The Nerd Daily recently had the pleasure of chatting with Helene Dunbar, author of outstanding novels such as What Remains, We Are Lost and Found, and the upcoming Prelude For Lost Souls releasing on August 4th! We got to ask Helene all our burning questions about the spookiness of her new novel, her current obsessions, and future writing plans!
You can find Helene on Twitter and Instagram, along with at her website.
Hi, Helene! So glad that you’re joining us once more! How are you? How have you been coping with the world’s current upheaval?
I’ve been pretty good, thank you. It’s been a little crazy with juggling my day job, distance schooling my daughter, writing, and my current jigsaw puzzle obsession, but I feel very fortunate to have all those things in my life. Also, I’m grateful to be an introvert because the isolation is probably bothering me less than it is most people.
Now, about Prelude for Lost Souls! Give us the elevator pitch!
Prelude is about a town where everyone talks to the dead and three teens whose lives are – for better or worse – changed by it.
I have to say, I was completely enamored by the setting of St. Hilaire! The way you described it was so atmospheric, I constantly felt like I’d been there before. What inspired St. Hilaire’s spooky vibe?
St. Hilaire is based on the concept of a real place, Lily Dale, NY. I love the idea of a town filled with people who can communicate with spirits to the extent that it’s really the town’s main industry. The funny thing is, aside from the ghosts, and the town leadership who are really heading down a bad path, St. Hilaire is kind of an idealized small American town, very much like where I grew up in Michigan. It had a certain quaintness to it, and I think that makes it creepier in a way. I’m thrilled to hear that it felt recognizable to you.
Speaking of spooky things, would you rather be able to communicate with ghosts or be one yourself in the afterlife and haunt people?
While there are certainly family members who have passed on that I would love to be able to talk to, I think I’d choose to be a ghost, not necessarily to haunt people, but because I really hate the idea of missing out on so much amazing music and stories. So maybe I’d haunt a bookstore?
I loved the dichotomy of Dec wanting nothing more than to leave St. Hilaire behind and Russ aiming to become part of the Guild to bring about change from the inside. Annie rolling into their lives certainly stirs up some trouble – what did the process of writing three different life trajectories look like for you? Was it difficult to intertwine their stories?
My writing style can be described as “chaotic” at the best of times. Add that to the fact that I love writing characters far more than I love writing plots and you can kind of guess at that answer, lol. Having three points of view both brought the pleasure of being able to develop these very different characters and the pain of having to intertwine so many plots. And it isn’t just the three point of view characters, but two secondary characters, Ian and Tristan, have some pretty involved backstories.
I enjoyed the push and pull of Dec and Russ’s opposing goals set against their deeply loyal friendship and I think those struggles pretty much dictated the rest of the book. Likewise the two very different couples in the book were interesting to write because those relationships are extremely opposed. One is a very gentle falling into like/love by two grieving teens who unexpectedly find themselves connected through a mysterious piece of music and the other is a pretty intense and dramatic rekindling of the relationship by two boys, one of whom happens to be a ghost.
Tristan and Ian were showstealers for me! We don’t get their whole life story for obvious reasons but could you share a few things about the both of them that readers might not learn from the book?
I don’t tend to leave a lot off the page, but I’ll say that, in my head, Tristan’s backstory is very complicated and was inspired by an NPR story I heard about the childhood of author, T.E. Lawrence who wrote Lawrence of Arabia. He wasn’t in the book until Dec said something about his “imaginary childhood friend” and then I just ran with it. Although it might not be evident on a first read, he shares a certain cockiness with Ian, it just manifests in a completely different way. I enjoyed playing with those sorts of opposites in this book.
As for Ian, he was one of my favorite characters to write. He’s all bluster only no one seems to understand that he just enjoys a good mind game. He’s genuinely true to himself and his goals, but no one ever takes him at face value, and he plays with that. Not sure I can say more than that since he plays a big part in book 2.
I have to admit, I was really rooting for Dec and Russ while reading Prelude for Lost Souls. Any chance some unresolved feelings will be explored in the sequel?
SPOILER ALERT: Well, Russ has A LOT on his plate in the sequel including Ian and a boy whose parents are trying to stir up a lot of trouble for St. Hilaire, and I think Dec and Annie are pretty well matched. Also, any feelings that go beyond friendship are really only Russ’s side and even then…Russ is able to open up to so few people that I think his feelings for Dec are much more a product of trust than of passion. He hasn’t quite learned that he can get both at the same time.
Also, sorry (not sorry) that you were rooting for them. But I truly believe that theirs is a friendship that will last a lifetime.
Annie becomes as obsessed with the Lost Prelude as her mentor was. What’s your Lost Prelude (the song you can’t get out of your mind no matter how hard you try)?
I pretty much listen to music in my head all day long, so it kind of depends on the day. But I’ll say that the songs that haunted me during the writing of Prelude were INXS’s By Your Side and Never Tear Us Apart. And honestly, that’s okay with me!
What was your favorite scene to write for Prelude of Lost Souls? Are there any that didn’t make it into the final draft that you had a hard time letting go?
I loved writing the Russ/Ian scenes. Russ is someone who is very much in control (to a fault) and at the top of his game. I wanted to introduce a character who could absolutely cut through that control. Ian was a very talented medium, but he was (is) kind larger than life. I watched a lot of INXS videos when writing PRELUDE because I really wanted that Michael Hutchence vibe for him. Ian is sexy and intense and confident and some people, like Dec, never saw more in him than that. But I’m super proud of the dynamic between him and Russ. I think there is really something strong and complicated and real there, despite the fact that one of them is a ghost.
There is a scene with the two of them that I loved writing because it’s such an emotional tug of war between them all the time and I loved discovering how Ian could cut through Russ’s defenses.
I don’t usually cut out full scenes. I do a LOT of revision while I’m writing, so it’s more massaging than deleting. But the book was initially written in first person – still three points of view – for a very long time and it was difficult to accept that it needed to change. I totally understand why it works better this way, but it somehow felt more eerie in first person.
The wait for the sequel to Prelude for Lost Souls is already nagging at my nonexistent patience so could you maybe share a few tidbits with us (spoiler-free, of course) of what readers can expect?
So few people have read it that I’m afraid to say too much, but at the moment, it is also three points on view. One is Russ’s, one is that of a super minor character in PRELUDE, and one is a boy from Buchanan whose parents are trying to destroy St. Hilaire for very personal reasons.
At the end of Prelude we already know that Russ is going to be student leader of the Guild and now he actually needs to do that job for better or worse and he and Ian also need to figure out the next steps in both their relationship and their plans to reform the Guild.
Last but not least, do you have any bookish (or otherwise nerdy) recommendations for our readers?
I’m currently reading a rare (for me) adult book, The Second Home: A Novel by Christina Clancy. Since I’m on deadline with Prelude #2, I don’t have a lot of reading time and when that happens, I tend to gravitate towards biographies or character-driven fiction and this book, about flawed and complicated characters and families really fits the bill.
Musically, I’m listening to a lot of Adam French, who is a singer/songwriter based in the UK. I’ve been a fan of his for years and his music has very much been the soundtrack to P2. He has a very unique voice and his songs are immensely emotionally vulnerable and evocative.
