Villi Asgeirsson

Drafting ideas...

Archives for October 2025

The House of the Living – a short story

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Dear Mr and Mrs Havel,

It is with regret that I write this letter. Summer, with all its daylight and sunshine, is always difficult for us, and you seem to show little consideration for your fellow residents.

In the deep dark of winter, we kept reasonably low profile as not to bother you too much. We are aware that noises and surprise appearances are unwelcome and can be downright scary.

We did not turn on the lights at night, as you probably expect of our sort. Neither did we slam doors or look through the windows from the outside. Never did we rearrange jars in the kitchen or throw furniture around. We are not like that.

We prefer a quiet and calm house, where we all can go about our business. It is therefore unacceptable that you insist on keeping the lights turned on at all times. What is the point in keeping a light on in the toilet when you’re not using it? Back in the day, this was my bedroom and while it’s frustrating enough that you satisfy your earthly needs there with the unavoidable smell, keeping the light on is simply rude.

Same can be said of the living room and the hallway after you’ve gone to sleep. What is the point in keeping lights on while you sleep? I realise you were scared after I bumped into the table a few weeks ago and finding the lights turned off in the morning seems eerie, but you make noise too and you keep the lights on. And yes, you were shocked when I entered the living room rather too quickly the other day, slamming the door by accident and leaving a trail of light that you saw from the corner of your eye and can not explain.

But you must understand that we mean no harm. Sometime we simply get ahead of ourselves and in the excitement, you sense us.

Oh, and that incident in the kitchen when the jar fell on the floor and broke. I know, stupid of me. Having died so recently, I hadn’t quite realised I am not a solid being like you and as I tried to get myself a cookie, it slipped through my hands and I was just as surprised as you would have been. I have since learned that I do not feel hungry, have no use for cookies and that I am unable to hold objects for more than a second or two. Even that takes a lot of energy, so I try to avoid it.

Make no mistake though, if I must, I will pick up objects and throw them. I will rush through doors and turn lights off.

It is my hope that this letter finds you well, that you understand my concerns and do your best to be as considerate as we have been. That visit by the priest last week was an insult. Do you really believe a man of the cloth is going to make any difference? Surely, you don’t think we’re some kind of Satanic beings? Diabolical demons whose only purpose (I almost wrote “in life”, but that would be an odd choice of words) is to make your life hell? We are none of that. All we are is people that have gone before you, lived in this house and died, making way for you. A singing priest with a necklace in one hand and waiving a cross in the air, is comical to us. Not scary at all. Had it not been for the reason he was here, we would have been quite amused.

Your action of calling him and getting him to come with the purpose of supposedly exorcising us out of the house is very unfortunate, indeed. It proves your hostile intent.

It is with great regret that we must inform you we see no other option than to pay in kind, to act like you do, with a perfect disregard for beings of other dimensions. We will slam doors, appear on your TV, open the curtains and look through your windows, and turn your lights on or off as we see fit. We will also sit and watch you in the bedroom, boring as that is.

The only way for us all to find happiness is if we coexist in peace and respect each other. We hope that our activity in the coming days and weeks help you understand that only by respecting each other, can we live here together. We have been here longer than you, and we will not let mortals drive us out.

Kind Regards,
Annie and Keith Ullman (previous owners of your house)

Celestina – from Anarchy to the Skies

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Back in 2014, I started drafting my second novel. There were three rules to set this novel apart from my first.
Nothing supernatural.
It would be shorter than my debut.
The story would be linear.

The protagonist would be an Icelandic wannabe journalist. A man with ambitions larger than his worldview.

The Spanish Civil War was a period in history I knew almost nothing about, and the project became an excuse to explore it. I read Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell and In Diamond Square by Mercé Rodoreda and some other works. I watched an old British documentary from the 1980s where people who had lived through the war told their stories.

Only then did I start writing.

My man from Iceland makes a deal with the German embassy, is unwittingly recruited as an informer and sent to Barcelona. There he meets many characters. One of them would come to define everything that followed.

At that point, Blood and Rain was not meant to be part of a series. But the characters had other ideas.

Celestina first appears as noise through a wall late at night. Then, over breakfast, we see her properly. Smoking a cigarette, frying eggs, talking about anarchism. Possibly the strongest character I have ever written, and I had no idea what she would become.

By the end of Blood and Rain, Celestina has turned into a killer and the Icelander has fled the city. Their relationship is broken and there are loose ends that need tying up.

Mont Noir was meant to do that, but strong characters rarely do what they’re told. Celestina was recruited to blow up a train and a plane and blame it on her old friend, but things take a turn. In Mont Noir we get glimpses of her past. How she became an anarchist. How she ended up on the streets of Barcelona with a gun in her hand. How she learned to hate authoritarian regimes and injustice.

At the end of Mont Noir her story still wasn’t finished. She needed a third book.

A Sky Without Stars began life before Mont Noir was even published. Here, Celestina has become an aviator. She longs to fly into battle, but women aren’t allowed to. Instead, she joins the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, ferrying planes from one airfield to another. After a promotion, she begins flying espionage missions. When one fails, she finds herself behind enemy lines, in Amsterdam. The only person she can turn to is her old friend from Barcelona. The one she could have loved. The one she almost killed.

In A Sky Without Stars, Celestina finally becomes who she was always meant to be.

She began life as a side character, a love interest, a voice in the background. But she wouldn’t stay there. Her story was deeper than I realised. Her loss greater. Her strength more profound. She needed three books to grow, but she did.

By the end of A Sky Without Stars she has become what she was destined to be. A reluctant hero with nothing to lose, and everything to give.

