We chat to Courtney Gould, debut author of the newly released YA horror/thriller The Dead and the Dark that combines a small town with dark secrets, queer girls and ghosts that won’t be ignored. We got to ask Courtney about her writing process, her favorite tropes in novels and what projects are next for her!
Hi, Courtney! Thanks for joining us! Why don’t you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I am a Pacific Northwesterner who’s been writing since before I can remember. I feel like I’ve worked in pretty much every industry, but writing is the thing I’ve always wanted to do. I’m interested in genre-bending stories that combine the real and the supernatural to say something about the world we live in. Horror, thriller, mystery, or a combo of all three, and I’m all over it.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
I am a connosiuer of bad TV. From reality shows (ask me anything about Drag Race, I dare you) to the CW (same goes for Riverdale), if it requires no brain cells to watch, I’m all over it. I love video games, too, though I’m an anxious mess who can’t do anything in hard mode. I enjoy Red Dead Redemption for the scenery and cutscenes.
Lightning round: What books do you think of when the following words come up (besides your own 😉): dead, dark, ghosts?
For DEAD, I immediately thought of THE LUMINOUS DEAD by Caitlin Starling. It is terrifying, claustrophobic, and full of suspense with these richly imagined, cutting protagonists. Definitely a staple in my horror recommendations.
For DARK, my first thought is MY DARK VANESSA by Kate Elizabeth Russel. While THE DEAD AND THE DARK and MY DARK VANESSA have virtually nothing in common, I was deeply moved by Russel’s eloquent and unsettling exploration of Vanessa Wye’s trauma and her journey toward toward understanding herself and the world around her.
For GHOSTS, I thought THIS IS NOT A GHOST STORY BY Andrea Portes. I actually haven’t read this one yet, but I picked it up a few weeks ago and I’m so eager to start. It’s the story of a young woman in a house that holds a grudge, which is precisely my kind of book.
Honorable mention for GHOSTS is GHOST WOOD SONG, which is perhaps my favorite ghost book of all time? A teen girl is forced to discover the secrets of her father’s ghost-raising fiddle to clear her brother’s name. Erica Waters is doing it like no one else in the genre right now, with stunning atmosphere and heartfelt characters.
Now, onto The Dead and the Dark! What can readers expect?
THE DEAD AND THE DARK is the story of a young girl who travels to the hometown of her ghost-hunting fathers to investigate a string of disappearances, and in her attempt to make sense of this new world, she meets and develops feelings for the girlfriend of one of the missing. It’s a combination of a million different things I love. Part sapphic love story, part horror, part mystery, and part exploration of a small town and its biases, I’ve loved seeing people’s reaction to this sort of melting pot of genres. I like to think that THE DEAD AND THE DARK has just as many uplifting moments as it does dark moments. It’s a book that shows us the worst in people, and tries, in a sense, to heal that pain, too.
What inspired you to write The Dead and the Dark?
I think the inspiration came from a handful of key places. I’ve always been so intrigued by these rural farming communities that have a fierce, unyielding loyalty to each other and, on the same hand, a deep suspicion of outsiders. I wanted to explore who is allowed to belong in these communities and who is not through the lens of a ghost story. And, of course, since I’m writing it, it was always going to be sapphic.
There were so many elements I loved in The Dead and the Dark and one of my favorites was for sure the atmospheric writing and setting of Snakebite, Oregon. Can you tell us a bit about your process in creating the “voice” of your novel?
Absolutely! Voice is something that is always a bit of a struggle for me, actually. I can get so swept up in setting the tone of a place, it takes real effort for me to develop those settings through a specific character’s lens. I wanted to make sure that Snakebite looked different in Logan’s point of view than it did in Ashley’s though. Where Ashley is able to look at her little town and describe it tenderly and generously Logan sees danger. Combining these two perspectives was how I was able to create a town that jumped off the page, but also scared people. I don’t want the reader to ever quite rest comfortably.
Speaking of favorite elements – Logan’s relationship with her two dads was one of the things that made this book so unputdownable for me. Without spoiling too much, what was your favorite scene to write including Logan and her dad(s)?
Most of my favorite scenes with Logan and her dads occur toward the end of the book as the truth begins to unravel. I think my favorite to write, without spoilers, was at about the two-thirds mark. There’s a scene between Logan and her less-outgoing father, Brandon, in the motel room where Logan finally gets all of her pent up anger off her chest. There’s this breakdown in communication between them and this moment shines a big light on that rift. It’s one of the more heartbreaking scenes in the book, so obviously it was my favorite.
You really nailed the f/f enemies-to-lovers vibes in this one. What are your favorite romance tropes to incorporate into your stories and which ones always make their way onto your TBR?
Thank you so much! I find that most of my pairings have some degree of enemies-to-lovers, maybe because I’m very charmed by prickly heroines who are opposed to the idea of being friendly with anyone. A trope that I always go for is any variation of weird, mean outcast meets popular, sociable golden child. This sort of bleeds into grumpy/sunshine romances which I am very into. Check out Adrienne Tooley’s SWEET & BITTER MAGIC for a fantastic iteration of this.
If The Dead and the Dark were adapted as a movie or show, which three songs would you need to be on the soundtrack?
So, as the chapter title suggest, the book ends on John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads. Another song I’d require on the soundtrack would be Rocks and Water by Deb Talan and God’s Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash. The kind of music that the folks in Snakebite would listen to.
With The Dead and the Dark releasing soon, are you already working on another project? If so, can you share a tidbit about it with us?
I am currently in the editing stage with my sophomore novel ECHO SUNSET. I am so excited for this one to start making its way into the world. It’s about a girl who’s investigative journalist mother has passed away. In the wake of her death, the heroine and her younger sister drive to the isolated Arizona town their mother was obsessed with before she died. There, they try to uncover what it was that kept bringing her back, and they discover dark secrets, an enigmatic leader, and even a potential way to wade back to the past. It’s been both a blessing and a curse to write, and I’m eager to see what people think.
Last but not least, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
If you like the sort of eerie, haunted vibes of TDATD, I’d definitely recommend THE RIVER HAS TEETH by Erica Waters, THE DEVIL MAKES THREE by Tori Bovalino, BAD WITCH BURNING by Jessica Lewis, MISSING PRESUMED DEAD by Emma Berquist, and TO BREAK A COVENANT by Alison Ames. Other books I’ve read and loved recently are A FAR WILDER MAGIC by Allison Saft, THE TAKING OF JAKE LIVINGSTON by Ryan Douglass, and THE VALLEY AND THE FLOOD by Rebecca Mahoney.
