Robert Lloyd recently appeared for The Poisoned Pen to talk about the sequel to last year’s historical thriller, The Bloodless Boy. Andrew Child acted as guest host as they discussed The Poison Machine. Both books are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3D86nd7
Here’s the summary of The Poison Machine.
“Lloyd once again infuses his world with the sights, sounds, and smells of the late 17th century…for what’s bound to be one of the best historical novels of the year.” — CrimeReads
In a thrilling sequel to The Bloodless Boy —a New York Times Best New Historical Novel of 2021 — combining the color and adventure of Alexandre Dumas and the thrills of Frederick Forsyth — early scientists Harry Hunt and Robert Hooke of the Royal Society stumble on a plot to kill the Queen of England . . .
London, 1679 — A year has passed since the sensational attempt to murder King Charles II, but London is still a viper’s nest of rumored Catholic conspiracies, and of plots against them in turn. When Harry Hunt — estranged from his mentor Robert Hooke — is summoned to the remote and windswept marshes of Norfolk, he is at first relieved to get away from the place.
But in Norfolk, he finds that some Royal workers shoring up a riverbank have made a grim discovery — the skeleton of a dwarf. Harry is able to confirm that the skeleton is that of Captain Jeffrey Hudson, a prominent member of the court once famously given to the Queen in a pie. Except no one knew Hudson was dead, because another man had been impersonating him.
The hunt for the impersonator, clearly working as a spy, will take Harry to Paris, another city bedeviled by conspiracies and intrigues, and back, with encounters along the way with a flying man and a cross-dressing swordswoman — and to the uncovering of a plot to kill the Queen and all the Catholic members of her court. But where? When?
The Poison Machine is a nail-biting and brilliantly imagined historical thriller that will delight readers of its critically acclaimed predecessor, The Bloodless Boy.
Robert Lloyd, the son of parents who worked in the British Foreign Office, grew up in South London, Innsbruck, and Kinshasa. He studied for a Fine Art degree, starting as a landscape painter, but it was while studying for his MA degree in The History of Ideas that he first read Robert Hooke’s diary, detailing the life and experiments of this extraordinary man. After a 20-year career as a secondary school teacher, he has now returned to painting and writing. He is the author of The Bloodless Boy, which was selected by Publishers Weekly as a Mystery Book of the Year and The New York Times as a Best New Historical Novel of 2021.
Andrew Child jumps right into the interview. Enjoy the conversation with Robert Lloyd.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Andrew Child for the launch of the twenty-seventh Jack Reacher book, No Plan B. It’s the third Jack Reacher book Andrew has written with his brother, Lee Child. Signed copies of No Plan B are available in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3TQmjr6
Here’s the summary of No Plan B.
The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child
“No Plan B is not to be missed. A perfectly plotted, fast-paced thriller, with bigger twists than ever before. It’s no wonder Jack Reacher is everyone’s favorite rebel hero.”—Karin Slaughter
In Gerrardsville, Colorado, a woman dies under the wheels of a moving bus. The death is ruled a suicide. But Jack Reacher saw what really happened: A man in a gray hoodie and jeans, moving stealthily, pushed the victim to her demise—before swiftly grabbing the dead woman’s purse and strolling away.
When another homicide is ruled an accident, Reacher knows this is no coincidence. With a killer on the loose, Reacher has no time to waste to track down those responsible.
But Reacher is unaware that these crimes are part of something much larger and more far-reaching: an arsonist out for revenge, a foster kid on the run, a cabal of powerful people involved in a secret conspiracy with many moving parts. There is no room for error, but they make a grave one. They don’t consider Reacher a threat. “There’s too much at stake to start running from shadows.” But Reacher isn’t a shadow. He is flesh and blood. And relentless when it comes to making things right.
For when the threat is Reacher, there is No Plan B.
Lee Child is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher series and the complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in New York City and Wyoming.
Andrew Child, who also writes as Andrew Grant, is the author of RUN, False Positive, False Friend, False Witness, Invisible, and Too Close to Home. He is the #1 bestselling co-author of the Jack Reacher novels The Sentinel and Better Off Dead. Child and his wife, the novelist Tasha Alexander, live on a wildlife preserve in Wyoming.
Enjoy the conversation as Andrew Child talks about the Jack Reacher books, and how he started working with his brother.
