We chat with author Vanessa Montalban about her new YA horror These Vengeful Wishes, which follows a vengeful female spirit with a thirst for justice ignites a teen girl’s rage, perfect for fans of She Is a Haunting and House of Hollow.
Hi, Vanessa! Welcome back! How has the past 18 months been since we last spoke?
Hi! Thank you so much for having me back! It’s been a whirlwind after debuting A Tall Dark Trouble. I’ve been to incredible book events, school book festivals, on podcasts, and conferences. It’s been hectic in such a fun way, and my best memories has been meeting readers in person. I also wrote, revised, and am now publishing a new book! A young adult horror fantasy.
With it being the new year, do you have any goals or aspirations for 2025?
For sure, I have big hopes for my author career in 2025. With more news soon to come, and hopefully more books yet to write. My debut year taught me to step out of my comfort zone and embrace the public aspect of this career like public speaking and marketing. I want to keep that going, and also incorporate more self-study into my routine to continuously improve my craft. I’d really love to make this the year I write my first adult book too.
Your latest novel, These Vengeful Wishes, is out February 4th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Atmospheric Southern Gothic Feminine Rage
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect an emotional folklore retelling about a lonely teen girl forced to move to a haunted small town with her self-absorbed mother. The town is afflicted with a vengeful spirit who lurks in the woods luring drunken men to their deaths. After encountering la Cegua’s lair, an underground spring that grants wishes at a cost, Cecilia finds herself falling for la Cegua’s tricks with the promise of everything she’s wanted until the wishes go awry and the people she loves are in danger. Picture the atmosphere of The Secret Garden, the horror level of House of Hollow or Locke & Key, and the genertational family drama of…well, my last book.
Where did the inspiration for These Vengeful Wishes come from?
I’ve been struggling to remember the exact moment inspiration struck, but I think it started with a short story I wrote in college. I was really intrigued by W.W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw” about tampering with wishes or secret desires and feeling the consequences that come with controlling fate. Similar themes from “King Midas and the Golden Touch”, a story which frankly terrified me. I started developing a character that would be desparate enough to mess with fate despite knowing there would be consequences, and Cecilia from These Venegful Wishes arose. But as I developed the story, I was asking myself those probing questions to find all the plot holes, and the main one I kept coming back to was “Where does this magic come from? Why is it vengeful magic?”. I started thinking of folklores then and remembered the story of la Cegua I’d heard growing up. A beautiful ghostly woman who lures men into the woods and petrifies them with her skeletal horse face. Yet that’s the thing about oral stories lost to time (and colonization), it’s really difficult to research where exactly those stories originated. All over Central America, there were different variations of la Cegua’s lore, relegated to a cautionary tale for cheating men and virginal young women. I wanted to give her an entirely different backstory and connect her to a more modern setting. Suffice to say, I loved spending time with the terrifying horse-faced spirit.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Some of my favorite scenes to write involved la Cegua and her backstory. I liked devlving into her character and bringing about meaning and importance to her forgotten history. Though as you read, you can probably tell that I had way too much fun developing the romance between Cecilia and Jamie. Uniting two very different people to solve a town mystery and discover the power and consequences of wish magic together.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I had a lot of elements going when I first started outlining. The wish magic, la Cegua lore, the mother-daughter relationship, the blossoming romance, and the coming-of-age and self discovery the main character undergoes. By the way, this is the first book I’ve ever written where I actually outlined the entire thing first. I knew the ending and all the major plot points, even though some things did change while I drafted and during revisions. The trickiest part was finding a balance to all these elements and making sure they added to one another and drove the story forward. The outline saved me on more than one occasion, so this book really was me trying on the plotter role for size.
Were there any key lessons you learned from your debut that helped with These Vengeful Wishes?
Yes, I learned to outline! My debut, A Tall Dark Trouble, had multiple points-of-views and dual timelines, and I started writing a murder mystery without first knowing who the murderer was supposed to be. As you can imagine, this made things pretty difficult, cause I had no idea how to end it since I hadn’t woven in those details to begin with. The revisions were gnarly. And as I spent countless days and hours wracking my brain over revisions and rewrites, I begged future me to outline. I listened!
What’s next for you?
I have some things cooking! Nothing I can officially announce yet, but I’m so excited about this new project I’m working on in a very similar vein to These Vengeful Wishes. Along with some other fun stuff. My hope is that I keep being able to do what I love for a lot longer.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up in 2025?
So many incredible books coming out! I cannot wait for Ginny Myers Sain’s new YA mystery, When the Bones Sing, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Bewitching, Isabel Cañas’s The Possession of Alba Díaz, Tracy Deonn’s Oathbound, and Rachel Gillig’s The Knight and the Moth. I have a huge TBR!
