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.
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