We chat with author Rebekah Faubion about What a Nightmare, which follows a carefully self-contained woman who discovers that her nightmares can kill—and when she returns to the small Texas town that tried to silence her, years of buried rage begin transforming into something far more dangerous.
Hi, Rebekah! Welcome back! What have you been up to since we spoke at the start of the year for the release of Lost Girls of Hollow Lake?
Thank you for having me back! It’s been a busy year of promotion (for Lost Girls of Hollow Lake and my upcoming release), writing and revising, and working on new projects. Plus all the other life stuff that comes with being a human.
Your latest novel, What a Nightmare, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Angry
Brutal
Darkly Funny (is this one cheating?)
Cathartic
Texas
What can readers expect?
A twisted family drama with weird, mind-bending horror elements, a lot of female rage; this book makes no apologies and doesn’t mince words, but for all the torment and trouble you get to go along for the ride alongside a young woman who is healing her past trauma and reckoning with the wrongdoing that got her to this breaking point. I hope readers walk away feeling a lot of emotions, not all of them easy to digest or straightforward, and that it sparks conversations about the abuse of power, mental health in horror, and how important it is to hold those in power accountable.
Where did the inspiration for What a Nightmare come from?
For me, everything begins with character. Initially I had this idea of Haven, this woman who has been told she was a nightmare so much throughout her life that she’s tried to make herself as inoffensive as possible to survive. I knew she had to be estranged from her family. And I knew in her background there was trauma she had buried deep down somewhere in order to keep living. That description of her as a nightmare led me to her power, and from there the story unfolded as I started to piece together the details of her life and what was happening in her present to force her to confront the past.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I had so much fun with the ensemble cast of characters in this book. Everyone is morally grey. Everyone is layered. Everyone is hiding something or has their own agenda. But the stars of the show have to be the Powers family. Earl is a powerful man in a small town, with wealth and influence over every aspect of life, but especially his three sons and his wife. Olympia, is a former beauty queen who is the standard by which all other women in town measure themselves. The three Powers boys all have their expected roles in the family, and for the most part play them well. Buck, the oldest, is the heir who has to keep everything running smoothly and takes on the burden of his siblings in sometimes controlling and toxic ways. Sterling is the spare. The middle child who copes with the pressure of the family in toxic ways. Lucky is the accident. The youngest who in a lot of ways is still finding himself, deciding his beliefs, and trying to be better than his family. Then you add Haven—the wild card of the family—back into the mix, and all bets are off.
Of course, writing the nightmares was also a lot of fun. And building my small Texas town exactly how I wanted it so I could challenge the traditions that make places like that safe havens for horrible people was a lot of fun too.
You’ve stepped over to the dark side with What A Nightmare being your first within the horror genre. Were there any changes to your writing process for this novel?
I’ve always loved dark themes—I’m a Scorpio! So getting to lean into that was a lot of fun. But the biggest change was to the romance elements I’m used to including. In What a Nightmare, Haven reconnects with a woman from her past and sparks definitely fly, but their potential relationship is coming at a time when Haven’s whole world is imploding. Not very sturdy ground to build love on! I wanted to include this storyline for so many reasons, not the least being that I really like Winter, the love interest, but I also wanted to maintain the brutality of this story and the boundaries I felt it needed for it to ring true. Balancing that was hard for someone who definitely still likes writing kissing scenes!
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I think the biggest challenge with this one was the super tight deadline. I had less than three months to write the initial draft, which was a beast to accomplish considering how HARD this book was to write just in general. It was so emotionally draining, but I persevered, and I am really proud of what I created. Fortunately the editing process was a little longer!
What’s next for you?
I have a novel releasing in 2027 with Delacorte called A Darkness Lives There that is a haunted house, missing girl mystery, and I love it with all my heart.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed this year? Are there any you are looking forward to picking up in 2027?
I loved Stormraven by Kelsey Yu (out in 2027), Strange Bedfellows by Amanda Mortlock, Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison, Headlights by CJ Leede, Molka by Monika Kim, and How to Disappear Completely by Liz Kerin (out in 2027), What Happened to Those Girls by Carlyn Greenwald, Entities to Lovers by Mallory Marlowe, Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaeffer and SO MANY MORE.
