We chat with author Peng Shepherd about All This & More, which is an inventive new novel about a woman who wins the chance to rewrite every mistake she’s ever made… and how far she’ll go to find her elusive “happily ever after.”
Hi, Peng! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! My name is Peng (rhymes with “Young”), and I write character-driven stories with a speculative edge. I’m the author of THE CARTOGRAPHERS, which became a national bestseller, THE BOOK OF M (whose twist ending, apparently, makes people cry), and the upcoming ALL THIS AND MORE, which is out on July 9th!
I live in Brooklyn, and whenever I’m not writing, I’m either traveling or eating—usually dumplings.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
It’s a funny story, actually. As a child, I loved books, and as soon as I learned to spell, I began trying to write and illustrate my own stories for fun. My mom, being a good mom, encouraged my interests, and one day, when I proudly presented my latest creation to her, she decided it would be a cute surprise to take my project to her office to laminate the pages and bind them with a plastic spiral spine. When she got home from work that evening, she called me over and showed me my bound, finished book—and apparently, I thought I had been published. If only it were really that easy, right? But the joy I felt in that moment, seeing my first “book,” definitely had a huge effect on me.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
- The one that made you want to become an author: Perchance by Michael Kurland
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The Earthsea series by Ursula K Le Guin
Your latest novel, All This & More, is out July 9th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
“Would you change your past?”
What can readers expect?
A roller coaster ride that falls somewhere between a mystery and a thriller, with a healthy dash of science fiction thrown in. Imagine being chosen to be a contestant on a futuristic game show that can send you back in time to rewrite your past choices so you can have exactly the life you’ve always wanted, down to the very last detail—except someone or something else might be trying to manipulate your fate at the same time.
Where did the inspiration for All This & More come from?
I wrote the novel because I really wanted to explore the relationship between happiness and truth in this world of nearly infinite options we live in. Options are wonderful up to a certain point—but none of us were prepared to be online 24/7, consuming a never-ending stream of advertisements and social media. It’s becoming harder and harder to tell what’s real anymore, and I think that’s corrupting our ability to understand ourselves and what matters to us. Even if we don’t have the ability to tweak every single aspect of our lives until everything is perfect, we all still struggle with the same timeless questions at the heart of the book. When there’s more than one path ahead, how do you decide which is the right one? And more importantly, how you learn to live with those choices?
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Part of the thrill of writing this novel was that every couple chapters or so, everything “resets” on the characters a bit like a puzzle box (see the next question). It was definitely a challenge to make sure that the story tied together in a way that was exciting and meaningful, but it was also really fun to turn a subplot or a person or a location sideways and force the characters to grapple with those consequences.
In particular, there’s one character named Ren that was very interesting to write. He’s an old flame of Marsh (the protagonist), who reappears in her present life after she changes something in her past, and he bears the brunt of these “resets”—becoming more and more different from his original self the further into the story you get—until it’s hard to tell exactly which version of him is the real one.
This book can either be read straight through or in “choose your own adventure” style. Was this always part of the initial concept? How did you go about structuring it?
Yes, I had always planned the story to have multiple paths! ALL THIS AND MORE is about the allure and danger of choice, something we all face in our own lives, so I really wanted readers to be able to experience that same thrill of having the power to alter their past right alongside Marsh. You still can read the novel straight through like a typical book, but if you’re feeling brave, you also can influence what Marsh decides at certain points—which could change her story.
Believe it or not, I actually wrote the whole first draft without a “map” of all the paths and how they linked up. It was daunting, but I was worried that if I needed to rely on an outside guide in the early phases, some of the possible storylines might feel too engineered instead of true to Marsh’s personality and emotions. It was only once I really knew who Marsh was and all of her possible fates that I finally built the map.
What’s next for you?
I’m partway through the first draft of my next book now. It’s a dark, twisty psychological suspense about body doubles secretly hired to impersonate a famous, powerful person, and what happens as their lives become more and more entwined with each other’s and they start to lose their grasp on their own identities.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
I recently read HUM by Helen Phillips, who is so good at turning a normal, mundane moment into something deeply unsettling, and THE CENTRE by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, which was deliciously creepy. And I’m really excited to read Lev Grossman’s THE BRIGHT SWORD when it’s released in mid-July.
