Thomas Bardenwerper

Thomas "Buddy" Bardenwerper served for five years in the US Coast Guard. He is currently pursuing a JD and a master’s in public policy at Harvard Law School and the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government.

His new novel is Mona Passage.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The Mona Passage is the body of water that separates the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico. On an almost daily basis, Cuban, Haitian, and Dominican migrants attempt to cross this stretch of water in search of better lives.

Pat McAllister is a US Coast Guard officer stationed in San Juan whose cutter patrols the Mona Passage for cocaine smugglers and migrants. His neighbor and best friend, Galán Betances, is a Cuban emigrant. Galán’s sister, Gabriela, is still in Cuba and at risk of being committed to a mental health facility.

The only way for Gabriela to live a full life is to cross the Mona Passage and join Galán in San Juan. Pat, who becomes caught up in this plan, must decide if he is willing to risk everything to unify a family.

Other titles I toyed with were Blood and Water, Gabriela, The Last Patrol, and Wet Foot, Dry Foot.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

That’s a great question! First off, my teenage self would be surprised that I had written a novel at all. I enjoyed creative writing in high school but didn’t envision myself ever writing a book.

What would have been less surprising to my teenage self is the general subject matter of Mona Passage – specifically its Coast Guard elements and Latin American setting. While I knew almost nothing about the Coast Guard as a teenager, a military career had been in the back of my mind ever since my oldest brother had joined the Army. And in terms of Latin America, a trip I made across Cuba as a 16-year-old sparked my interest in the region, an interest that I have continued to pursue personally and professionally ever since.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Endings. An ending is your readers’ last glimpse into the world that you created. If your story wraps up too neatly, it can be too easily forgotten. If the narrative arc is completely unresolved, readers will be angry. I tried to create an ending that was just unsettled enough that the story will stick with readers long after they put the book away.

For Mona Passage, I went through several iterations of an epilogue set during Hurricane María before bagging the effort altogether. First, although I lived in Puerto Rico before María and returned shortly thereafter to assist in the relief efforts, I was not there during the storm and didn’t feel like I could do it justice. Second, I feared that any epilogue would take away from the power of the final chapter’s last scene.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

There are obvious similarities between me and Pat – one of the two protagonists. Pat serves in the Coast Guard, thoroughly enjoys living in Puerto Rico, and values family above all else. But none of that means he is me.

Indeed, I struggled writing the character of Pat early on because I was modeling him too closely on myself. I had a hard time depicting his vulnerability or his most intimate moments, moments that hit too close to home. I discussed this with my wife, and she suggested that I picture somebody else from my life when I wrote the Pat scenes, and sure enough the trick worked! Suddenly Pat took on his own identity.

So, who is Pat modeled after, you ask? Now that’s a question I can’t answer. Maybe one day!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My time in the Coast Guard inspired the plot of Mona Passage, but in terms of my actual writing, film was a major influence. Indeed, after having written the first few chapters, I felt like I was merely transcribing scenes from a movie that was playing in my head. I tried to focus on dialogue, action, and description while avoiding as much as possible any self-indulgent literary flourishes. I know my limitations!

Anyway, I plan to shop Mona Passage to book-to-film agents in the near future so that this story can reach as wide an audience as possible. Wish me luck!

Visit Thomas Bardenwerper's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

--Marshal Zeringue

Teresa Dovalpage

Teresa Dovalpage is a college professor and author of three theater plays and twelve novels. The last four belong to the Havana Mystery series published by Soho Crime. Death under the Perseids is the most recent one, set on a cruise ship headed for Cuba.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

It works nicely. There is a death (in fact, several deaths) in the story, and a key action takes place during the Perseid meteor shower. But I must say that The Tears of Saint Lawrence would have been a good title too. In fact, that’s the one I will use for the Spanish version. Las lágrimas de San Lorenzo is the meteor shower’s name in Spanish because it happens on or around St. Lawrence feast day, August 10th. Lorenzo is a main character (the protagonist’s true love and an amateur astronomer) so it would be fitting as well.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teenage self wanted to be a writer so she would say something like “Pero of course!” She also loved mysteries and would be pleased with my last four novels. But there would be a surprise for her. I don’t think my teenage self would have ever considered writing in English, a language I didn’t start using daily until I was thirty years old.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings tend to be more difficult. Except for the few happy occasions when a story comes to me fully formed, it takes me a while to find the tone and the voice. That usually happens when writing—and rewriting—the first chapter. Once I get them right, everything starts flowing. After I decided to use the first person and found Mercedes’ voice, Death under the Perseids moved very fast. That’s why I have kept Mercedes as the narrator in the sequel and hope to continue with her for at least two more books. It will make my beginnings a piece of cake.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Most of them have a little bit of me or are based on people I know. I like to delve into personal experiences (mine or others’) to create believable characters. But in Death under the Perseids, Mercedes was getting too close for comfort—she comes to the United States after marrying an older American; she was a student at the University of Havana; she likes to cook—so I tried to erase some of the similarities. She’s more flirtatious than I have ever been, for sure. And she hates reading.

Candela, her Cuban-American Tarot-reading, antique-loving pal, is a composite of two friends of mine. It’s fun to put them in my character’s shoes and imagine what they would do.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Family, for sure. My Cuban familia appears more or less disguised in all my books. Mamina—Mercedes’ grandmother—is based on my own grandma. I used some of her favorite sayings like en boca cerrada no entran moscas (no flies get into a closed mouth). I hope to have also captured her essence: a mix of generosity, acceptance, and no-nonsense attitude.

Pets too. Well, they are part of the family! Nena, Mamina’s rescue mutt, is a fictional version of La Niña, my mischievous English foxhound.

Traveling has also influenced my writing. My husband and I love to go on cruises and I have used them as settings for Death of a Telenovela Star and Death under the Perseids. Cruise ships have that “locked room” feel that works so well for mysteries, but with more opportunities for compelling visuals. Besides, many shenanigans that I witnessed on board have found their way into the books.

Last but not least, I am inspired by Cuba. My native country is a constant presence in my work. Every book I have written up to now contains references to or is set in the island.

Visit Teresa Dovalpage's website.

The Page 69 Test: Death Comes in through the Kitchen.

