Interview with Jenna Evans Welch on Love & Olives

The island of Santorini, where the story takes place

Olive Varanakis loved her dad-until he ditched her and her mom and ran off to Greece in search of a city that doesn't exist. Now in high school, she's reinvented herself as Liv, and disavowed all connection to her dad. Except when she nurses her ever-lingering fascination with the city of Atlantis. When her father reenters her life and calls her to the sunny Grecian island of Santorini, Olive reluctantly takes the chance to hunt for the city-and father-she gave up on long ago. 

Here's author Jenna Evans Welch on the characters and world of Love and Olives. 

 1. The main character of Love and Olives is a girl named Olive whose love interest delights in telling her unnecessary olive fun facts. What led you to pick this name? Are you an olive lover?

I do love olives, but I think I originally chose the name just because I thought it was cute. As I researched for the book, I realized that olives have very interesting historical and cultural significance and I loved the layers that brought to her name's significance. Plus, Theo pelting her with all those annoying facts was fun!

2. What are some of your favorite pieces of your trip to Greece that made it into the story? Which came first, trip or story ideas?

The setting always comes first for me, I found the real Atlantis Books on a google search and went there looking for a story. It took me a couple of tries, but when I found it I ended up writing it rather quickly. 

Atlantis Books, the real-life bookstore with a secret bunkroom where Liv stays during her time in Greece.

3. Any fun trip moments that didn't make it into the book?

Cliff jumping in Amoudi Bay! My last day in Santorini I went down to the beach where Liv/Olive spends some of her time and had an incredible morning swimming around and jumping off a huge rock just off of the coast.  

4. You've mentioned online before that your next Love Abroad book will be set in Iceland. Can you tell us anything about that one? 

This was an idea I was playing with but I have actually pivoted to another idea! It is a contemporary YA, but I haven't disclosed the setting yet. I will say I am FASCINATED by the town where it takes place .

Awesome! I love how rich your settings always are and how deeply they inform the story. 

5. What captured your interest in Atlantis and why did you choose to include it in the story? Thank you so much Jenna!

I am not a person who is terribly interested by fantasy or sci-fi, so I was shocked when Atlantis swallowed me whole! The island of Santorini is full of references to Atlantis, and as I began to research the lost city I was amazed by how long this story has been around and how many people have dedicated their lives to finding it. It felt like the perfect metaphor for things we have lost and gave me such a great character--I'm always rooting for the person who is out there trying, and I loved the idea of Liv's father being so flawed yet so loveable. 

6. Olive keeps a list of objects her father left behind when he moved to Greece, ranging from a pack of gum to a map to the lost city of Atlantis. Each chapter in Love and Olives starts out with a description of one of these items and gives us insight to her relationship with her absentee father. These were some of my favorite parts of the book because they're really good short fiction in their own right, give us more insight to her dad's backstory, and having a paragraph or two at the beginning of a chapter put me in "I can read a little more, it's not like I'm starting a new chapter" mode (and then I'd read the rest of the chapter anyway). What was your writing process like for these chapter starters? How did you pick the items?

Aww, I love that insight into your reading experience! The list was one of the first ideas that came to me for this story, and I was really captivated by the idea of ordinary objects having so much meaning when they belong to people we love. I spent time thinking about the father figure and what someone like him would own (and leave behind) and the items were fairly easy to pinpoint. 

Love and Olives is a companion novel to Love and Luck (set in Ireland) and Love and Gelato (set in Italy). Gelato and Luck share some characters and are best read Gelato first, Luck second. Olives is a sister in spirit to the other two books but can absolutely be read as a standalone. 

Images courtesy of Jenna Evans Welch