enough to make my own decisions. I guess I’m still a little nervous about him because when I was fifteen I thought he was the coolest guy ever. He totally blew me off. Like I was a bug and he was the windshield. Splat! It really hurt so it’s hard for me to trust him when he’s nice because I keep waiting to get smacked down again. Maybe someday I’ll forget all that past stuff, but it’s going to be tough. So like they say on TV, the jury is still out on Backwoods Boy.

Thanks so much for taking time out to chat to us, Riley!

Thanks! You ask really good questions. *eee!* fan-girl moment by Liz 

US cover and title

Jana, some questions for you. 

• Can you tell us about your road to publication?

I took a different path than most. I self-published my first few books to learn something about the publishing industry. Then I wrote a trilogy for a small press. That series won a number of awards and helped me sign with a literary agent. We sold the Demon Trappers Series to a New York publisher (St. Martin’s Press). They, in turn, sold the UK rights to Pan Macmillan. The process was a longer one, but I feel like I have a clue how the industry works so not everything is a surprise.

• Have you always wanted to be a writer?  Also, why write for the YA market?  What appeals to you about writing for teens and younger adults?

I didn’t always want to be a writer like some authors. In sixth grade I decided I wanted to be a spy. Instead I became a registered nurse. I did like to scribble out stories, so years later when I had the chance I just let all those ideas bubble forth and made books out of them

My earlier works were for adults for the most part, though I did have teens in the stories. The move into the young adult market was, in a way, a challenge to myself. I like to keep trying new things so I don’t get stale. Having to step into the mind of a seventeen-year-old girl is definitely a challenge since it’s been a number of years since I was Riley’s age. Those extra years wear us down, but for a teen, life is raw-edged and immediate. Experiences are magnified beyond reality. And young adults are often impulsive so Riley occasionally makes bad decision and has to live with the consequences. 

• Jana, what made you decide to write Riley’s story? And also, what came first – Riley or the overall story?

I love urban fantasies and wanted to write one with my own special twists. The kernel of the story came first: an adult heroine who exorcised demons. When I got to the end of the first chapter I realized two things: the heroine sounded like every other kick-butt chick and I didn’t know her name. If I don’t have a name, I don’t know the character. So I stepped back and rethought the concept. While grousing down the phone to an author buddy about the problem, she suggested I try a teen protagonist. Since the young adults books I’d been reading lacked that angst and action mix, I decided to give it a try. Seventeen-year-old Riley Blackthorne stepped up, introduced herself, and the series took off from there. 

• Your demon-lore is just great.  How much research did you do for this?

A lot. Most young adult novels steer clear of religion, but I wanted to look at the bigger picture. I spent considerable time thinking through the world I wanted to create and that required me to read about Lucifer, his fall from Heaven, and all those rebellious angels. I researched the origins of demons and purgatory in Jewish, Christian and Muslim texts. I’ve tracked Lucifer’s convoluted path from ha satan (The Adversary) to Satan in the Christian writings. Then I had to figure out what kind of demons lived in my world and how to trap them. Luckily I live to research. 

UK Cover

• There is this great sense of the world teetering on the edge of an abyss with only the Trappers and even the Hunters standing between us and them. How did you go about creating Riley’s world (and kept it believable)?  

This was just as difficult as making Riley a believable teen. Some authors have their world completely worked up before they write the first word. I had a lot of it figured out, but I’m still having new revelations with each book. A couple of those show up in the second book, for instance.

Dystopian stories are very popular right now, perhaps as a mirror to our unease about the world’s economic situation. My goal was to show a society that was in a state of collapse, one small step at a time. I set the stories in 2018 Atlanta, but it’s  an alternate Atlanta since we (clearly) don’t have demons running around our streets. As the series plays out the readers will learn more about this delicate balance between Heaven and Hell, the hunters and the trappers and what roles each of those play in the Grand Game. At the heart of it all is the belief that though all of us are pawns in this Grand Game, we have free choice. That free choice allows us to decide whether we topple into that abyss or rise above all the chaos.

• What is your advice regarding creating believable strong female characters?

I’m not fond of female characters that can’t get out of their own way. There is a time for introspection and angst and a time to take charge. I dislike perfect characters because they’re annoying. Real characters have flaws. Riley is headstrong and makes mistakes. She can be self-centered and bitchy. Who hasn’t said something nasty and then regretted it? Who hasn’t whined a bit too much about how life isn’t going their way? Those are real human traits and I try very hard to weave those into my characters.