My Book, The Movie: Death Comes in through the Kitchen.

Coffee with a Canine: Teresita Dovalpage & La Niña.

--Marshal Zeringue

Camilla Trinchieri

Camilla Trinchieri worked for many years dubbing films in Rome with directors including Federico Fellini, Pietro Germi, Franco Rossi, Lina Wertmüller and Luchino Visconti. She immigrated to the US in 1980 and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. Under the pseudonym Camilla Crespi, she has published eight mysteries. As Camilla Trinchieri, she is the author of The Price of Silence and the Nico Doyle mysteries, Murder in Chianti and The Bitter Taste of Murder.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I don’t know how much of the story a reader will glean from my title. The word ‘taste’ is apt because my characters do a lot of eating in the series. In this story the taste is bitter because the victim is poisoned. I also wanted to underline how the victim’s family and friends might feel. Even the investigators. I also wonder what taste is left in your mouth when you discover someone you loved is the killer. It can’t be sweet.

What's in a name?

A name gives information. My main character’s name popped in my head—Nico (Domenico) Doyle. It told me he was the son of parents who came from different backgrounds, Italian and Irish, differences that can lead to difficulties. The mixed name seemed apt for a retired New York homicide detective now living in a small Tuscan town where his Italian wife is buried. Trying to make a new home for himself, Nico helps out at his wife’s family restaurant, adopts a mutt named OneWag (too proud to wag more than once) and gets involved in a new murder thanks to his friendship with Maresciallo dei Carabinieri, Salvatore Perillo. The maresciallo’s name reveals that he is from the south of Italy. Naples, in his case. His right-hand man, young, blushing Daniele Donato, has a name that comes from the north of Italy—Venice. The origin of these names might be lost on an American audience. They are important to me because I am Italian. The name has to fit.

Bitter Taste is filled with names, some belonging only to walk ons. Why give them a name if they are not vital to this mystery? Because I am trying to depict a village, its surroundings, its people ,.. people have names.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Writing murder stories would have seemed perfectly natural to me. I emigrated from Italy to New Orleans. barely a teenager. I had gone to an American school in Rome, and I knew English. In my new school I started writing depressing short stories. I think I wrote to ground me. My teacher kept asking me to write what I knew. I wasn’t in the least bit interested in what I knew. It’s entering an unknown world, trying to understand people that interests me. That’s why I write murder mysteries.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings take forever. I mull them over in my head for weeks sometimes. Place always comes first for me. It’s what got me started on the Tuscan series. On a trip from Sienna to Florence, I was intrigued by the small villages I drove through. Having lived only in big cities, I wondered what it would be like to live in a village and get to know the people. A place and a question gave me the beginning. The first book, Murder in Chianti, starts out with Nico roasting tomatoes in his new home when a gunshot goes off followed by a dog yelping. Nico runs out thinking the dog is hurt. To start the story for The Bitter Taste of Murder, Nico parks his car in the town piazza to meet his Dante-quoting friend for their usual breakfast at Bar All’Angolo. I wanted to show that Nico has planted roots in Gravigna. Maresciallo Perillo interrupts the peaceful morning by walking in to complain about his encounter with a very unpleasant wine critic. Murder isn’t very far behind.

As to endings, I find that the stories conclude naturally. All that needed to be said has been said. After murder, I try to end joyfully with a celebration filled with good food and wine.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I love to cook and there is a lot of food in the series. Nico volunteers at the restaurant run by his wife’s cousin, Tilde, who is an excellent cook. Nico starts to come up with recipes to offer Tilde. Most of my characters are Italian as I am. They are familiar to me. I feel at home with them. I’m not sure if any of them connect to my personality. I don’t plan them. They come to me, just a spark at first, then as they speak, I discover who they are. I learned early on not to force them to do what I think is right. They’ll tell me what’s right.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My having to live in many different places has been an incredible inspiration. My father was a diplomat and we moved every four or so years to different countries. That is why place is so important to me. You come to a new city, knowing no one. You have to assess where you are, who the people around you are. I gave Nico that job.

Movies have been a very strong influence. I was in the dubbing business in Rome. For eight hours a day, sometimes twelve, I watched actors on the screen speaking lines, revealing their emotions. I think that’s the reason dialogue comes easily to me. I wanted to be an actress and now that’s what I do when writing. I try to become the character, thinking and doing what he/she dictates.

Visit Camilla Trinchieri's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elizabeth Breck

Elizabeth Breck is a California licensed private investigator. She went back to school and graduated summa cum laude from the University of California San Diego with a bachelor's degree in Writing. She writes the Madison Kelly Mysteries about her alter ego Madison Kelly.

The latest book in the series is Double Take.

My Q&A with Breck:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

As many likely know, the publisher has the final say on the title of a book. Double Take used to be called Tapestry of Lies, and in fact I called it that all through the writing of it. However, my publisher felt it sounded too much like a cozy mystery (“Pancakes and murder” type of book), and my book is much more of a thriller/mystery; I saw their point. I offered about forty different options before we settled on the title Double Take. As a reader, when I get to the end of a book, I want to understand what the title had to do with the story—so I kept going until I found a title that the team loved, but I felt still represented the plot. By the end of the book, you will definitely understand why the book has that title, but I can’t give it away now or it will be a spoiler. Anyone who reads the book and can’t put it together by the end, please contact me via my website or my twitter and I would love to discuss it with you!

What's in a name?

The heroine of my books, Madison Kelly, is my alter-ego: we are both licensed private investigators, and when I was Madison’s age, I lived in the exact studio apartment by the beach where Madison lives now (I actually gave her the apartment above mine that I coveted, the one with the ocean view). I named her Madison because of a story from my youth: there was a time in my younger years where I made friends with someone also named Elizabeth. In a moment of flippancy, we decided to give ourselves different names, as a solution to awkwardly calling the other by our own name. I had another friend who’d just had a baby and named her Madison, and I loved the name. So I said to my new friend Elizabeth: “Call me Madison.” So, when it came time to name my alter-ego in the books, I gave her the name Madison, since it really was another name for me.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I find beginnings and endings the easiest to write; the middle is the hard part. I also feel beginnings and endings are the most important, so I always write them before the rest of the book. Once I’ve written the first page, and I’ve decided what happens at the end, I begin plotting the book in earnest. I knew for Double Take that I wanted readers dropped immediately into the action of Madison working an exciting case, but I also wanted to show the reader what she’d been up to since the first book in the series had ended (the books stand alone, but for those who’ve read the first book, Anonymous, I wanted to ease them back in).

