I’m taking part in the blog tour for Natali Simmonds’ The Path Keeper and I’m excited to bring you my interview with her about strong female leads.
You can read my review for The Path Keeper, I enjoyed how different this book was, it certainly had an unpredictable plot. Check out the other amazing bloggers who are taking part in this tour below!
Hi Natali, thanks so much for answering these questions about strong female leads. I wanted to ask you first, who is your favourite fictional female lead and why?
Thank you for taking part in The Path Keeper blog tour, Beth. I’ve been really looking forward to these questions. My favourite female lead? I would have to say it’s a toss-up between Daenerys Targaryen, Game of Thrones’ Mother of Dragons, or Inej from Six of Crows. They are both completely different, on the surface, but also very similar. They have both been brutally treated by men and women in the past yet go on to do good…even if it means doing a bit of bad to get there. They also collaborate with other women, and work with them, instead of against them. A strong woman knows who she is and what she wants and achieves it quietly and steadily. She doesn’t compete against other women, but supports them and helps them rise.
Now I’ve asked about your favourite fictional female lead, but what about non-fictional. I think mine would be Michelle Obama, she is amazing and an inspiration! Who would yours be and why?
Definitely Michelle Obama, she’s such an inspiration. I’m also a big fan of Alicia Keys – she’s such a strong role model for young women. Not only because of her talent, but also the charity work she does, her strong feminist mindset and how she keeps it real. When you’re famous from a young age, as she was, I imagine it must be really easy to get swept away by fame. Not her. She has strong family and spiritual values – I like that.
In your book, you have Ella as your main character, a young woman trying to make her way in a new city. Were there any literary ladies that inspired you when creating Ella?
Not literary, no – she’s quite unique. Ella is an amalgamation of lots of teen girls I knew growing up, and a little of myself too. The thing about Ella is that she’s strong in her own way, at least on the outside, but inside she’s actually a very defensive and damaged young girl with a tough past. I wanted to make her bolshy and outspoken, but still leave her room to grow. By the end of the series she has calmed down and changed a lot. She’s had to grow up the hard way.
There’s several men in Ella’s life, affecting her emotions and her path. Do you think Ella would be the same person without these men, would she be better off without them or worse?
Showing a mix of men and their influences was important to me. Although women have been my main role models growing up, they still are, I’m lucky to also have many supportive men in my life.
There’s no doubt Ella’s life would have been easier without Zac, but then he also satisfies a huge void that she really needs to feel complete – for reasons we discover as the story goes on. There are lots of kind men in The Path Keeper – Leo, Ted, Richard, and of course Zac, but then Mikhael, Sebastian and (sometimes) Josh are very damaging influences. They all play a part though, and in a way Ella becomes stronger having experienced the horrors some of these men have put her through. You see in book two how they changed her, whether for the better or for the worse.
This book is all about a path already being chosen for Ella, if this is the case, is she ever able to truly be a strong female lead if everything is already decided for her?
Good question. I think, to some extent, discovering her life is already mapped out forces her to be even stronger as she has to choose whether to accept fate or rebel against it and suffer the consequences. Of course, none of us will ever know if destiny truly exit, but there are many women in this world who are controlled by their partners or family and made to live lives they may not have chosen for themselves. Resilience, endurance, perseverance, rebellion and self-respect are just as much signs of a strong woman as being independent and headstrong. So yes, I think Ella is strong as she never ever gives up what she wants and stands up for what she believes in – although she still has a long way to go until she learns how to do that with dignity and self-love.
And lastly, if Ella were to be sorted into a Hogwarts house, which would she be in?
Ha, I love this question. She’s definitely a Gryffindor. She’s courageous and determined, but also impulsive and relentless. She may have a teeny bit of Slytherin in her too, as she’s pretty self-centred and selfish at times.
Thank you so much to Natali for taking part in this Q&A, I had good fun thinking of the questions to ask her about strong female leads. Find out more about Natali’s book The Path Keeper!
If you’d like to buy a copy of this book, you can do so here:
UK Amazon: https://amzn.to/301FjrT
US Amazon: https://amzn.to/2H96xFr
Waterstones: http://bit.ly/2DUnUb6
B&N: http://bit.ly/2vJoVht
Every blog tour in the blog has a letter. Collect them all to spell out the answer to this competition question: What does Zac get in the sequel SON OF SECRETS that’s very out of character? Prize info and entry details will be posted in The Glass House Glass magazine on release day 28 May 2019. Check out today’s letter and competition graphic below.