The stories are as much about how the characters grow and change as to what happens to them. Almost all of the characters have a story arc of their very own. The Riley we meet at the beginning of the series will be different than the Riley on the last page, though her strengths (courage and tenacity) will still be in place. Same thing with Beck and Peter and the others. I don’t have to love a character to enjoy their tale. I just want to see how they learn and grow. And that, to me, makes a great character no matter whether they’re male, female or an otherworldly creature. 

• What books grace your bedside/coffee table at the moment?

I just finished Paola Bacugalupi’s SHIP BREAKER (a gritty dystopian tale) and Brenna Yovanoff’s THE REPLACEMENT (sort of Tim Burton for teens.) I’m currently reading a couple of books: THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK (Mark Hodder) and working my way through Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampire Series. I’m an omnivore when it comes to books. 

• Did you create a playlist for Demon Trappers: Forsaken?

I did! For my U.K. readers the playlist is available in Spotify. Alas, that doesn’t work in the U.S. so I can’t check it out. **

• I noticed the acknowledgements in the book – there are some big names in there in the adult urban fantasy genre.  How did you come to know some of these authors? 

P.C. Cast is a close friend of mine and we’ve watched each others’ careers blossom over the years. We even share the same literary agent. My friendship with Ilona and Gordon Andrews came from my love of their Kate Daniels Series. All of these authors have influenced my writing to one extent or another and I felt I should thank them.

• And finally, what is the best advice you’ve ever received as an aspiring author?

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Some readers are going to adore your writing, others are going to hate it. The most important thing is staying true to the tale. 

Find Jana's very cool-looking website here and her UK site for Demon Trappers. 

** For those of you who do not have Spotify, these are the songs on Jana's playlist:

THE DEMON TRAPPERS: FORSAKEN Playlist

ATLANTA 2018:

RILEY BLACKTHORNE:

RILEY BLACKTHORNE & SIMON ADLER:

DENVER BECK:

SIMON ADLER:

Steve Winwood - “Higher Love”

Steve Earle - “Copperhead Road”

Peter Bradley Adams - “For You”

Dispatch - “Out Loud”

Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood - “Georgia on My Mind”

Taylor Swift - “You Belong to Me”

Loreena McKennitt - “Never-Ending Road (Amhrán Duit)”

Joshua Radin - “Brand New Day”

Death Cab for Cutie - “I Will Follow You Into The Dark”

Kelly Clarkson - “Breakaway”

The Chemical Brothers - “Galvanize”

Newton Faulkner - “Dream Catch Me”

Foreigner -  “I Want to Know What Love Is”

R.E.M - “Until the Day Is Done”

Alter Bridge - “Rise Today”

Muse - “Resistance”

The Demon Trappers: Forsaken by Jana Oliver

Riley Blackthorne. Kicking hell’s ass one demon at a time . . .


Riley has always wanted to be a Demon Trapper like her father, and she's already following in his footsteps as one of the best. But it's tough being the only girl in an all-guy world, especially when three of those guys start making her life more complicated: Simon, the angelic apprentice who has heaven on his side; Beck, the tough trapper who thinks he's God's gift, and Ori, the strikingly sexy stranger who keeps turning up to save her ass.

One thing’s for sure – if she doesn’t keep her wits about her there’ll be hell to pay . . .

**Very slight spoilers**

When we meet Riley Blackthorne she’s in a library trying to capture a Biblio-Fiend, a minor demon that has escaped from Hell, who has a penchant for burning books and causing chaos in general when it comes to printed matter. Let’s not talk about the thousands of dollars worth of damage it could do to rare editions! I am immediately engaged in the story from that opening scene - any bad thing happening to a library has all my attention immediately. Add to that the supernatural slant of a demonette running loose and I’m on guard like a pointing dog in a hunt. Add to that a teen doing her utmost to take on a denizen from hell and I’m very much engaged.

The opening scene is amusing, it’s real and winsome, it immediately sets the tone of the novel and introduces Riley to us so that we know who she is, what she’s doing and what she has to lose if she doesn’t pull off this capture successfully.