I would say I edit the first couple of pages more than anything else in the book, but I don’t change them. I pick better words, delete clunky sentences, etc., but the meaning doesn’t change. Similarly, once I’ve decided on the ending, it doesn’t change substantially. They are the bookends that are holding up the rest of the book, and they are my foundation for writing. I then carefully plot each scene in the book, using an Excel spreadsheet, to see how we get from that beginning to that ending. I deliberately place clues for the reader, red herrings, and exciting and thrilling moments to keep the reader interested and desperate to find out what happens next!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

When I started the first Madison book she was more similar to me than she is now. In fact, I took a break in the middle of writing the first book and picked it up again months later. When it was time to start reading from the beginning, a lot of time had passed since I’d written it. Madison did something at the beginning of the book and I said out loud, “Oh no! Madison would never do that!” She had become a fully formed person in my mind as I wrote the book, and I understood her now.

We are both tough, we are both brave and adventurous, and we are both loners; however, Madison is much more of a loner than I am, and she is more of a daredevil in her dealings with people and in her life. She is less emotional than I am—at least on the surface. I will cry at a McDonald’s commercial; not Madison. She has had a lot of loss in her life, but she doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve. As she says in the books, “Sometimes if you start crying you’ll never stop.”

Visit Elizabeth Breck's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sylvie Perry

Sylvie Perry is the pseudonym of a Chicagoland-based psychotherapist. One of her professional focuses is in counseling survivors of narcissistic manipulation. She has a Masters in English. She previously wrote in another genre under a different pseudonym.

Perry's new book is The Hawthorne School, her first psychological suspense novel

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The title, The Hawthorne School, came at almost the same time as the concept for a beautiful, progressive school that hides a dark danger.

What's in a name?

Claudia Vera is my main character. I don’t expect the reader to consciously know this, but I had fun knowing that Vera means “truth” and Claudia means “lame one.” She arrives with her little son at the school when she is so disabled by grief that she cannot see the reality of the school. Her challenge is to discover the truth before the end of the story.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teenage self would say, “Far out!” because that’s what we said back then. She hoped she would someday write books, and she’d be “digging” this.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Definitely endings! The beginning arrives as a gift from I-know-not-where. I have to do my own work to get to the ending. And certainly, I write many possible endings before hitting on the right one. And that’s with the help of my agent and my editor.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Claudia is a lot like me as a young mother: wanting to parent perfectly, and worried that everyone was judging me. I really felt the weight of my responsibility as well as the disadvantage of my inexperience.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The college I went to was Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. The architecture of the buildings is in the gothic style, and I have always loved it. I had that campus in mind for the physical Hawthorne School. I also visited a Waldorf school which was completely enchanting: I loved the philosophy and the aesthetics and felt that I would have loved such a school for my own children when they were small. Both of these schools are positive, wonderful places. The sinister overlay is all my own.

Visit Sylvie Perry's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Hawthorne School.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eliza Nellums

Raised in the Detroit suburbs, Eliza Nellums now lives with her cat in Washington DC.

Her debut novel is All That's Bright and Gone.

Nellums's new novel is The Bone Cay.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Well, "the bone cay" is said to be the original name for Key West (Cayo Hueso - "West" was probably a misunderstanding of the Spanish word for bones, back when the island was used for fishing) so I think it establishes the location and also the tone, since the book is a thriller. I would have preferred to spell it "key" so that you get another pun - as there is literally a skeleton in the book that becomes part of a larger mystery - but that wouldn't be an original title, and I think this works too.

What's in a name?

I usually put a lot of thought into names, but in this case Magda Trudell presented itself to me. Part of her backstory is that she's not from Key West herself - her family is from almost the opposite place, a town called Ishpeming in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (I grew up in Michigan so it creeps into a lot of my work; my previous book was set outside of Detroit). That is in part because I didn't think a native would underestimate a hurricane the way Madga does! Ishpeming is famous for a mine disaster and Trudell is a real name associated with miners from that incident.

For her first name, in the book it says that her artistic father named her for paintings of "Magdalena with a lamp," which is a classic motif of memento mori - usually, it's a woman sitting with a skull in the semidarkness. That imagery was meaningful to me for this book, in which a woman makes a suicidal choice out of obsession with her dead idol (the poet whose estate she refuses to abandon in a hurricane). I wanted a strong name for this character, who is very driven and focused throughout the book. The poet's name, Isobel, is much softer and more romantic.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

This one I think more so than the last. The book is very atmospheric and focuses a lot on the setting - it's almost gothic, actually, because it's this historic estate, a poet who killed herself 100 years ago, and a catastrophic storm. I had never been South as a child so I don't think I would have known then how much I would come to love the landscape and culture. But to be fair, the part where the main character is really stubborn and doesn't listen to anyone does still sound like me both then and now!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I always end up changing the beginning to make sure there's more action already happening when we start, so we're being dropped into something that's been going on for a long time. I usually start a book with an idea for the ending - this book I definitely did - and it doesn't usually change unless someone else makes me change it. But in terms of what is 'hardest' to write, that's definitely the middle for me. The beginning isn't difficult because I'm excited to start and I know I can fix it later, but there's usually a point where the story starts to feel like it's dragging and the bloom is off the rose for me as the author. I don't know if other authors struggle with this, but as a mystery writer since I do know the "solution" all along, it can feel like we're just playing for time before the big reveal. I try to mix it up at that point; switch locations, bring in new characters, pull a big plot twist - anything to keep it fresh! I love to write the ending I've been waiting for the whole time. That's truly a joy. I'm not allowed to skip ahead, I have to write the entire draft in order to earn that ending scene.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I thought it was funny that a few editors called Magda "chilly" or said she was unlikeable - I did not set out to write an unlikeable female character! I hope her passion, for history, for the house and gardens, and later for staying alive, allows us to relate to her even if she's not exactly a warm and fuzzy person. She's had a difficult past and is very focused on her work. I don't think that people would particularly describe me that way, but I can certainly be obsessive. I think writers in general tend to be, because we turn ideas over and over for years in our minds - or at least I do. And of course, Magda loves reading and words, which I do as well.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

In this case there was a very direct inspiration, which was when Hurricane Irma was forecast to hit Key West in September 2017. The caretakers of the Hemingway House announced that they would not be evacuating and would stay in the house throughout the storm. I was really struck by that and wondered what would cause someone to make that choice, because at the time it looked like the entire chain of islands might end up under water. That was really the inspiration of this book, and then I just started spinning my own imagination out for this character, this fictional estate, and everything that happened in the storm itself. I was very lucky to be able to visit the Hemingway house the year after Irma and talk to some of the folks who stayed. Of course, it was nothing at all like I had imagined! Real life so rarely is.