John Charles recently welcomed three mystery authors, all published by Crooked Lane Books, to The Poisoned Pen for a virtual Halloween event. He mentioned that they have the current books and backlist for Raquel Reyes, Gretchen Rue, and Marilyn Levinson, who writes as Allison Brook. You can find their books in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s Raquel V. Reyes’ latest book, Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking.
Fall festivities are underway in Coral Shores, Miami. Cuban-American cooking show star Miriam Quiñones-Smith wakes up to find a corpse in her front yard. The body by the fake tombstone is the woman that was kicked out of the school’s Fall Festival the day before.
Miriam’s luck does not improve. Her passive-aggressive mother-in-law puts her in charge of the Women’s Club annual gala. But this year, it’s not canapes and waltzes. Miriam and her girlfriends-squad opt for fun and flavor. They want to spice it up with Caribbean food trucks and a calypso band. While making plans at the country club, they hear a volatile argument between the new head chef and the club’s manager. Not long after, the chef swan dives to his death at the bottom of the grand staircase.
Was it an accident? Or was it Beverly, the sous chef, who is furious after being passed over for the job? Or maybe it was his ex-girlfriend, Anastasia?
Add two possible poisonings to the mix and Miriam is worried the food truck fun is going to be a major crash. As the clock ticks down and the body count goes up, Miriam’s life is put in jeopardy. Will she connect the dots or die in the deep freeze? Foodies and mystery lovers alike will savor the denouement as the truth is laid bare in this simmering stew of rage, retribution, and murder.
Raquel V. Reyes writes Latina protagonists. Her Cuban-American heritage, Miami, and Spanglish feature prominently in her work. Mango, Mambo, and Murder, the first in the Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series, won a LEFTY for Best Humorous Mystery. It was nominated for an Agatha Award and optioned for film. Raquel’s short stories appear in various anthologies, including The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. Find her across social media platforms as @LatinaSleuths and on her website LatinaSleuths.com
Gretchen Rue’s latest book is Steeped to Death.
For fans of Laura Childs and Amanda Flowers, it’s teatime in Raven Creek—but a murder at the The Earl’s Study sets the stage for an intoxicating brew of small-town chicanery with a hint of the supernatural.
Phoebe Winchester’s beloved aunt Eudora has a taste for adventure—and a knack for making magical tea. It’s even rumored that she just might be a witch. So when Eudora passes away and leaves everything to her niece—her Victorian mansion, her bookshop/tea store, The Earl’s Study, and one very chubby orange cat named Bob—Phoebe gets more than she bargained for. And she knows she’s in deep when a dead man is found on the shop’s back step, apparently killed while trying to break in.
Two suspects immediately emerge among the townspeople of Raven Creek, Washington. There’s village busybody Dierdre Miller, who seems desperate to buy Eudora’s house, and handsome PI Rich, one of Phoebe’s childhood friends—but how well does she really know him after all these years apart?
Phoebe knows she should leave it to the professionals, but as she starts to dig into the underbelly of Raven Creek, she begins to uncover the truth about Eudora. What’s more, her aunt might not have been the only witch in the family, as Phoebe soon discovers she has unique and unexpected gifts of her own.
Now, it’s just a matter of putting her newfound power to the test and cast a spell that could catch a killer.
Gretchen Rue lives in the Canadian prairies, which affords her ample time to read during six months of winter. She plays cat mom to four mostly indifferent fur children, and plant mom to roughly 100 very demanding flora. When she isn’t sipping tea and working on her next novel, she enjoys swimming, hiking, and watching baseball.
Allison Brook’s latest book is Dewey Decimated.
Librarian Carrie Singleton is back on the case, alongside library ghost Evelyn, in the sixth installment of Agatha Award nominee Allison Brook’s Haunted Library mysteries.
Carrie Singleton is just off a hot string of murder cases centered around the spooky local library in Clover Ridge, Connecticut. She could really use a break—but no such luck, as she; Smoky Joe, the resident cat; and Evelyn, the library’s ghost, are drawn into another tantalizing whodunit.
Meanwhile, the town council, of which Carrie is also a member, is embroiled in a hot-headed debate over the fate of the Seabrook Preserve, a lovely and valuable piece of property that runs along Long Island Sound. Turn it into an upscale park? Sell it to a condo developer? Or keep it as protected land?
As the dispute rages, there’s another murder, this time involving a council member. Could the two murders be connected? And could Carrie be next on the hit list?
