We chat with author C.G. Drews about You Did Nothing Wrong, which is is a domestic suspense meets haunted house horror in this adult debut.
Hi, CG! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi, thank you for having me! My name is CG Drews (they/them) and I’m a gothic horror author from Australia. I have a mild obsession with writing about horrifying plants and haunted houses (the plan is to make you scared to go outside but also scared to stay inside). I’m a notorious nightowl and book hoarder and possibly a bit of a workaholic and I somehow write a wild amount of books without drinking any coffee. (Look, I don’t know how either.)
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I grew up surrounded by books so my obsession with stories started young. As a child, I’d hide from my siblings so I could read, I’d haunt our local public library like a hungry little book fiend, and if I was given pocket money you best believe I was spending it at the second-hand bookstore to get the most I could for my dollar. It felt inevitable that I’d try writing my own stories. At around age twelve, I was writing my own versions of Narnia and The Boxcar Children and making them far bloodier. When I was fifteen, I wrote my first original novel and I was fully hooked. Reading just wasn’t enough for me, I wanted tell stories my way and step outside my own skin and live a hundred different lives. I never had any other career ambitions. It was always: author.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Honestly cannot remember, but I was very obsessed with fairytales from a young age!
- The one that made you want to become an author: Narnia
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Bridge To Terebithia
Your latest novel, You Did Nothing Wrong, is out March 17th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
A darkly haunting addictive spiral.
What can readers expect?
It’s a haunted house horror meets domestic suspense with a modern gothic bent that will leave you disturbed and uncomfortable and deeply distrusting your wallpaper. I wanted to write a book that would feel like a slow, dark spiral that crossed lines and asked difficult questions. For me, horror is about pulling our everyday monsters out of the shadows and letting them run wild.
Where did the inspiration for You Did Nothing Wrong come from?
My two biggest reasons for wanting to write this book were: A) I adore writing about houses and I wanted to crawl through the bones of a haunted house and use it as a metaphor for a character’s internal struggles. The more you peel back layers of the rotting house, the more you peel back layers of the rotting character and all the secrets they’re keeping. And B) I wanted to write a very raw and cutting critique on both the way autistic children’s needs are so often ignored or demonised but also balance it with a discussion about unsupported mothers of high needs children. As an autistic author myself, I just wanted to really pull apart the complexities of being autistic and show different angles. This is obviously a dark and twisted little horror book and that layers in bloody and creepy elements—but it’s also about the devastation of being unable to break cycles of generational trauma and of love so obsessive it corrodes everything it touches.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Elodie is the narrator of my story and I loved writing her. The entire book is told solely in her POV, which brings a claustrophobic energy to the page as we’re trapped in her messy, unravelling, unreliable mind. As you read, you are trapped in her perspective just as she is trapped by her rapidly escalating paranoia about this horrible haunted house. Elodie wants to be a good mother, she wants to reinvent her life and outpace her dark secrets, but she also cannot face what is haunting her. Writing morally grey women can come with a lot of judgement (“can’t connect” and “she’s so unlikeable”) but I will always gravitate towards writing imperfect characters and doing deep dives into explore their psyche on page. I don’t want my characters to be perfectly likeable, I want them to be deeply, deeply interesting.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I wrote YOU DID NOTHING WRONG in 2023 at a time when I was really nervous about my future as an author. I’d recently sold DON’T LET THE FOREST IN (my first YA gothic horror) but it hadn’t released yet and I had no idea if people would like it. So I had a lot of self doubt churning in my head as I typed up my first adult horror with no idea if a publisher would take a risk on me. Self-doubt is probably one of my biggest challenges as an author, but the best way to combat it is by following the very unglamorous advice of “do it anyway”. Write that book. Do not self-reject.
What’s next for you?
My third YA gothic horror, SCORPION DEEP, comes out October 27 and I’m so excited to drag everyone into the ocean with a rotten horromance between a boy and a sea god. I’m also neck deep in edits for my next adult horror (coming March 2027!) which I can’t say much about yet but it’s also an unhinged, lovingly deranged gothic horror that’s going to leave its teeth marks in you.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
I absolutely can’t wait for JAPANESE GOTHIC by Kylie Lee Baker, ADAM, MINE by K. Ancrum, and YOU’RE NO BETTER by Andrew Joseph White!
