Olivia Lara - Author of The Meeting Point

7 min read

Welcome to Armed with A Book, friends! Yesterday I shared with you all about The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara and today. I connected with her through Instagram and it is an awesome opportunity to be able to get sometime from her and host her for a Q&A just for you on the blog! 🙂

Born and raised in Romania, in a family of book lovers and storytellers, Olivia studied marketing, communications, and photography, and worked as a journalist for a newspaper and news television network.

An unapologetic citizen of the world, she spent a few years in Greece, Sweden, and France (which will always have a special place in her heart), before settling in the US. Olivia now lives in sunny California with her photographer husband and daughter, where she works as a marketing executive and writes. Oh, and let’s not forget the ever-growing menagerie that completes the family: Pumpkin—the hyper-active Maine Coon-orange tabby mix, three black cats: Shadow, Pepper, and Salem and the newest addition, a siamese kitten, Frumpy.

Refresh your memory about the book below if you need it and then head into the chat!

The Meeting Point

What if the Lift driver who finds your cheating boyfriend’s phone holds the directions to true love?

‘Who are you and why do you have my boyfriend’s phone?’

‘He left it in my car. You must be the blonde in the red dress? I’m the Lift driver who dropped you two off earlier.’

And with these words, the life of the brunette and t-shirt wearing Maya Maas is turned upside down. Having planned to surprise her boyfriend, she finds herself single and stranded in an unknown city on her birthday.

So when the mystery driver rescues Maya with the suggestion that she cheers herself up at a nearby beach town, she jumps at the chance to get things back on track. She wasn’t expecting a personalised itinerary or the easy companionship that comes from opening up to a stranger via text, let alone the possibility it might grow into something more…

Content Notes include depiction of infidelity and toxic relationships.

Author Olivia Lara. Image from her website

Hi Olivia! Welcome to Armed with A Book.

Thank you so much for having me here!

The Meeting Point is a heart-warming story about love and the challenges of finding the right person for us. Sometimes we accept ‘good enough’ but after tasting the magic of ‘the one’, settling down can be quite challenging. Did you have any real-world inspiration for your characters?

I always do and they’re always secret. 🙂 Joking aside, I do tend to base my characters on people I know, but more often than not, my characters are the embodiment of a mix of people (a little bit of me, a little of a friend perhaps…and so on) and not just one person. As for the story in The Meeting Point, it is in fact inspired by real life. A friend of mine discovered one morning she had lost her phone and called her number repeatedly until someone answered. And just like in the book, the person who answered was a man. He had found it on the train, on his way to work. They met up later that day and yes, I kept my fingers crossed something more would come of this. Of course I did. It wasn’t meant to be for my friend, but my imagination was already at work, creating the story of what might’ve been, the story that is now The Meeting Point.

Maya is a journalist and writer like yourself. How much of her struggles in her careers align with your own experiences in the two industries?

I too have always wanted to be a writer but started my writing career as a journalist. Everything from written press to TV. I enjoyed writing, but not what I was writing about. It seems you can’t really get creative when reporting the news. You have to stick to the facts. Did I have a boss like Janice? I’m sad to say that I did. Maybe not as bad, but pretty close.

It took me years to gather the courage to write my first novel, not because of rejections from literary agents, but because of that voice in the back of my mind, that made me question whether what I had to say was…worth saying. I wanted to make sure the stories I told were stories only I could tell and that took a while. 🙂

I loved the characters in The Meeting Point. Celine and her dedication to the Cafe were exemplary. Her accepting and caring nature made her one of my most well-loved characters in the book. Do you think you will pursue her story, or any of the other characters in the future?

I love Celine too. As I wrote her character, I was often tempted to give her an even bigger role, but this was Maya’s story. And the same thing happened with Alisa. Will they have their own stories? Not now, but maybe… one day. I never say never.

What does your writing process look like? Do you have a set of events in mind before you start writing or do you let them come up as you write?

I always start with the big idea for the story and at the same time I ‘see’ and ‘hear’ the characters and know exactly where the story is set. But how the story evolves, what are the exact events that lead to the ending I know from the beginning, that is all up to the characters. I let them take me there…

Do you have some favourite books that you would recommend to readers who liked The Meeting Point?

There are so many books I enjoyed lately, it’s hard to pick. Some that come to mind are Emily Henry’s Beach Read, Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game and Kerry Winfrey’s Very Sincerely Yours.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from this book?

I hope readers finish the story with a smile on their face and feel that happiness could be just around the corner and stepping out of your comfort zone, as scary as it is, might be exactly what you need. Whether that means meeting new people, visiting new places or taking on a new hobby or finally following that old passion or dream you’ve been too scared to pursue. Because you never know what’s out there waiting for you! And they’ll feel that you can turn around your worst day and make it your best…and, staying true to myself, I of course hope they feel love can be found in the most unexpected ways and places.

Your debut, Someday in Paris, was released last year and was a historical fiction. What made you pursue a contemporary story for your second book?

That is a question I asked myself too. The short answer is: I write love stories… and don’t really focus on when they happen. The story comes to me, I see and hear the characters and I visualize the location —which is always very important because the place where the story is set feels almost like another character to me — but the period when it’s set comes from all that. It comes from the story itself. Someday in Paris is set across decades, starting in the 50s, when my characters exchanged letters and were not ‘polluted’ by modern technology, so it was important for the action to happen before email, cell phones, social media, during a time when everything seemed much more straightforward and beautiful in its simplicity. The Meeting Point revolves around ride shares, text messages, emails so this one clearly needs to be contemporary. Does this mean one of my stories could be set in the future? It’s possible, if that’s what the characters want.

What would you tell your younger self when it comes to writing?

So many things. Hah. I’d say, don’t worry, you’re doing all the right things. Keep writing, keep reading and when you’re ready, put down on paper that story that’s been with you all these years. Because that story will become a novel so many people will love. And when you’re done, continue writing because there are many more stories where that first one came from. Oh, and, that it’s OK if you’re a hopeless romantic. A lot of people are!