A former Spanish teacher, Allison Brook writes mysteries, romantic suspense, and novels for young readers. She loves traveling, reading, knitting, doing Sudoku, and visiting with her grandchildren, Olivia and Jack, on FaceTime. She lives on Long Island with Sammy, her feisty red cat.
Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen recently “lurked” in the background for the recent conversation between authors Toni Anderson and Rachel Grant. Toni Anderson’s latest book is Cold Silence, and Rachel Grant’s is Into the Storm. Copies of their books are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here is the description of Cold Silence.
FBI Hostage Rescue Team member Shane Livingstone is frustrated when an injury sidelines him during an operation to catch a sadistic killer. A killer who auctions off vicious ways to torture his victims and screens the events for money on the dark web. When a teammate dies during the op, a devastated Shane vows to track down the monster responsible—but to do so he’ll need access to specialized skills he doesn’t possess.
A bloody game of cat and mouse…
As a white-hat hacker at Alex Parker’s security firm, Yael Brooks knows how to track predators through the darkest recesses of cyberspace. She can’t say no to Shane’s request…even though she fears her own secrets may put her at risk.
With a serial killer who makes it personal…
Shane and Yael must work together as a team if they hope to stop this psychopath. As they begin to grow closer, Shane demands Yael’s complete trust, but trust is the one thing Yael is reluctant to give. As the chase intensifies and more people die, it becomes obvious that the killer knows exactly who Yael is and plans to make both her and Shane pay the ultimate price for getting in his way.
Here’s the summary of Into the Storm.
As a storm rolls in, a team of elite Navy SEALs arrives at a remote lodge for a wilderness training exercise that becomes terrifyingly real…
Xavier Rivera planned the exercise down to the smallest detail, but he didn’t plan the arrival of archaeologist Audrey Kendrick-a woman he shared a passionate night with before betraying her in the worst way.
As the storm is unleashed on the historic lodge it becomes clear the training has been compromised. Trapped by weather, isolated by the remote wilderness, and silenced as communication with the world has been severed, unarmed SEALs face an unexpected and deadly foe.
Audrey and Xavier must set aside their distrust and desire and work together to save a team under fire and survive in a battle against the wild.
Enjoy the conversation between the two authors, Rachel Grant and Toni Anderson.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently hosted Karen Odden, author of Under a Veiled Moon. Signed copies of Odden’s second Inspector Corravan are available through through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3VL71pw
Here is the description of Under a Veiled Moon.
In the tradition of C. S. Harris and Anne Perry, a fatal disaster on the Thames and a roiling political conflict set the stage for Karen Odden’s second Inspector Corravan historical mystery.
September 1878. One night, as the pleasure boat the Princess Alice makes her daily trip up the Thames, she collides with the Bywell Castle, a huge iron-hulled collier. The Princess Alice shears apart, throwing all 600 passengers into the river; only 130 survive. It is the worst maritime disaster London has ever seen, and early clues point to sabotage by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who believe violence is the path to restoring Irish Home Rule.
For Scotland Yard Inspector Michael Corravan, born in Ireland and adopted by the Irish Doyle family, the case presents a challenge. Accused by the Home Office of willfully disregarding the obvious conclusion, and berated by his Irish friends for bowing to prejudice, Corravan doggedly pursues the truth, knowing that if the Princess Alice disaster is pinned on the IRB, hopes for Home Rule could be dashed forever.
Corrovan’s dilemma is compounded by Colin, the youngest Doyle, who has joined James McCabe’s Irish gang. As violence in Whitechapel rises, Corravan strikes a deal with McCabe to get Colin out of harm’s way. But unbeknownst to Corravan, Colin bears longstanding resentments against his adopted brother and scorns his help.
As the newspapers link the IRB to further accidents, London threatens to devolve into terror and chaos. With the help of his young colleague, the loyal Mr. Stiles, and his friend Belinda Gale, Corravan uncovers the harrowing truth—one that will shake his faith in his countrymen, the law, and himself.
Karen Odden earned her Ph.D. in English from New York University and subsequently taught literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has contributed essays to numerous books and journals, written introductions for Victorian novels in the Barnes & Noble classics series, and edited for the journal Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge UP). Her previous novels, also set in 1870s London, have won awards for historical fiction and mystery. A member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime and the recipient of a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Karen lives in Arizona with her family and her rescue beagle Rosy.
