Katerina

In honour of Kat's 884th birthday today, I invited her to sit down and have a chat with me about her life and all the exciting things she's been up to the last near-millennium. She told me she didn't have the time. Fine.

For now , please allow me to offer some insight into the woman that is Katerina; Kat to her current acquaintances and Kate to people long since dead.

Kate was born in the village of Palonia, a community of galderas, or sorcerers, a breed now extinct. The shooting-fire-from-the-fingertips kind of sorcerers. The village was located in the hills of northern England near the current town of Ambleside and had a population of maybe one hundred and fifty.  Palonia no longer exists, unfortunately. If you went there now you would see nothing but a lovely view of the Lake District.

Due to a magical accident, she has been trapped in the body of a twenty-one year old for just shy of nine hundred years. While she has hardened over time, she still retains a love of laughter (admittedly more out of cynicism and sarcasm than a joy of life) and has developped a passion for corsets and ankle-length skirts.

Thanks to her immortality, Kat doesn't have many relationships with the short-lived, but is loyal and protective to the ones she does have. On the other hand, she won't shy away from throwing them into a fight if it comes to it. Her only purpose in life is to take down and destroy any supernatural beings that threaten her privacy or way of life, and she loves her job. Perhaps too much.
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I've loved Katerina since the moment she walked into my head. Right from the start I mistrusted that small smile and the wicked glint in her dark blue eyes, but I never doubted that we would have a great working relationship. She's fascinating to write because of everything she's gone through, and some of it I don't even know yet.

Playing with Fire covers one year of her past and only a few months of her present. Everything in between is still a tale yet to be told, and in some cases a mystery still needing to be explained, but all of those experiences have to reflect in her personality now, in this book. It's one of the challenges of writing a character like hers, but I'm very excited to find out more.

Do you have questions for Kat? Sweet mother of mercy don't ask her directly, but feel free to post them in the comments and I'll see if I get her to answer. I mean, really. She's been around 900 years and doesn't have time to answer questions?

No, sorry, I didn't say that! I don't judge, I sw--