We chat with author Cynthia Pelayo about Vanishing Daughters, which is a new breathtaking novel of psychological suspense that follows a haunted woman stalked by a serial killer and confronts the horrors of fairy tales and the nightmares of real life.
Hi Cynthia! Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Little Golden Book’s The Fuzzy Duckling. I was maybe 4.
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva
Your latest novel, VANISHING DAUGHTERS, is out March 11! Can you tell us a little about it?
Vanishing Daughters follows Briar Rose Thorne after the death of her mother. She’s inherited their ancestral home, a crumbling mansion on Chicago’s South Side. Briar is suffering from the emotional and physiological effects of grief. She cannot eat. Her sleep is restless, and she soon starts to have nightmares with a woman in white begging Bri to take her home. Additionally, Bri’s a freelance journalist and needs to get to work in order to maintain the house. As she starts researching, she stumbles upon a series of articles about the unsolved murders of 51 women throughout the city. Through Bri’s research, she gets too close to the serial killer and draws his attention. In order to solve the mystery of who the woman in white is, Bri is forced to confront the killer.
Where did the inspiration for Vanishing Daughters come from?
I started thinking about the different variations of Sleeping Beauty. There are numerous. We often associate Sleeping Beauty as a beautiful young woman cursed to sleep until a prince breaks the spell with a kiss. That is not true in all of the variations. In Charles Perrault’s version, “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood,” the princess awakens after the 100 years in which she had been cursed to sleep: “At the same moment, the hour of disenchantment having come, the princess awoke.” Then, I just started thinking about the folklore of the vanishing hitchhiker, how that’s often a woman. Additionally, I started thinking about the large number of unsolved murders in the Chicagoland area. Finally, I started thinking about sleep, dreams, this twilight state of in between wake and dream, and of grief and how grieving feels very unreal. When one grieves intensely, at least when I did, I felt like my entire reality had shifted. All of that went into the making of Vanishing Daughters.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
It took me so long to come up with Briar’s name. I can’t start writing a novel until they tell me their name, and Bri was being so stubborn. I was sketching out a number of vignettes with various names, to find the character, but none of those names were it.
I was so frustrated I took a break and turned to research. I was reading various adaptations of “Sleeping Beauty” and taking notes when I re-read the Grimm Brother’s “Little Brier-Rose.” I stopped and dropped my pen, because I heard her.
I remember saying out loud: ‘Is that your name? It’s sort of obvious don’t you think?’ And it was. That was her name all along.
It was such a clear moment like she took a breath and came to life right then. From there, I was able to write her story.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I’ve gotten to a point in my career where I’ve started to overthink my projects much more than I used to. I think it’s because I am putting more pressure on myself with each work I develop so that I’m constructing a more thoughtful, insightful and innovative work than my last.
My way of overcoming that pressure is just to remind myself to be kind to myself. The only way forward is through. So, if my brain tells me I need to rest, then I’ll rest. Even resting is writing because the writer brain is always actively constructing a story.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on a lot of short stories, essays, a new novel, which is a historic horror novel, and my backlist Children of Chicago, The Shoemaker’s Magician and Lotería will be re-released and available in all bookstores by Fall 2025.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up in 2025?
- We Do Not Part by Han Kang
- Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza
- The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
- The Antidote by Karen Russell
- The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey
Cynthia Pelayo is the Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Forgotten Sisters, Children of Chicago, and The Shoemaker’s Magician. In addition to writing genre-blending novels that incorporate fairy-tale, mystery, detective, crime, and horror elements, Pelayo has written numerous short stories, including the collection Lotería, and the poetry collection Crime Scene. The recipient of the 2021 International Latino Book Award, she holds a master of fine arts in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her family. For more information, visit www.cinapelayo.com and follow her on Instagram @Cynthiapelayoauthor
