Author Interview with India Drummond

India Drummond is one of my fellow authors at Lyrical Press. I’ve beta-read one of her upcoming books, and I can tell you she’s talented. India is great with character-depth and story. I’ve given her a platform here to discuss her latest book, Ordinary Angels.

1) Tell us about Ordinary Angels.

Ordinary Angels is an urban fantasy / paranormal romance novel in which Zoe Pendergraft falls in love with an angel, frees a soul from necromancers, releases a ghost trapped in the Void, and saves his living grandson from demons.

Most of Zoe’s friends are dead, but she doesn’t mind because they died long before she met them. Then one Tuesday night an angel takes her salsa dancing and turns her world upside down. Grim reality closes in when she discovers a body in her company’s boiler room and Higher Angels accuse her best ghost friend of murder. Knowing she’s the only one who can stand against them, Zoe resorts to lying, stealing and summoning. In the end, getting blood on her hands forces Zoe to question herself.

2) What attracts you to the genre of Paranormal/Urban Fantasy?

It’s the wide-open power of “what if.” It’s the limitlessness and the possibilities. There’s no barrier saying “but this couldn’t happen.” Sure I have to create coherent rules and systems for my world, the way magic works in some books or how angels behave in this book, but the rules are all ones I get to define. There are no stop signs in fantasy.

3) Tell us about one of your favorite characters in Ordinary Angels.

I like the main character Zoe because she’s not a “kick-ass heroine”, but she wants to be. She’s real and normal (if you don’t count the fact that she can see dead people.) As soon as she meets Alexander, an angel, strange things start happening all around her. She begins to change, whether she wants to or not. But even though she’s not a super-hero, she is accepting and takes a lot of things in stride. So although she’s “just a girl”, she is braver and stronger than she realises.

4) What was your greatest “Ah-hah!” moment as a writer (the story clicked, a great plot twist idea, etc)?

I think it was when I started writing this book, actually. Ordinary Angels is the second book I’d ever written. The first one I agonised over for ten years (on and off). I wrote the first draft of Ordinary Angels in six weeks. It was a joyful experience, and made me rediscover my love of writing. Just the happiness of it has propelled me into pursuing a career in writing.

5) Finish this: “India Drummond is in my favorite Cops episode. No, she’s not one of the police. India is that girl who ____.”

Hilarious question! Let me see… “India is that girl who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.” I haven’t been abducted by aliens, but I sure would like to be!

About India Drummond

Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Fiction Author

India knew from age nine that writing would be her passion. Since then she’s discovered many more, but none quite so fulfilling as creating a world, a character, or a moment and watching them evolve into something complex and compelling. She has lived in three countries and four American states, is a dual British and American citizen, and currently lives at the base of the Scottish Highlands in a village so small its main attraction is a red phone box. In other words: paradise.

The supernatural and paranormal have always fascinated India. In addition to being an avid sci-fi and fantasy reader, she also enjoys mysteries, thrillers, and romance. This probably explains why her novels have elements of adventure, ghosts (or elves, fairies, angels, aliens, and whatever else she can dream up), and spicy love stories.