Hello, Cruel Heart is an electric new story of teenage Cruella de Vil in an original novel inspired by the upcoming Walt Disney Studios Live Action Film, Cruella. We had the pleasure of chatting with author Maureen Johnson about her new release, writing, and more!
After the chaos that was 2020, have you set any goals for this year? If so, how are they going so far?
I live in New York City, so 2020 was very much spent inside. I’d like to come out a bit more! I think 2020 taught us a lot about what really matters. I know people say things like that and it sounds like something you’d see printed on a motivational coaster in calligraphy, but it’s true. More time with my family and friends, more time outside. With a book, of course. I’d really like to read outside again.
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!
A children’s version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. I started with Sherlock and that really set me up for life.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
When I was very small. I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I have no other skills. I’ve made that work for me.
Your new novel, Hello, Cruel Heart, is out April 6th 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Swinging London. Fashion. Rock. Revenge.
What can readers expect?
A trip to 1967 London. Lots of loud music, thieving, clothes, and a romance that plays out in clubs, in townhouses, on the streets. Everything is wildly costumed. Not everyone is telling the truth.
Can you tell us what you most enjoyed about writing this story?
I’m obsessed with late 60s London and I always have been. Always. So I was ready to write this book. It’s possible that I have never been more ready to do anything. So I was able to pour in so many things I loved into the story in detail—things like the design collective, The Fool, who worked with the Beatles and ran around London in rainbow colored capes, painting murals, playing flutes, and making the wildest clothes anyone had ever seen. All the music that came out of London at the time. All the art. All the colors. The mysterious boutiques with the painted over windows. And while that was going on, the same London was full of crime, of buildings still damaged by the war. I put Estella right in the middle of it all—the rock music, the hideouts in the rubble, the gangs of thieves, and the revolutionary fashion. So what did I enjoy? All of it.
If it’s not too spoilery, were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing?
There are two characters called Magda and Richard who come into Estella’s life. They’re a pair of siblings, very rich, very connected. I was able to pour a lot of specific things I knew about London at the time into them. I don’t want to reveal what they ultimately get up to, but they were a lot of fun for me.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
There’s a lot of it out there. I can synthesize it. The best is advice is: everyone writes differently, so the way you write is your writing style. You’ll refine it and learn about it and try new methods and styles, but you ultimately write the way you write based on all of those elements. The worst advice is anything that tells you that there is One Way Of Doing Things that they will teach you.
What’s next for you?
I have two other books coming out this year. The first is The Box in the Woods, which is about a girl named Stevie Bell (a high school detective introduced in Truly Devious), brought in to try to solve a cold case, the 1978 murders of four counselors at a summer camp. That’s coming out on June 15th. And later in the year, there’s a book called Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village, which is an illustrated guide I made with my friend Jay Cooper.
