We chat with author Ginny Myers Sain about One Last Breath, which is another chilling supernatural thriller from the New York Times bestselling author filled with murder, romance, and a decades long mystery that haunts a small Florida town.
Hi, Ginny! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I grew up in a family of writers. My mom is a novelist with almost twenty traditionally published novels, mostly middle grade historical fiction, and my father was a poet. My little sister teaches grammar and writing to high school students and my little brother even grew up to be the poet laureate for the state of Oklahoma, where we grew up and he still lives. So we always had writers in and out of house and my mom was always going to writer’s meetings and conferences. But I was always drawn to the theatre. That was always my art form. I have a degree in theatre and I spent most of my career teaching acting and directing plays and musicals. So I came to writing later than most of my family, but I still got pulled in eventually. I live in Orlando now with my college-age son and our goldendoodle, Magnolia. We spend a lot of time exploring the springs and beaches, going to Disney World, and showing our friends around when they come to visit.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Story is something that’s really important to my whole extended family. Even my grandparents on both sides, some of whom never went to school past eight grade, were born storytellers. So I grew up in that tradition. I loved sitting around on porches and in kitchens listening to that. I always wrote, from the time I was little. I won a lot of school contests over the years and even got selected to attend the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, which is a really prestigious program for Oklahoma high school students, in writing. But I never considered myself a writer. I was always an actress first, and then later in life a director and theatre teacher.
Then I had some life changes and I moved from Arkansas where I’d been working in the theatre for years back to Tulsa, OK, and I started hanging around with my mother’s writer friends because I just missed being around creative people. So really, I fell in with a bad crowd, as they say. Or that’s the joke I tell. I was making friends with all these writers, and they were asking what I was writing, so I started thinking about writing again, for the first time since high school really. And I kind of messed around with it for a few years. But then the pandemic hit and all theatre immediately shut down and I was left without any kind of real artistic outlet, and that’s when I really got super serious and set down and finished the book I’d been working on, which is the book that became DARK AND SHALLOW LIES.
Your latest novel, One Last Breath, is out now! What five words would you use to describe it?
Twisty, atmospheric, supernatural, chilling, wild
What can readers expect?
You can expect a dark and twisty story set in the dangerously beautiful Florida freshwater springs. It’s part thriller, part supernatural, part breathless romance, and part true crim case study.
Your books always interest me because of their tight plotting and excellent twists. What’s your plotting process like?
I always start by working out an interesting premise and focusing on a good, sharp hook. Then I sit down and come up with a basic flap copy description before I start to write. That’s the kind of description you might find on the back of a book. That helps me make sure I actually have a whole story. After that, I’m a pretty basic plotter. I always know the opening and the ending and the biggest moments in between. I only plot out the major stuff in advance. For a novel, I might have seven or eight major plot points jotted down on an index card before I sit down to write, and I kind of feel my way through everything else as I go. I always tell people that I know Point A and Point B and Point C from the beginning, but I don’t know how I ‘m going to get from A to B and from B to C, etc, until I sit down and start writing.
They also stand out as they usually have a speculative edge to them. What draws you to adding this to your mysteries?
It’s just something I’ve always loved as a reader. I grew up loving books by Lois Duncan, especially DOWN A DARK HALLWAY and STRANGER WITH MY FACE, so I always loved those dark, creep, spooky, slightly magical stories. I’m not really a fantasy reader, but I have always loved stories that are set in our real world with just a hint of the magical or supernatural running through them.
I love how atmospheric your books are and how much the setting or natural environment plays a part in the overall story. What influences this theme in your work?
I think that’s just kind of who I am as a person. I’ve always been really, really drawn to place. I love any kind of unusual, unique environment, and I love to visit places where big moments in history happened or where something momentous took place. It’s like I can feel that energy. I remember years ago visiting the Tower of London and standing on the very spot where Anne Boleyn was executed and just being completely caught up in that. I’m also just a sucker for atmospheric So that love of place comes through in my writing. It’s actually the element I start with when I start imagining a new story. I hit on a setting I want to use, and then I ask myself what characters might call that place home and what problems they might have.
What songs would form the soundtrack to One Last Breath for you?
That’s always a hard question for me to answer! I tend to mostly love songs I can scream in my car, so sometimes it’s hard for me to separate music that I like from music that would work for a particular book or character. But there’s a Paramore song, My Heart, that I listened to on repeat at certain points while I was writing this book. I love Hayley William’s voice so much, and I love the way that song grows and grows in intensity, and how it kind of crosses the lines back and forth between the joy of love and pain of love until you’re not really sure which one the song is about. Here’s a bit of trivia. The dedication to my second book, SECRETS SO DEEP, is actually a nod to a Paramore song, Franklin, that’s featured on the same album.
Can you give us any hints for what you are working on next?
I actually just finished edits on my fourth book, out in 2025. That one is called WHEN THE BONES SING and it’s another supernatural thriller, this time set in the Arkansas Ozarks. I’m really excited because it’s such a beautiful part of the world and it has such a rich history of mystery and magic. I lived there for 20 years, so I can’t wait to share it with readers!
Lastly, are there any releases that you’re looking forward to picking up this year?
So many, but particularly K.A. Cobell’s LOOKING FOR SMOKE and UNDER THE SURFACE by Dianah Urban.