She pulls off the capture semi-successfully and has to face some nasty consequences. As Riley’s life comes into sharper focus and we realise it’s not all laugh out loud funny moments and a bit of silliness, and we see a completely different side to Riley. She literally has to (wo)man-up to her responsibilities and admittedly she does a few truly stupid things but then, being dumped on her own after her dad is brutally killed, does tend to screw with one’s head, no matter how levelheaded and realistic you’re trying to be.

When we meet her, she’s a bit pampered (not much) but I got the idea she was not as aware of the harsh realities of the world she finds herself in as she would have liked. Her dad did form quite a bit of a buffer between her and the real world. She knew some of the difficulties they faced but did not perhaps quite grasp how difficult life was for her dad as one of the foremost demon trappers in the area, as well as raising her and the financial debt they were in due to her mum’s death and illness. So when he dies, everything Riley knows is taken from her. She has only herself to rely on as the trapping community see her as a bit of a freak. There are no female trappers, she is the only one, so like all girls and women in a man’s world, she has to work that much harder to prove herself. And weird things are going, things like: demons never work together, yet Riley knows that she didn’t just fight a Biblio-Fiend at the library, something else was there too. And the demons know her name - they mention it each time they see her. It’s creepy and it worries her a bit but it genuinely concerns Beck, who is her father’s trapping partner and Riley’s erstwhile crush (when she was much younger).

Beck is one of my favourite characters in TDT:F. He is aware. There is no other way to describe him. He looks out for Riley, he has contacts with various people in the town and he is clever in the way he sources information about what is going on in the area. He plays the game well, holding a front of someone a bit insolent, a bit slow, a bit Southern, whilst watching and gathering information. It’s this that I find so interesting and I think it is a risk that Ms. Oliver took when writing Beck in this way. He is the bad boy, but with reason and is genuinely someone I would love to have on my side in a fight.

Simon on the other hand, who turns out to be apprenticed with Riley to the same “master”, Morgan, is the guy who toes the line, he follows the rules. He’s religious, he’s truly lovely and sweet and generous and completely into Riley. He is almost too nice. He is a paladin, the knight on the white charger and I tried my best to not like him too much. It would have been so easy to make him a victim, but Ms. Oliver walks away from that and instead she works her magic, revealing that there is a darkness in him that when it is revealed for one of the briefest seconds, it really jarred me and took me by surprise. I loved it. And completely believed it. And liked him more for it.

Surprisingly there is very little animosity between Simon and Beck. They understand each other more than Riley understands either of them or herself sometimes and I liked that too. And even though there isn’t a lot of animosity, it doesn’t mean that the boys are bff’s or anything, there is just enough tension to keep it interesting. Then we have the very mysterious Ori...who I’m not even going to guess about. I have some ideas as to who he is, but am happy to wait and find out in book 2.

I must apologise for not going into the story more - there are various strands, some of which get tied off but some that answering in the upcoming books.

Riley is a great character. Always moving forward and never backing off an inch - you may notice that this is something I love in heroines. She is determined and a bit of a terrier. Once she’s got something in her mind, she does not give up. I utterly approve of her. She’s a great urban fantasy heroine and has a tremendous character arc in Forsaken, the first book in The Demon Trappers series of books.

Stick around for an in-depth interview with both Riley and Jana Oliver, creator and godlet of Riley’s world tomorrow.

Cover Love - Jana Oliver

I am totally ripping off one Jenny of Wondrous Reads blogpost ideas here, and I apologise but you know, sometimes you just have to share. And frankly, I've decided to keep featuring it for upcoming books here on MFB.  Too many pretty covers out there not being shouted about.

I received a copy of Jana Oliver's Demon Trappers: Forsaken and read it over Christmas and completely loved it.  It filled a gap in my heart where the TV show Supernatural usually resides.  I popped over to Ms. Oliver's blog and discovered that the UK gets Demon Trappers before the US are getting it (for a change, also YAY!) and not only that, but the covers are so completely vastly different and the US title is also different.

I submit to you:

Demon Trappers - Forsaken, UK Cover

The Demon Trapper's Daughter, US Cover

I have to say, I have love for both covers but I do quite like the US cover a tiny bit more. I like it because of what Riley is doing, perching on the top of the building like that, with the perspective of the cityscape below.  It gives us indications that Riley feels detatched and probably lonely in the world she finds herself in.  And the title too, it tells us exactly who she is.

My review goes live next week but even before then let me just say this: buy this book or get someone else to buy it for you, because it's terrific.