A teen girl disappears from her small town deep in the bayou, where magic festers beneath the surface of the swamp like water rot, in this chilling debut supernatural thriller for fans of Natasha Preston, Karen McManus, and Rory Power.
We chat with author Ginny Myers Sain about her debut novel Dark and Shallow Lies, along with book recommendations, writing, and more!
Hi, Ginny! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! I grew up in rural Oklahoma, a small town of about 3,000 people, and I’m the oldest of three kids. I went to college in Arkansas and I have a degree in theatre. Now I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with my teenage son and the world’s most cowardly doberman. I’m a huge Disney World fan (we visit every January) and I have this weird obsession with alligators..
When did you first discover your love for writing?
Not until pretty recently, actually. I come from a family of writers. My mother has 20 traditionally published novels, mostly middle grade historical fiction, and my father was a poet and non-fiction writer. Even my brother is a past Poet Laureate for the state of Oklahoma! So writing is in my DNA. I actually didn’t start out as a writer, though. The theatre has always been my true love. I’ve spent my whole adult life, right up until now, working in the theatre. I lived and worked in Arkansas for a long time after college, and I only started writing when I moved back to Oklahoma. I needed some new direction, and my mother convinced me to become involved in SCBWI, which was an organization very close to her heart. Because I had spent years working with teens in the theatre, and I loved that age group so much, I knew they were the group I wanted to write for and about.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
- First- THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK. It’s about Grover from Sesame Street. I was OBSESSED. And what a twist ending!
- Made me Want to Become an Author – THE ACCIDENT SEASON by Moira Fowley-Doyle. I knew I wanted to write something like that. I loved the blending of reality with something just slightly magical.
- Can’t Stop Thinking About – WATCH OVER ME by Nia Lacour. It was so beautifully written, and not at all what I expected it to be.
Your debut novel Dark and Shallow Lies is out September 2nd in the UK and September 7th in the US! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Dark, Twisty, Magical, Atmospheric, and Tense!
What can readers expect?
I think readers are in for a pretty wild ride! This story takes a missing girl mystery and kind of twists into something a little more unusual. It’s a story about the depths of grief, the destructive power of generational secrets, and how we are all capable of beautiful AND terrible things. And, of course, it features a really great cast of characters, the Summer Children. They’re this group of kids all born the same year, and all with different psychic abilities. The story is sort of about how the main character, Grey, finds her own place in all of that. She has to discover her own magic, in a figurative sense, but also in a very literal sense.
Where did the inspiration for Dark and Shallow Lies come from?
La Cachette is not a real place, of course, but the town was very loosely inspired by two actual places. The first is the tiny town of Cassadaga, Florida, which I was lucky enough to stumble upon during a road trip across the sunshine state. Cassadaga really does bill itself as the “Psychic Capital of the World” and its tiny town square is lined with palm readers, tarot card readers, and mystics of all kinds. I was standing on the front porch of the psychic bookstore there when the idea for DARK AND SHALLOW LIES came to me in the form of this question….How do you keep a secret in a town full of psychics? I didn’t know what the secret would be yet, or even who was trying to keep it. All that came later. The setting came first. However, Cassadaga was a bit too accessible for what I had in mind. I needed a place that was more cut-off from the world. Somewhere a little harder to get to…and to escape from. I had spent a lot of time in Louisiana over the years and had fallen so deeply in love with the swampy landscapes, the culture, and the people, and my mind went back to a little place called Pilottstown, which served for years as a home to riverboat pilots on the Mississippi River, so that became the inspiration for the geographical location. And that’s where the story began.
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
The biggest challenge for me with this particular story was that it’s a pretty complicated mystery with lots of twists and turns. It was really a complex thing to sit down and figure out what bits of information needed to come out when, and then to walk that tightrope between giving enough away to keep forward momentum in the story….without giving TOO much away and letting the reader guess where things are going. Mysteries are just hard like that! The only way I was able to do it was by plotting it backwards. I figured out the end, what all the resolutions were, and then I moved backwards through the story to scatter those clues and revelations in the right places
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Hart is the first character that came to me, and he’s always been my favorite. He was just one of those characters who showed up fully formed and breathing. I just felt like I knew him so well. He was 100% alive and real in my head, and I loved him from the beginning. I came to know and love them all, of course, but Hart was special to me.
As for moments, there is a very short scene around a campfire that I just love. It’s so small, but there’s so much going on there. It was fun to pack as much as I could into the silences and the spaces between the lines of dialogue.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
Honestly, I haven’t really gotten any bad writing advice. I’ve heard some things that don’t really resonate with me, but they might be helpful for another writer, so it’s not that they were bad advice….they were just bad advice for me. Most of those are little things like the old advice to write every day. That’ doesn’t work for me. I need days off! But maybe it’s good advice for someone else.
My best writing advice is something I heard at a conference, and I can’t even tell you who said it or what the exact quote was…but it was something along the lines of, “Don’t write to answer questions. Write to ask questions.” And that’s something I try to keep in mind, especially writing for teens. They don’t need or want to be told what the answers are. Our job as writers is to ask big, complicated, messy questions with our stories, and then let the readers answer them.
What’s next for you?
I had a two-book contract, so I’m working on book two, which should be out in the fall of 2022. I can’t say a lot about it, but it is also a standalone YA mystery/thriller with some magical/paranormal elements. Think waves, lighthouses, salt in the air. It’s actually set in the world of the theatre, so I’m excited to bring my love of theatre and my love of writing together for this project!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
A couple of things I’ve read and loved in the last few months –
WHAT BEAUTY THERE IS by Cory Anderson
THE FOREST OF STOLEN GIRLS by Jun Hur
IN THE SAME BOAT by Holly Green
You can find Ginny on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, along with at her website.
