Welcome to The Scroll, a new column that checks in with your favorite writers, asking them to exclusively reveal and annotate the best moments from their brand new books. We also get them to dish on their writing process and divulge a few plot secrets along the way.
First up is Olivie Blake, author of the viral Atlas series. She's stepping away from the fantasy genre with her next book, Gifted & Talented, but not without making some of her own magic along the way. Below, Olivie gets real about her most unlikely character yet, while also making a big reveal that might change your first read of the novel (for the better, of course).
When starting a new book like Gifted & Talented, what do you create first: plot, characters, or setting?
I am what’s called a pantser, very character-first. I also started out as a fan fiction writer, a medium that’s 100 percent character, because the only sin you can really commit in fan fiction is getting the character wrong. I don’t start writing until I have an understanding of not just characterization but voice. The characters really, really took over, and it was just about their relationships with each other.
The book, about three siblings fighting for control of their father’s company, officially comes out in April but is already getting a lot of buzz. How do you decide what to share in advance to excite your fans?
I love to keep twists a surprise, but I don’t mind showing my hand a little bit. Ideally, readers just get so drawn into the story that even knowing things in advance won’t change the experience of the read. I don’t think knowing about the narrator twist takes away from the read. I just think it’s a fun thing to come across if you’re not paying attention. I never want the book to be so difficult to read that you have to be thinking deeply. But if you are, you will be rewarded for that attention.
Your protagonist, Meredith, has a very distinct voice. But (and speaking of twists!) there’s also a second protagonist of sorts, an unnamed narrator.
I thought, Wouldn’t it be funnier if someone was narrating this? They’re telling the story to amuse themselves. I describe them as “your friend telling you what happened over wine, dramatizing for effect.” I was very conscious as I was writing that these characters are unlikable, especially Meredith. I love Meredith so much, but she’s definitely not, like, a hero by any means.
There was one part later on in the book where the narrator does a bit of a fake out and I thought it was just genius!
I didn’t want to do something that felt too much like something I’d done before. I was very conscious as I was writing that these characters are very Atlas-resembling. To some extent, the narrator is omniscient. And then, I thought, What if the narrator is just kind of making it up to amuse themselves? This is a character who absolutely knew how she wanted to tell the story.
Since we’re starting off with Meredith’s POV, it’s fascinating to see who is important to her and who isn’t. How did you decide that?
You’re supposed to feel, based on Meredith’s indifference, which names you don’t need to remember. You still get the feeling that those are names you’ll hear again, but you don’t need to know who they are right now. When she mentions someone offhandedly, it’s almost like an intrusive thought. I tend to write so close in a perspective, it feels like info dumping. But what I’m really doing is telling you what I think you need to know at the time. It’s almost like when you meet someone who is a friend of a friend. You hear their name come up in stories all the time and then you bump into them. That’s the experience.
Gifted & Talented is a departure from your other books in that it deals with technology. But you haven’t totally abandoned magic. Why?
I was writing from my experience in tech, working in startups. I’m a fantasy girlie and I world-build in a sci-fi way, but in my heart, it’s magic. I came from a starting place that’s going to be speculative, not based entirely in reality.
And where things really aren’t as they seem. There’s also an element of doomsday in here....
I was at the playground with my son and I saw a locust. I was like, How many locusts is considered a plague? Mix that with the Santa Ana winds—which is this very dry, hot wind—everything feels sort of ethereal. I knew to add in an apocalypse because of that.
We asked you to annotate the first page of Gifted & Talented to give readers a peek at your process. Did doing so make you look at the book differently?
Most authors will not want to admit to this, but we don’t really understand what the book is until someone tells us. I was just writing a family drama and so deep in these characters’ lives that I wasn’t necessarily thinking about the larger things I’m trying to say. When you’re just in this world, you accept it as true. Just like we don’t look at our own lives as if they have a “moral of the story.”
This book taught me that I don’t know how to write a book. It’s weird because it’s the longest book I’ve published so far. It’s twice the size of my next one, Girl Dinner. So while I was writing, I thought, What am I doing? Where am I going with this? It’s not my motherhood book, even though there’s mention of that. It’s not my family drama book, even though there is one. It’s a blend of a lot of things happening in my life and what I was processing. It has so many little pieces of me even though I had no idea what I was doing. But when you’re experiencing the story and you’re excited about what comes next, I think that’s when you can trust the book is good even though you’re like, Oh my god, it’s been 100,000 words and I don’t know where this is going to go.
Cover jacket painting: Tristan Elwell. Cover jacket design: Jamie Stafford-Hill.
Excerpt and annotations: Copyright © 2025 by Alexene Farol Follmuth.
Gifted & Talented, by Olivie Blake, will be released on April 3, 2025. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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