Visit Eliza Nellums's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bone Cay.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alexander Delacroix

Alexander Delacroix earned Masters degrees from Brigham Young University and Western Governors University. He has black belts in Shotokan karate and kobudo and is an avid foreign language learner. He has been an aspiring author since the 3rd grade. It was around this time that he discovered the joy of losing himself in a good novel, and his bookshelves have been overcrowded ever since.

Delacroix's new novel is Heart of the Impaler.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

This novel went through several titles before my editor, Emily, suggested Heart of the Impaler. The moment I saw it, I knew this was the perfect title. The word “heart” suggests romance, and that’s an important element of the novel. Put “heart” together with “impaler,” however, and you have something much darker.

What's in a name?

I didn’t get to choose Vlad Dracula’s name because he already came with it. History must have a sense for who a person will become because Dracula is a fitting name for a young man who eventually earned the epithet “impaler.” The Romanian word dracul can mean either “the dragon” or “the devil.” Vlad’s contemporaries certainly must have grasped the irony of that family name.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teen reader self would be both thrilled and surprised. I dreamed of becoming an author from the time I was in elementary school, and I was constantly reading novels and writing stories of my own. I was also trying to teach myself Romanian, and my teen self would have thought a novel set in 15th century Romania was pretty cool.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Both beginnings and endings are hard for me. Like a movie director, I have a vision of what I want in each novel, but getting that vision on paper is challenging. The beginnings are hard because I’m seeking a balance between the right amount of action and finding imagery that draws readers into the setting. Endings are hard because I want something both satisfying and natural. This said, I change beginnings more because they’re written earlier in the process and I have more time to stew over them.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

It’s hard not to put at least some of myself into my characters. I’m interpreting their behaviors not only through my imagination but also through the lens of past experiences. In Heart of the Impaler, I channeled my struggles as an introverted, self-conscious teenager into Andrei. Ilona got my perfectionism and anxiety while Vlad picked up a magnified version of the selfish tendencies that I think lurk inside all of us, waiting to seize control if we don’t keep a watchful eye on them.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My background as a martial artist has influenced the way I write fight scenes. It helps that I’ve handled a variety of weapons and know something about how the body moves and a weapon reacts. I also have past experience as a locksmith, and that was useful while writing some of the opening scenes for Heart of the Impaler. Movies have also affected my writing. I’m fascinated by how movie directors use lighting, visual cues, music, and silence to create tension and mood. Recently I’ve been fortunate enough to take a class on kinesics, the study of what different body movements and gestures communicate. I’ve already had opportunities to apply those principles to my current writing project.

Visit Alexander Delacroix's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lexie Elliott

Lexie Elliott grew up in Scotland, at the foot of the Highlands. In 1994 she began a Physics degree at University College, Oxford, where she obtained a first; she subsequently obtained a doctorate in Theoretical Physics, also from Oxford University. A keen sportwoman, she represented Oxford every one of her seven years there in either Swimming or Waterpolo, and usually both. Elliott works in fund management in London, where she lives with her husband and two sons. The rest of her time is spent writing, or thinking about writing, and juggling family life and sport.

Elliott's latest novel is How to Kill Your Best Friend.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

This particular title — How To Kill Your Best Friend — does a very good job of dragging the reader right into the crux of the matter! Immediately the reader must be wondering why anyone would want to do that? What must be lurking in the past of these friends for either of them to even contemplate murder? The novel is a psychological thriller, told through the eyes of Georgie and Bronwyn, who, together with Lissa, have been inseparable since dominating their college swim team. But Lissa, the strongest swimmer they know, has somehow drowned off the coast of the fabulous island resort she owned with her husband. As they gather with their closest friends on the island for Lissa’s funeral, with the weather turning ominous and threatening to trap them on the island, each of them find themselves questioning both the past and the present and whether there is anyone at all that they can trust.

What's in a name?

I think very hard about names: they really have to fit. When I’m beginning a novel I try names on each of my characters until I get one which feels right; the programmes of my sons’ swimming galas are often a rich source for potential names! Diminutive forms are especially important—for example, Georgie is known to all as Georgie, not Georgina. That immediately tells you that she’s not formal or precious. Lissa, on the other hand, is also a diminutive form—of Melissa—but an unusual, and very pretty, one; Mel would be a more obvious choice. That suggests that she cares about appearances and likes to be different. Where a character is sometimes called by their full name and sometimes by a shortened version, it’s always instructive to think carefully about which characters would use the shortened version, because even if readers don’t consciously notice the difference, they will intuitively understand that that implies a more familiar relationship.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Not terribly surprised, I think. As a teenager, I went through a phase of working through Agatha Christie’s novels and also M.M. Kaye’s Death in…series, so the fact that I’m writing in the psychological thriller genre wouldn’t surprise my teenage self at all. I would have to add, though, that I think it would be a surprise to my teenage self if I never wrote any novels in a different genre, and in fact I do have plenty of ideas for novels in other genres that I hope to someday put on the page.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I normally have a very good sense of the starting place and also of the destination, but I’m a little muddled on exactly how the characters will travel from one to the other. The start almost never changes from what I initially envisaged, but the end certainly can – and it should, if the original ending doesn’t fit with the arcs of the characters. I don’t think I’ve ever changed an ending after writing it, but I usually find that, when I get to that part, I need to take some time to work it all through in my head before committing to the page. That particular part of my creative process looks remarkably like drinking a lot of coffee while staring blankly into space!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