Australian author Sulari Gentill is the current author in residence at The Poisoned Pen. As part of her residency, she talked about her current book, The Woman in the Library. She will be hosting several crime workshops, and hosting Tasha Alexander’s author appearance. Gentill’s The Woman in the Library, available through the Web Store, https://bit.ly/3F3na3U, is also the Hot Book of the Week for the bookstore.
Here’s the summary of The Woman in the Library.
USA TODAY BESTSELLER
“Investigations are launched, fingers are pointed, potentially dangerous liaisons unfold and I was turning those pages like there was cake at the finish line.” —Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times must-read books for summer 2022
Ned Kelly award winning author Sulari Gentill sets this mystery-within-a-mystery in motion with a deceptively simple, Dear Hannah, What are you writing? pulling us into theornate reading room at the Boston Public Library.
In every person’s story, there is something to hide…
The tranquility is shattered by a woman’s terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who’d happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.
Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.
After setting out to study astrophysics, graduating in law and then abandoning her legal career to write books, SULARI GENTILL now grows French black truffles on her farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of Australia.
Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair mysteries have won and/or been shortlisted for the Davitt Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and her stand-alone metafiction thriller, After She Wrote Him won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel in 2018. Her tenth Sinclair novel, A Testament of Character, was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Best Crime Novel in 2021.
Sulari Gentill is delightful to listen to. I hope you enjoy the conversation with Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore.
Jason Rekulak, author of Hidden Pictures, was guest host, welcoming Andy Davidson to The Poisoned Pen. Davidson’s horror novel is called The Hollow Kind. Copies of books by both authors are available in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/ There are signed copies of The Hollow Kind available here. https://bit.ly/3CObCP2
Here is the description of The Hollow Kind.
“The Hollow Kind seeps into your subconscious and waits for you in your nightmares.”—S. A. Cosby, bestselling author of Razorblade Tears Andy Davidson’s epic horror novel about the spectacular decline of the Redfern family, haunted by an ancient evil.
Nellie Gardner is looking for a way out of an abusive marriage when she learns that her long-lost grandfather, August Redfern, has willed her his turpentine estate.
It turns out that the “estate” is a decrepit farmhouse on a thousand acres of old pine forest, but Nellie is so thrilled about the chance for a fresh start for her and her son, that she doesn’t notice that there’s something wrong with Redfern Hill. Something lurks beneath the soil, ancient and hungry, with the power to corrupt hearts and destroy souls.
From the author of The Boatman’s Daughter, The Hollow Kind is a jaw-dropping novel about legacy and the horrors that hide in the dark corners of family history. Andy Davidson’s gorgeous, Gothic fable tracing the spectacular fall of the Redfern family will haunt you long after you turn the final page.
Andy Davidson is the Bram Stoker Award nominated author of In the Valley of the Sun and The Boatman’s Daughter, which was listed among NPR’s Best Books of 2020, the New York Public Library’s Best Adult Books of the Year, and Library Journal‘s Best Horror of 2020. Born and raised in Arkansas, he makes his home in Georgia with his wife and a bunch of cats.
Enjoy a conversation about Halloween, horror, and Andy Davidson’s The Hollow Kind.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, mentioned that Robert Ludlum has been dead for twenty-one years. Since Simon Gervais is the author of a new off-shoot of Ludlum’s books, Peters invited Brian Freeman to be guest host for the interview with Gervais. Freeman is the author of Ludlum’s Bourne books. And, Gervais, a French Canadian, is the author of Robert Ludlum’sThe Blackbriar Genesis. You can find books by both authors in the Web Store, https://store.poisonedpen.com/, and Gervais’ new book here. https://bit.ly/3EUXxlv
Here’s the summary of Robert Ludlum’s The Blackbriar Genesis.
The assassination of a Treadstone agent leads two Blackbriar operatives down a rabbit hole of deceit and betrayal in this explosive new series from the world of Robert Ludlum.
A car explodes along a quiet Prague side street—among the dead is an undercover Treadstone agent. It’s not unusual for such men to meet their fates on an operation, but in this case there’s one catch. None of his superiors know what he was doing there.
Two Blackbriar operatives, Helen Jouvert and Donovan Wade, are sent to investigate. Their search for answers will take them deeper into the world of conspiracy and fake news than they ever expected.
Treadstone and Blackbriar may be two sides of the same coin, intelligence and counterintelligence, but they have one thing in common, answers can be the deadliest commodity of all.
Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of the Jason Bourne series—The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum—among other novels. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001.