As I wrap up the trilogy and move on to new projects, I’ll deeply miss Celestina. She has lived in my head and heart for a decade, guiding me as I learned to write. Her story may be told, but her spirit will live on in every strong female character I create from now on.

A Sky Without Stars is out now.

It Never Stops – The Soundtrack of a Trilogy

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If the Frank & Celestina trilogy had a theme song, it would be Sketches of Spain by Nits.

Not the Miles Davis piece, but the haunting Dutch song from 1983. It is quiet, elegiac, and full of echoes.

It begins with the line:
“The streets of Barcelona are filled with blood and rain.”

That lyric became the seed for the first novel’s title, Blood and Rain. It captured everything I wanted the story to be. A collision of love and violence, beauty and loss.

When I wrote the trilogy, I often returned to that song. It moves like memory – gently, hesitantly – as if afraid of breaking what it remembers. Then the percussion breaks the calm like a machine gun. And the refrain that refuses to fade:
“It never ever, never ever, never stops.”

In the deepest, darkest moments of A Sky Without Stars, as the world relentlessly piles its weight onto Frank and those he loves, he echoes that line in despair: “It never stops.” The same sentiment, the same exhaustion. War is relentless, and all anyone caught in it wants is for it to end.

That line became the emotional spine of the entire saga. It’s history itself speaking. The endless cycle of wars, betrayals, and fragile acts of mercy that never truly end. In A Sky Without Stars, those words close the circle between music and story.

It isn’t coincidence. Sketches of Spain is one of those rare songs that take you to a place and show you what’s happening with the same clarity as a photograph or a piece of film.

For me, that song is the trilogy:
how beauty survives horror,
how memory outlasts time,
and how, even when everything ends,
it never really stops.

No matter when you’re born, there are choices to make, and hard times to endure.

It never stops.

Listen to Nits – Sketches of Spain (live)

A Sky Without Stars is out now.

A Trilogy – Completed

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Origins: Blood and Rain
In 2013, as I was finishing Under the Black Sand – my debut novel – I started thinking about what to do next. I had proven I could write and complete a novel, it felt like quite the achievement and I wanted to try it again! Apply everything I had learned, avoid some of the pitfalls and detours Black Sand had presented.

Blood and Rain would be that next project. The criteria were simple:
Shorter than Black Sand.
Linear, no flashback hopping.
Nothing supernatural.

I suppose I still wasn’t quite ready to leave Iceland behind. Gunnar, the protagonist, was an Icelandic reporter. He was bored and as the Spanish Civil War broke out, he saw his path to glory open. Unsurprisingly, as he arrived in Barcelona, he was perfectly out of his depth.

Blood and Rain probably served as a training ground. My characters were deeper, the events were real, if stylised and modified for the story. I think my writing style was emerging. Short, to the point, as little fluff as possible. And let strong characters run the story.

And that’s when Celestina appeared. She began as a love interest, but refused to play the role. Her backstory would be revealed and deepened throughout the trilogy, but it already dictated her every move. She wouldn’t let herself be “paired off.” She had her own purpose. In the end, she almost took over the book.

From Barcelona to Amsterdam: Mont Noir
Mont Noir followed. I hadn’t planned a series, but Celestina demanded more space. Here, Gunnar – now calling himself Frank – lives in Amsterdam. It’s early 1939. Celestina is still a thorn in Franco’s side, and someone in the German administration decides she could be useful in triggering a limited war between Germany and the West. She’s flown to Berlin, then to Amsterdam.

Mont Noir is shorter, leaner, more to the point. I dare say I was honing my craft. It also introduced new characters. Lodewijk, the aging diplomat who returns in the final novel, and Marleen, the beautiful jazz singer.

The Question That Ended It All: A Sky Without Stars
I wasn’t planning to create a trilogy. The spark for A Sky Without Stars came when I visited the Verzetsmuseum (Resistance Museum) in Amsterdam. One of the first things they ask you as you enter is this:
Under occupation, there are three choices.
Adapt.
Resist.
Cooperate.
What would you do?

I think it was in that moment that I realised, the Frank and Celestina saga needed to be completed. I had been absolutely clear with myself. I will NOT write a World War Two novel. Ever! It’s overdone, and there have been so many tragic and beautiful stories, that I can’t possibly hope to compete in that space.

But the question lingered. Each of my characters would answer it differently. Frank had never been a hero. Would he adapt? How long could he get away with it? Lodewijk was a patriot, but would he risk others for his own safety? Celestina had left the Netherlands at the end of Mont Noir. Where was she now?

On 6 January 2023, as I was preparing the Mont Noir launch, I was sitting in a Dutch Air Force canteen in Soesterberg. I had a few hours to burn. I opened a new Scrivener document. I typed the first line. Then the next. Within a month – 7 February, to be exact – I had a complete first draft. The story came out fully formed. The characters made their choices. I simply watched and wrote.

Now that A Sky Without Stars is complete, two things stay with me. First, strong characters are everything. Once they live, they drive the story. Second, I’m convinced Sky is my most layered and emotionally mature novel. Not necessarily the most complex – that honour still belongs to the debut – but it’s the deepest. It even closes an arc first opened in Blood and Rain and never revisited until now.

This book truly ends the trilogy. It completes the arcs for Frank and Celestina, bringing them roughly to where they wanted to be at the start of Blood and Rain. Roughly, because they have evolved, endured, changed. And so have their ambitions.

As I close this chapter on my writing journey, I can’t help but wonder if I will miss them. Especially Celestina, the character who began as a love interest and became the backbone of a trilogy. As I move toward new and very different projects, I suspect she’ll keep shaping the women I write.

Time will tell. Now I am going to celebrate an achievement that I honestly never thought I would reach.
Finishing a trilogy that grew stronger with every book.

A Sky Without Stars is out now.