They pop up in my mind as whole, distinct people; they are certainly not a reflection of certain facets of myself or of people that I know. However, I recognise that, like every writer, I’m clearly influenced by my own experiences and by the people that I interact with, and that can’t help but have a bearing on the characters that present themselves to me. There are always certain characters that I particularly miss spending time with when I’ve finished writing a book and in that sense, I can see the appeal of writing a series: you get to pick up a new narrative, but in the company of an old friend.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

This particular novel has been influenced by my own past experiences with both competitive swimming and open water swimming (I swam competitively as a teenager and at university, and in 2007 I swam solo across the English Channel). That personal experience made it very easy for me to create the group dynamic for these particular friends, for whom swimming provides a reason to keep in touch even when living continents apart. Whatever I am experiencing in my life—be it with family, work or friends—also creeps in to what I write, albeit in less obvious ways, and sometimes I don’t even pick up on that until some time after I’ve finished the novel, when I’ve had a chance to take a breath and view it with a bit more perspective. One can set out with an intention of exploring certain themes, but find oneself rather more influenced by something else entirely—the uncertainty over quite what you’re going to end up with is both the joy and the terror of writing!

Visit Lexie Elliott's website.

The Page 69 Test: The French Girl.

My Book, The Movie: The French Girl.

The Page 69 Test: The Missing Years.

--Marshal Zeringue

Andrew Bourelle

Andrew Bourelle is the author of the novel Heavy Metal and coauthor with James Patterson of Texas Ranger and Texas Outlaw. His short stories have been published widely in literary magazines and fiction anthologies. He is an associate professor of English at the University of New Mexico.

Bourelle's new novel is 48 Hours to Kill.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I think the title 48 Hours to Kill pretty much says it all. It tells you what the protagonist plans to do and how much time he has to do it.

The book is about a prison inmate, Ethan Lockhart, being released for a 48-hour furlough to attend his sister’s funeral, and he decides to use that time to try to find her killer. Every chapter begins with a countdown, letting readers know exactly how much time Ethan has left.

As I was writing the book, I had a different working title in mind, but my agent, the amazing Amy Tannenbaum, suggested I come up with something that would signal to readers how the book is structured as a countdown. I thought 48 Hours to Kill was a nice play on words since “time to kill” usually suggests having spare time—the exact opposite of what Ethan has in the book. The publisher briefly toyed with the idea of changing the title but ended up sticking with 48 Hours to Kill. I’m glad Amy prompted me to come up with the title and I’m glad the publisher stuck with it because I think it tells readers exactly what kind of ride they’re in for.

What's in a name?

The book takes place in Northern Nevada, and there are plenty of real locations, like Lake Tahoe or the Black Rock Desert, but I also created several fictional settings. For these, I did think hard about the names. For example, in the prologue, Ethan and his sister and her friend Whitney go swimming next to a tall rock outcropping on the edge of Lake Tahoe where people like to cliff dive. In Lake Tahoe’s 72 miles of shoreline, there’s no cliff like this, although it certainly seems like something that could be there. I created the cliff for the book and called it Coffin Rock, describing it like an old pine casket standing upright over the water. I chose the name because it has an ominous feel to it. There is a real casket later in the book—and plenty of bodies pile up throughout the book.

Another example is the strip club owned by the gangster Ethan used to work for. In the first draft, I called the club Fantasy World, but that just didn’t have the right feel to it. I wanted something more noir and came up with Dark Secrets. To me, Dark Secrets sounds like it could be the real name for a strip club (for all I know, there might be one out there somewhere with that name) but it also suggests something more sinister. The whole book is about dark secrets.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

I think my teenage reader self would like the book. He’d look up from the Stephen King book he was reading, or the X-Men comic book, and say, “What took you so long?”

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I guess endings are harder. That’s the part I seem to rewrite the most. When it comes to revising the beginning, it’s a matter of tweaking the language and making sure the tone and feel fits with the rest of the book, the parts I’d written once I found my groove. But the endings can require more revision. When I finish a draft, of a story or novel, I sometimes realize that the ending I had in the back of my head all along isn’t the right one after all. So I have to do some extra work to find the ending that works the best.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Not really. I suppose there’s some kernel of my personality in Ethan Lockhart, the protagonist of 48 Hours to Kill. But I’m not nearly as tough or as cool or as … well … criminal as him. In all my life, I’ve never walked into a bathroom, punched a guy in the kidney as he urinated, shoved his head into the toilet, and demanded he give me the answers I was looking for. That’s a typical Saturday night for Ethan.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I used to live in Northern Nevada, and I always thought the area would make a great setting for a noir novel. The gambling and casinos, and the vast expanses of desert and mountains surrounding it. I loved living in Nevada, especially all the outdoor opportunities, but the writer in me couldn’t go camping out in the desert without imagining gangsters burying a body out there, or swimming in Lake Tahoe without imagining some kind of showdown out on a boat in the middle of the lake, where there’s no escape except miles of icy water in every direction. Setting tends to influence my writing, and that was especially the case with this book.

Visit Andrew Bourelle's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tessa Harris

Tessa Harris is the award-winning author of the Dr. Thomas Silkstone series and the Constance Piper Mystery series.

Her new novel is The Light We Left Behind.

My Q&A with the author

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

These days I work with my editor after she’s read the novel to come up with something appropriate. In my WW2 titles we’re going for a less direct approach. The Light We Left Behind was inspired by the fact that my protagonist, an English psychologist at a top-secret intelligence base, fears her lover might be dead and yearns to reignite the spark they had when they were working together against the Nazis in Munich. The working title was The Secret Listeners, because the book centres on a group of German Jewish emigres who are taping the conversations of captured German. These officers are incarcerated at a luxury prisoner of war camp, designed to relax them and get them to talk freely amongst each other. As far as I know, mine is the first novel to feature this building – Trent Park – because for many years it was classified as top secret, just like Bletchley Park. I’m hoping my book will shine a light on the important role it played in the Allied victory in 1945.

What's in a name?