Simon Gervais and Brian Freeman enjoy talking about the Robert Ludlum universe and their books. I hope you enjoy it as well.
Although PJ Vernon, author of Bath Haus, was guest host for Lev AC Rosen’s appearance at The Poisoned Pen, Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, talked about San Francisco in the 1950s. She mentioned that Rosen’s first historical crime novel, Lavender House, is an Agatha Christie-type country house mystery. You can find copies of books by both authors in the Web Store, https://store.poisonedpen.com/, and signed copies of Lavender House here. https://bit.ly/3MO8A1R
Here’s the description of Lavender House.
A delicious story from a new voice in suspense, Lev AC Rosen’s Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist.
Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene’s recipes for her signature scents are a well guarded secret—but it’s not the only one behind these gates. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide who they are. But to keep their secret, they’ve needed to keep others out. And now they’re worried they’re keeping a murderer in.
Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired from the San Francisco police after being caught in a raid on a gay bar, is happy to accept—his calendar is wide open. And his secret is the kind of secret the Lamontaines understand.
Andy had never imagined a world like Lavender House. He’s seduced by the safety and freedom found behind its gates, where a queer family lives honestly and openly. But that honesty doesn’t extend to everything, and he quickly finds himself a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy—and Irene’s death is only the beginning.
When your existence is a crime, everything you do is criminal, and the gates of Lavender House can’t lock out the real world forever. Running a soap empire can be a dirty business.
LEV AC ROSEN writes books for people of all ages, including Camp, which was a best book of the year from Forbes, Elle, and The Today Show, among others, and is a Lambda finalist and ALA Rainbow List Top Ten. He lives in NYC with his husband and a very small cat. You can find him online at his website and on social media.
Rita Zoey Chin’s first novel is The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern, although she’s also the author of a memoir. You can find Chin’s novel in the Web Store, https://bit.ly/3D3GVGP
Here’s the description of The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern.
“The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern is a bittersweet and achingly tender coming of age novel. Like V. E. Schwab and Audrey Niffenegger, Rita Zoey Chin is an expert guide to that territory in which magic, loss, and possibility change not only the characters but the reader, too.” – Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
The luminous story of a fiercely lonely young woman’s quest to uncover the truth behind her mother’s disappearance . . .
When 6-year-old empath Leah Fern—once “The Youngest and Very Best Fortune Teller in the World”—is abandoned by her beautiful magician mother, she is consumed with longing for her mother’s return.
Until something bizarre happens: On her 21st birthday Leah receives an inheritance from someone she doesn’t even know, and finds herself launched on a journey of magical discovery. It’s a voyage that will spiral across the United States, Canada, into the Arctic Circle and beyond—and help her make her own life whole by piecing together the mystery surrounding her mother’s disappearance.
The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern is an enchanting novel about the transcendent power of the imagination, the magic at the threshold of past and present, and the will it takes to love.
Heres Chin’s short biography before the interview.
Rita Zoey Chin is the author of the widely praised memoir, Let the Tornado Come. She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland and is the recipient of a Katherine Anne Porter Prize, an Academy of American Poets Award, and a Bread Loaf scholarship. She has taught at Towson University and at Grub Street in Boston. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Tin House, and Marie Claire. This is her first novel.
Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, recently interviewed Rita Zoey Chin for Bookreporter.com. The interview is reprinted here, with Barson’s permission. You can find further information at https://bit.ly/3gcDlRR.
Interview: October 13, 2022
THE STRANGE INHERITANCE OF LEAH FERN, Rita Zoey Chin‘s debut novel, is a luminous coming-of-age story about a fiercely lonely young woman’s quest to uncover the truth behind her mother’s disappearance. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Chin talks about the differences between writing this book and her memoir, LET THE TORNADO COME IN; the aspects of the story that she couldn’t grasp at first and how she finally got a handle on them; the one piece of advice she would give to aspiring novelists; and what readers can expect from her second novel.
Question: You’ve written a memoir and a number of acclaimed short stories, but THE STRANGE INHERITANCE OF LEAH FERN is your first novel. In what ways did you have to retool your skill set to approach this ambitious story?
Rita Zoey Chin: From a literary perspective, my considerations while writing my memoir and novel were actually quite similar, because both books are narrative-driven, and I tend to think cinematically when I write. I gave a lot of thought to building the narrative arc, as well as imagery (I’m always thinking about imagery), character development and voice.
