Lucy Miller’s family has the unique ability to remove people’s painful memories–but Lucy isn’t prepared for truths she will uncover in this speculative YA debut thriller, perfect for fans of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
We chat with author Stacy Stokes about her debut novel Remember Me Gone, along with writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Stacy! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
First, thanks so much for having me! I’m Stacy Stokes, author of the speculative thriller REMEMBER ME GONE. I’m originally from Texas, but currently live in the Bay Area with my family. When I’m not writing, I work as a marketing professional and have a BBA in marketing from The University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from The Wharton School. REMEMBER ME GONE is my debut.
How has the start of 2022 been for you?
It has been an eventful year to say the least! I had my daughter at the end of 2021, so this year has been a flurry of diaper changes, sleep deprivation and learning how to be a new parent. Every day has been a new adventure. It’s also been an exciting few months as the launch of REMEMBER ME GONE gets closer. Publishing a novel has been a lifelong dream of mine, so it’s surreal watching it come to fruition.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I grew up in a house filled with books. My mom was never without something to read—she used to carry paperbacks in her purse and would pull them out in the grocery store line. So the love of words was engrained in me at a young age. When I was in fifth or sixth grade I discovered the YA section of the bookstore and immediately fell in love with thrillers and anything with a speculative or paranormal bend, and started coming up with my own ideas for stories. I wanted to tell the kinds of stories that made people flip pages and stay up late to find out what happens next.
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!
The first book I remember reading is a picture book called Happy Birthday Baby. I guess I had a thing for birthdays back in the day?
I read Christopher Pike’s Chain Letter when I was in 5th grade and it rocked my world. I knew that I not only wanted to write books, but I wanted to write thrillers.
I can’t stop thinking about Tess Sharpe’s The Girl’s I’ve Been. I could not put it down!
Your debut novel, Remember Me Gone, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Beware of the memory theif!
What can readers expect?
REMEMBER ME GONE is a fast-paced speculative thriller, so readers can expect a fun ride with lots of twists and turns that will keep them guessing. The story is told from Lucy’s perspective—her family runs The Memory House in Tumble Tree, Texas, where people travel from all over to have their unwanted memories erased. Lucy dreams of one day taking over the family business and removing people’s heartaches just like her father. But when she uncovers a sinister plot that involves her dad and the family business, she begins to question everything she thought she knew about her life, family and the small town she grew up in.
Where did the inspiration for Remember Me Gone come from?
The inspiration for REMEMBER ME GONE came from an episode of True Blood, the HBO series based on The Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. In the episode, someone hires a vampire to erase her husband’s memories in the hopes of curing his PTSD. I started wondering what it might be like to run a memory-taking business and, boom, the idea was born. Sans vampires.
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
I love keeping secrets from readers, so I had a lot of fun sprinkling breadcrumbs throughout the story for the reader and Lucy to discover together. The novel is told in first person present, which allows the reader to experience things with Lucy as they happen. But it also presented a unique challenge—because of the memory-taking, there are moments in the book when the reader knows more than Lucy. Finding the balance between Lucy’s discovery and the reader’s knowledge was tricky. My main tool for ensuring there was the right balance was to have critique partners review and provide feedback. I’m fortunate to have a great group of writer-friends who helped steer me in the right direction when I needed input.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I had a lot of fun leveraging the setting of Tumble Tree. In many ways it was like another character in the book. I grew up in a small town in Texas that, when I was a kid, still had a dirt road leading out of town. But eventually two highways were constructed that cut straight through it, and my hometown became a bustling suburb that could hardly be called small. Years later, I read an article about the fate of towns that were built near highways without exits—they became forgotten and often abandoned unless the town could find a way to lure people to it, either through industry or roadside attractions (world’s largest ball of twine anyone?) This stuck with me—what would have happened if my hometown had been one of the places the highways just went right past, with no exit or ability for people to stop at? Tumble Tree is that imagined town—a place on the edge of extinction that would have been forgotten if not for the Memory House. In fact, the original title for the book was THE FORGOTTEN TOWN.
What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
I’ve been writing on and off since I was a kid, but I didn’t start seriously working towards publication until about ten years ago when I finally finished my first manuscript. Unfortunately that book never really went anywhere, and it took several trunked manuscripts and 100+ rejections before I eventually signed with my agent. Now that I have the beauty of hindsight, I realize those early manuscripts weren’t strong enough for traditional publication. They were more like practice novels that helped set the stage for eventual publication.
After signing with my agent, we did a round of revisions, went on sub and had an offer within two weeks. It sounds easy when I say it like that, but when you count the years of work leading up to that moment, I’d say it was anything but easy. I still get goosebumps whenever I think about the day my agent called me to tell me the news that we had an offer.
What’s next for you?
My next book comes out with Penguin/Viking Books for Young Readers in the back half of 2023. It’s about a girl who sees dark clouds hovering over strangers’ heads when their lives are in danger. But when she saves a boy and causes a tragedy, someone discovers what she can do and wants revenge for her role in what happened. I like to describe it as Karen McManus’s Two Can Keep a Secret meets the classic I Know What You Did Last Summer with a speculative twist.
Lastly, do you have any 2022 book recommendations for our readers?
So many! For fantasy fans, I recently read The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder and Only a Monster by Venssa Len, two recent debuts that I really enjoyed. On the speculative/paranormal front, I loved Ginny Myers Sain’s 2021 debut Dark and Shallow Lies and am looking forward to her sophomore novel SECRETS SO DEEP releasing later this year. And I’m currently reading and loving The Cartographers by Peng Shepard – her debut The Book of M was one of my favorite reads last year.