My main character is Madeleine Gresham, although everyone knows her informally as Maddie. She is from an upper-class English family, and I wanted her name to reflect that. Normally, a young woman with her background would have ‘come out’ at court, i.e., she would have been a debutante and presented to the king and queen. Her path in life would then usually involve marriage to a suitable aristocratic man and children. Maddie, however, shuns this route. She goes to Oxford University and becomes a pioneering psychologist, playing an important part in the war effort.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Not in the least. I used to read an awful lot of classic literature, like novels by F Scott Fitzgerald and DH Lawrence. H.E. Bates was one of my favourite authors. Love for Lydia and Fair Stood the Wind for France were big influences at the time.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Before I start a novel, I like to have a beginning, a middle and an end planned out. Sometimes I write the final chapter directly after the first. That way I know what I’m aiming for. I change the first chapter more – perhaps a dozen times or so. With The Light We Left Behind I changed the ending twice. Originally, I brought the story into the 21st century, but on reflection, thought better of it.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Yes, there’s usually some aspect of myself that manifests itself in my main female characters. Although I’m certainly not a debutante, I did go to an English boarding school and know what it’s like to feel isolated and alone. Like Maddie, I also studied at Oxford. I wrote this novel during lockdown, so it was easier to put myself in the shoes of someone working in a claustrophobic atmosphere at a top-secret base – albeit in a stately home!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Places are tremendously important to me. They seriously affect my mood. I love dark, atmospheric woods, narrow alleyways, historic houses – anywhere with a hint of mystery. I always like to travel to the destinations I write about, although, sadly Trent Park, where my latest novel is set, is undergoing building work to turn it into a museum and has been closed to the public for more than two years.

Visit Tessa Harris's Facebook page and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: The Devil's Breath.

The Page 69 Test: The Lazarus Curse.

My Book, The Movie: The Sixth Victim.

The Page 69 Test: The Angel Makers.

My Book, The Movie: Beneath a Starless Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gail Schimmel

Gail Schimmel is an admitted attorney in South Africa, with four degrees to her name. She is currently the CEO of the Advertising Regulatory Board―the South African self-regulatory body for the content of advertising. She has published five novels in South Africa, with The Aftermath as her international debut. She lives in Johannesburg with her husband, two children, an ancient cat and two very naughty dogs.

Schimmel's new novel is Never Tell A Lie.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Never Tell A Lie is undoubtedly a book about lies, and the harm that can occur when you’re known to be a liar. I think it is great as a title in that it sets out one of the major themes of the story. But – it wasn’t my working title, it was chosen by the publisher. My title for the book was The Friendship, because for me this book (and really, most of my writing) is about the complexity of women’s friendships – how important they are, and how dangerous they are when they go bad. I suppose, in an ideal world, the title should be some sort of mash-up of the two ideas. But “Never Tell A Lie in Your Friendship” just isn’t that catchy...

What's in a name?

Names are such a thing for me! Firstly, I need the character to have a name that fits them. If I name them wrong, then they might not work. A lot of people have asked me about the name “Django” in this book – the main character’s son. People think I had some great symbolism in mind. Nope – that was just the name that character wanted, and he wasn’t interested in debating. My worst is when I have to change a name at edit stage (like if two main characters have a name starting with the same letter). I have also been known, in a first draft, to name 3 characters “Sue”, and to change a character from “Molly” to “Maggie” half way through.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Whenever I feel down and like I am not where I want to be, I ask myself what teenage Gail would think of what 47-year-old Gail has achieved. And, to be honest, teenage Gail would be thrilled! I think she would love this novel, although it is probably a bit less literary than she would have expected. Because teenagers are awfully serious, and grown-ups are not.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I love both beginnings and endings – it’s the middle that is a murky pile of confusion and angst!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

My main characters always have a little bit of me. I honestly believe that that is almost impossible to avoid, as hard as one might try. But none of them actually are me, and none of the other characters are ever completely based on anyone I know.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Relationships. My books are all about relationships, and the “what if” of life, and my inspiration often comes directly from a moment in my life or a conversation. Also, I seem to have an enormous amount of ideas in the bath or shower – so it seems that washing is a big inspiration for me!

Visit Gail Schimmel's website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Melissa Payne

Melissa Payne is the bestselling, award-winning author of The Secrets of Lost Stones and Memories in the Drift. For as long as she can remember, Payne has been telling stories in one form or another—from high school newspaper articles to a graduate thesis to blogging about marriage and motherhood. But she first learned the real importance of storytelling when she worked for a residential and day treatment center for abused and neglected children. There she wrote speeches and letters to raise funds for the children. The truth in those stories was piercing and painful and written to invoke a call to action in the reader: to give, to help, to make a difference. Payne’s love of writing and sharing stories in all forms has endured. She lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and three children, a friendly mutt, a very loud cat, and the occasional bear.

Payne's new novel is The Night of Many Endings.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I put the majority of my creative energy into creating, developing and writing the story. Finding the kind of title that hooks potential new readers and also accurately reflects the nuances of the story is an art form in and of itself. So I love working with a team when brainstorming a new title.

In my new book, The Night of Many Endings, the story centers around five characters and how a night stuck in a library changes them in one way or another. It’s about perceptions and stereotypes and how we can never really know someone until we learn their story. While in many ways this story is about new beginnings, it’s also about letting go of the past and allowing others in and to do that sometimes we must let our story end in order for a new one to begin.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self wouldn’t be completely surprised that I wrote a book, after all, I read every chance I got and even attempted writing a novel of my own in high school. It was dreadful, by the way, a wanna-be romance heavy on the descriptive phrases and light on substance. However, I’ve always loved stories that are rich in characters, stories that give readers a glimpse into a character’s imperfect world, stories that teach me something new and let me see the world in a different way. So in this sense, I don’t think my teenage self would be surprised that I choose to write character-driven fiction, or that I love to make the setting (mountains, small town, snow storm) as much of a character as the people. I think my teenage would be happy I found a use for all those descriptive phrases.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I usually always know my ending before I start writing, but in The Night of Many Endings, I struggled to get the ending just right. Hmm, perhaps that’s why this title works so well.

I’m used to rewriting my opening pages, usually because I’m just getting to know the characters and the opening pages need to be tweaked to show the depth they developed as my writing progressed.