But the experience of writing these books was vastly different. With my memoir, I wove a braided narrative extracted from decades of life events. That required distance from my life, an objective engagement with some of the profound things that have happened to me. Writing my novel, on the other hand, was kind of the inverse of that. While my memoir was a process of paring down, I had to build everything up from scratch in my novel. I was already starting at a distance, and so much of the writing involved getting quiet so that I could get closer and observe my characters in their natural habitats, sort of how you gingerly move toward a deer to catch its eye before it bounds off into the woods.
Q: “A work of literary excellence… Deeply philosophical yet full of magic.” That is how one reviewer evaluated this book. How closely do you follow the reviews that this novel is just beginning to receive now?
RZC: Probably too closely! After sitting with this novel in my imagination for all these years, I’m eager for it to find its readers, and I’m especially grateful when someone connects with the book and takes the time to write a review. One reader who received an advance copy recently wrote that it was one of her favorite books of all time and that she felt as if I’d written it for her. That’s the kind of feedback I hold onto as a reminder that the eight years I spent working on THE STRANGE INHERITANCE OF LEAH FERN were worth it. But it’s a balancing act for me. When I retreat back into my writing cave to work on my next novel, I’ll distance myself from reading reviews so that I can focus on the new story taking shape without all those outside voices in my head.
Q: When you were young, did you read any books that might have set you on the path to eventually writing THE STRANGE INHERITANCE OF LEAH FERN?
RZC: So many! One is THE ALMOST ANYTHING YOU MIGHT ASK ALMANAC, which actually appears in the novel. A compendium of superstitions, astrological profiles, drawings of wildflowers, descriptions of weather extremes, a thoughtful page dedicated to witches, and so much more, this book really lit up my imagination as a child and made me feel as if I were holding magic in my hands.
Speaking of magic, I was endlessly enchanted by THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY when I was young, and I think THE STRANGE INHERITANCE OF LEAH FERN is the result of how my mind was shaped by my love of those magical odysseys.
Q: When you were writing the novel, was there any element to the story that kept eluding you? And if so, how did you finally arrive at the solution?
RZC: Yes, Essie East’s voice! For the longest time, I couldn’t hear it. I knew she was this cranky, haunted, somewhat misanthropic but ultimately good person, but whenever it came time for her to speak, I either heard crickets or superimposed the wrong voice onto her. So I had to get really quiet — to look away — and then, slowly, she started to appear. I’d be in the shower, and suddenly I’d hear a line from her, and I’d run to my notebook, dripping water everywhere, and get the line down before it eluded me again. Interestingly, she became one of my favorite characters.
Jeannie Starr’s story (Leah’s mother) eluded me for even longer. It wasn’t until my second draft that I understood her full story, and that understanding turned out to be key to the whole novel.
Q: The book received a starred review from the ALA’s Booklist, which will likely be seen by every librarian in the country. Who do you perceive to be the book’s primary audience? And is there a secondary one as well?
RZC: I think the book’s primary audience will be people who, at some level, believe in magic. Outside of that, my hope is that this book has something for everyone — and in particular, anyone who has ever felt like a misfit, who has suffered loss, who is part of the LGBTQ+ community, and/or who appreciates a transformative journey — a spiral that moves both inward and out.
Q: If you were to address a room full of aspiring novelists who were about to embark on their first novel, what is the key lesson you’d like to impart based on your experience in writing THE STRANGE INHERITANCE OF LEAH FERN?
RZC: Be true, be true, be true! When I was writing THE STRANGE INHERITANCE OF LEAH FERN, I took well-meaning advice early on from someone I greatly admired (and still do), even though it ran counter to the most important aspects of my vision for the book. The result was a book that I wasn’t happy with, one that took me years to rewrite. I think taking edits when they ring true is such an important and helpful part of the process, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that everything I write in a book has to ring true to me above all else. Once I finished the rewrite and my agent sent it out on submission, I was at peace. I thought, No matter what happens now, I wrote the book I wanted to write — I gave it my best. In an unpredictable, highly subjective industry, the freedom in that is priceless.
Q: Are you already laying out the plans for your second novel? If so, can you provide a clue to what its theme will be?
RZC: I am! It’s still early days, but I can say that, like THE STRANGE INHERITANCE OF LEAH FERN, it lives in the realm of magical realism, though it will be a bit darker and lustier and will probably veer into scarier territory.
