Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Contemporary, Fiction
But the man she meets there seems nothing like the brutal sociopath with whom she’s had a disturbing connection her whole life. To anyone else, Dylan Shadwell is exactly what he appears to be: a young veteran committed to his girlfriend and her young daughter. As Nina spends more time with him, she begins to doubt the truth she once held as certain: Dylan Shadwell is the Thief. She even starts to wonder . . . what if there is no Thief?
- What is on your nightstand?
A travel alarm clock I bought in the last century that still works. (I have NEVER put a battery in it. I think it’s bespelled.) A copy of Taking It All In by Pauline Kael, because when I can’t sleep, reading old movie reviews seems to help. A spray bottle that I occasionally use to scare cats out from under the bed so they can take their trip to the vet.
- What author would you totally fan?
Patrick Ness, because I love the Chaos Walking trilogy; it just electrified me from the first page and showed me how far out there YA can be. I would fangirl Nova Ren Suma, too, because I love her creepy, hypnotic writing style, and it’s been an influence on me. I love how you can’t always be sure what’s real in her books.
- What makes you cringe?
Cantaloupe (no idea why!). Huge crowds. The shouty kind of talk radio. People who talk without listening. Seeing “lay” in a printed book when the correct word is “lie” (because I’m an editor who gets bothered by that kind of silly stuff).
- Do you obsessively plot out each point or just go with the flow?
I used to go with the flow, but I’ve been forcing myself to plot and outline. When I start something, I do go with the flow for about thirty pages, just to see if I like this story and these characters. If I do, I’ll try to outline all the way to the end. I have a 700-page novel in a trunk that demonstrates the dangers of writing with absolutely no idea where you’re heading. I still always reserve the right to change things as I go, if it turns out the plan just doesn’t work or the characters want to take a different path.
- Is there a word you love to use?
When I read my ARC looking for errors, I discovered that apparently I really love the words “dart” and “glare,” because I overused them. I think I particularly love “glare” because it can describe both a bright light and a character beat, and it has this cool, clean sound. So—surprise!—the working title of my current work-in-progress is The Glare. We’ll see if that lasts, but something called “the glare” is an important concept in the book.
I was raised in the wilds of New York by lovely, nonviolent parents who somehow never managed to prevent me from staying up late to read scary books. I now work at an alt-weekly newspaper in Vermont, where my favorite part of the job is, of course, reviewing scary books and movies. The Killer in Me is my first novel.
I love thrillers in general but not sure that I’ve ever read a YA thriller so extremely curious to see if it is a believable story when the main character is only 17. Can’t wait to see how it turns out. Excellent blurb that really caught my attention.