In this book, I also had to rewrite the ending a few times to get Nora’s just right. I knew she struggled with her brother’s addiction, that she carried her guilt like an albatross around her neck, determined to find him, to fix him, to keep him sober. What I hadn’t yet learned about Nora was how she would overcome a change in direction, a new purpose for herself if it didn’t contain her brother. Getting Nora’s ending just right took me a few attempts because I think it was hard for me to understand how she would let go and what it meant for her character. But I’m very happy with Nora’s ending now and I think she is too.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Most of my characters are pieces of people I’ve observed or known. But as I don’t want to read only about people like me, I also don’t want to write only about people I know.

I love the challenge of developing a character, understanding their backgrounds, their experiences, their perceptions of the world that brought them to page one. In The Night of Many Endings, I had a character who I didn’t always like, or agree with and I definitely didn’t care for some of her thoughts or the way she spoke to other characters. My challenge with her was to understand why she thought or said the things she did. Once I understood her motivations, then I could see how the night with strangers would challenge her worldview and in turn, influence her own shift.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Where I live, snow is a major part of our lives. So developing the storm that strands five strangers in a library in The Night of Many Endings wasn’t too difficult as I’ve lived through a similar blizzard.

In that one, seven feet of powder fell onto our small town. We lost power and had no water, except what we could melt from snow, with only an old weather radio to listen for updates on the storm. When the storm ended, we couldn’t locate our cars. After digging for several hours, I finally found the windshield of one of them. The amount of snow was staggering. We were stranded at our home for seven days before we were able to track down a front-end loader to help dig us out.

The experience of that storm heavily influenced my writing in this book, and especially helped me to describe the cold and dark since those memories persist to this day.

Visit Melissa Payne's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Melissa Payne & Max.

My Book, The Movie: The Secrets of Lost Stones.

The Page 69 Test: The Secrets of Lost Stones.

--Marshal Zeringue

Joy Castro

Joy Castro is the award-winning author of the post-Katrina New Orleans literary thrillers Hell or High Water, which received the Nebraska Book Award, and Nearer Home, and the story collection How Winter Began, as well as the memoir The Truth Book and the essay collection Island of Bones, which received the International Latino Book Award. She is also editor of the anthology Family Trouble and served as the guest judge of CRAFT‘s first Creative Nonfiction Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Senses of Cinema, Salon, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, Brevity, Afro-Hispanic Review, and elsewhere. A former Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University, she is currently the Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Castro's new novel is Flight Risk.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

A good deal, I think. Flight Risk implies someone on the verge of leaving, someone a bit unstable, someone unsatisfied with current conditions, someone who cannot be predicted, who cannot be controlled by the promise of what's on offer--and Isabel Morales, my heroine, is all these things. Flight Risk also connotes someone valuable--someone that a company, for example, wishes to retain, but may not be able to. (Will their counteroffer be sufficient?) In Isabel's case, this has everything to do with the life she's currently living and the wealthy husband who doesn't want to lose her--but who knows very little about her past.

What's in a name?

Isabel's surname, Morales, suggests not only her Latinx heritage but also the idea of morals, ethics, choices between good and evil, and these choices have plagued her whole life. She questions her own morals and those of others.

The name of her old-money Chicago husband, Jon Turner, suggests a certain WASPish American solidity--but a "turner" he indeed is. He's willing to change--and the stability he exudes might not tell his whole story.

Nic Folio, a dashing character Isabel re-meets in the latter half of the book (after not having seen him for decades), is also meaningfully named. His name pegs him as Italian American, like many of the mining families in West Virginia are, but Folio, as any scholar of Shakespeare can attest, is also an important term in book history and print culture, and Nic Folio certainly poses a reading challenge to Isabel. Is he who he seems to be? Like a Jane Austen heroine faced with a suitor who seems too good to be true, Isabel needs to read him accurately to control her own fate.

Even the name of the little diner Isabel repeatedly visits, The Cracked Egg, in the rural West Virginia town to which she returns, is meaningfully named, given the book's exploration of fertility choices in an era of climate crisis.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Endings! Much harder. Unless they come to me as a gift--which happens occasionally but was most definitely not the case with Flight Risk--then I draft and redraft them a dozen times at least. I want to bring all the threads in the novel to satisfying closure without its feeling too tidy. I like it when endings snap into place, but not too neatly. Believably, but not predictably. I love a good happy ending, too, but it has to be a happy ending that's really been earned, and sometimes happy endings don't work at all for the material. They ring false. So you really have to honor all the arcs the story has set up.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Yes, a bit. What I do is select particular strains of my own character and then amplify them. For example, Isabel has had some of my experiences but has made different choices, and she's very creative, but she's a visual artist--a sculptor--rather than a writer. She feels lonely and lost and fragile, as I sometimes do.

Her husband Jon has my earnest do-gooder qualities along with my easily hurt pride and aloofness--my tendency to withdraw when I am hurt and go off to lick my wounds alone--while her sister-in-law Sophia embodies all my playful flightiness and whatever elegance I might possess. I poured my self-pitying bitterness and resentment into Aunt Della--thank goodness readers don't have to spend much time with her--and Isabel's mother-in-law Helene is a status-conscious elitist with a suspicion of the poor, an attitude of which I've sometimes been on the receiving end, so I know its sting.

I think we all contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman famously wrote, so I just draw on the various qualities I observe in myself and others, whittle them down to their essence, and then push them to extremes, so the characters become sharply defined and thus memorable and vivid without feeling like caricatures.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I watch a lot of film and actually write a little film criticism on the side, so I think my writing might be influenced by various cinematic styles, like film noir, for example, of which I'm a great fan. I often see and hear the scenes of my books in my mind very vividly and then write them down, as if I were simply transcribing what I'm watching. Pop music has influenced me over the years, especially that of singer-songwriters who use a lot of storytelling in their work, like Natalie Merchant, Dar Williams, Billy Bragg, and Peter Mulvey. I love the way they can cover so much ground very intensely within just a few minutes.

Visit Joy Castro’s website and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Hell or High Water.

The Page 69 Test: Nearer Home.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cat Rambo

Photo Credit: On Focus Photography

Cat Rambo (they/them) is an American fantasy and science fiction writer whose work has appeared in, among others, Asimov's, Weird Tales, Chiaroscuro, Talebones, and Strange Horizons. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, where they studied with John Barth and Steve Dixon, they also attended the Clarion West Writers' Workshop. Their most recent works include And The Last Trump Shall Sound (co-written with James Morrow and Harry Turtledove), the fantasy novel Exiles of Tabat, and the space opera You Sexy Thing. They live, write, and teach somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. “Cat Rambo” is their real name.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The title first emerged as what we call a “working title,” a placeholder. It’s the name of the ship the crew steals, an intelligent ship that isn’t sure it wants to be stolen. But over the course of time, it became the title in my head. Tor marketing, my editor, and I went back and forth about that a bit -- they’d propose something that I wouldn’t like, and I’d send back my suggestions, like Ancillary Restaurant and Food Cart at the End of the Universe, neither of which flew for some reason. Finally they just told me Marketing had decided to “lean into it.” I’m still unsure what that means, but for me, it does convey the fast and funny flavor of the book.

What's in a name?

Character names (and place and technology and all names, really) for me are often fluid while I’m writing, placeholders that may end up changing radically over the course of time. And I would have thought that would hold true in this book as well, but instead they each wandered onstage as I pantsed my way along, and each came with a name that didn’t change when it came time for rewriting and polishing. The only names that did change were the two were-lion twins, who were originally Biff and Baff, and the change wasn’t my idea but my agent’s.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teenage reader self loved novels with casts of characters voyaging into strange new worlds, so I’m pretty sure they’d be delighted and maybe even a little smug, rather than surprised. I’ve always said that I would be a writer, since the age of 12 or so, and while I don’t know that they could have predicted the long and sometimes weird, sideways journey that it’s taken to get there, I know they always had it in their head that it would happen. I went back to the town I grew up in a few years ago, and a friend said, “You did what you always said you would,” and that was surprisingly satisfying.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I find endings much harder, but I change the beginnings a lot more. When I first start writing, I have no idea where I’m going, as a rule, and so I’m just along for the ride, flailing around until I finally hit my stride. Then I can work steadily until it’s time for the ending, and that’s something that requires holding a lot in your head in order to deliver on all the promises that you made along the way. When I first sat down to write this book, I found myself with two people arguing about an eggplant. After the first chapter or so I had a very rough idea where I was going, and that path became clearer as I kept writing. But that beginning I sat down to write didn't end up being the first chapter; instead I led with what I thought was a much grabbier piece.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

It’s hard to write a character that doesn’t mirror yourself to a certain extent, because you are writing your own experiences, and it takes empathy and imagination to get past that. I think each character definitely represents some characteristic I recognize in myself - Niko is just trying to take care of people and do the best she can; Skidoo is full of love, sometimes to the point of naivete; Atlanta is trying to figure out where she fits in the universe; Gio is wryly cynical, sometimes too much so. Walt Whitman said “I contain multitudes,” and I think that’s true for every writer.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Volunteer work, which has been a lifelong value, has shaped so much of what I think and know about people and human nature. Most recently I’ve been working with SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in 2015-2019 as a board member and more recently as a volunteer with several of its programs. I think a willingness to say, “Well, someone’s got to do this work, I might as well,” is a force that keeps the world moving along in an upward direction, perhaps more so than writing, though one could argue that either way, I suppose.

Visit Cat Rambo's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lori Rader-Day

Lori Rader-Day is the Edgar Award-nominated and Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of The Black Hour, Little Pretty Things, The Day I Died, Under a Dark Sky, and The Lucky One.

Her new novel, Death at Greenway, is based on the true events of a group of children evacuated out of the Blitz during World War II—to Agatha Christie's holiday estate, Greenway House.

My Q&A with Rader-Day:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

So much work! I had a slightly different title for it, but my publisher suggested this one because it was shorter. It also sounds like an Agatha Christie novel, doesn’t it? It’s not, but because Death at Greenway is set at Agatha Christie’s house and features cameos from the author, it makes sense to strike that tone. The word Greenway absolutely had to be in the title; that was advice given to me by Sophie Hannah, who writes the Poirot continuation novels for the Christie estate.

What's in a name?

There are two Bridget Kellys in Death at Greenway. When the second Bridget arrives on the scene, the first Bridget and our protagonist allows the group at Greenway to call her Bridey, as her mother and siblings had, But then that other Bridget claims “Gigi” as her nickname and Bridey is stuck being called a baby name, and one that reminds her only of loss.

Why two Bridgets? Well, our favorite author Agatha Christie appreciated a little identity swapping in her stories, and so do I. Twins or doubling is a Gothic literature staple, though the idea of there being two Bridgets didn’t come from any real concept. The story was born with Agatha Christie’s reference in her autobiography to “two hospital nurses” chaperoning the Greenway evacuees. That facelessness gave me a chance to wedge fiction into the story, but it also inspired the fictional household’s inevitable comparison between the two, though they are so very different, and Bridey’s beliefs that, in comparison to Gigi, she pales in every measure.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I love writing beginnings but because I discover as I go along instead of setting the course ahead of time with an outline, I often have to go back to add, delete, or change the beginnings. I also work hard on endings, so they get quite a few revisions before I’m satisfied. Don’t even ask about the middle. That’s a disaster.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

My characters usually have some little piece of me in them, even the villains because of course villains are the heroes in their own stories and it helps to have a kernel of understanding of them.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Death at Greenway was inspired by nonfiction (but found in a literary way, in a book). But I spent a great deal of time on research outside the literary: in historical records, in World War II photos, in 1940s advertisements, and in music of the era. Music was especially helpful to set the mood as I wrote. I always keep a playlist for my novel-in-progress and then share it out afterward. Greenway’s playlist had a lot of Vera Lynn, the angelic voice of World War II, but also a few more contemporary tunes that I thought helped me with theme and tone.

The other best inspiration I had was Doreen Vautour, the woman who was once one of the Greenway ’vacs. Her memories, relayed to the National Trust and shared through the BBC years ago, led me to connecting with her and getting to know her. We just celebrated her 83rd birthday, and she spent at least part of it re-reading Death at Greenway—this time leisurely since she’d already read it for whodunnit!

Visit Lori Rader-Day's website.

--Marshal Zeringue