Today’s guest blog is by Hester Young who holds a Master’s
degree in English with a Creative Writing concentration from the University of
Hawaii at Manoa. Before turning to writing full time, she worked as a teacher
in Arizona and New Hampshire. The Gates
of Evangeline is the first book in the Charlie Cates trilogy. More information about Hester Young and her
books can be found on her website.
I knew, when I first began the novel that became The Gates of Evangeline, that I would
walk a twisty path. Those are the books I most love reading, after all: the
kind that string me along into the wee hours of the morning with the promise of
answers and the possibility of surprise.
And yet as I began to write, I also knew that clever plot
twists, no matter how artfully done, do not in themselves make a book great. If
plot is the only thing that keeps a reader engaged, then that reader will lose
interest the moment he or she works out where things are going.
All savvy readers of crime fiction have been there. You
pick up a book with a jacket that boasts of a startling ending and, as you
immerse yourself, you perform a series of mental calculations. When you’ve read
enough genre fiction, you notice all the breadcrumbs an author is laying out.
You work out all the possible paths and narrow it down.
Sometimes the twists aren’t all that surprising. Sometimes
you’re disappointed.
I read many mysteries and thrillers, but when I consider
my favourite works, it’s not the element of the unexpected that ultimately makes
me fall in love with a book. Tana French, one of my favourite authors, typically
reveals the villain about 3/4 of the way through, and yet that final quarter of
her book remains the most riveting. Why? Because of her dynamic and
thought-provoking characters. Gone Girl, similarly, would not be a
masterpiece without the mesmerising Amy at its core.
For me, the best suspense comes from my relationship with
the book’s characters. The heart of a great mystery lies not in what a character
does but in why she does it.
The Gates of Evangeline centers around the
thirty-year-old mystery of a missing child, but it is Charlie’s struggle to
move forward after a devastating loss that really drives the story. It is her
relationships with the other characters that create suspense.
In short, I tried to write the kind of book I love to
read: a book about people, with a twist.
The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young
When grieving mother and New York journalist Charlie Cates
begins to experience vivid
dreams about children after her only son passes
away, she’s sure that she’s lost her mind. Yet she soon realizes these are not
the hallucinations of a bereaved mother. They are messages and warnings that
will help Charlie and the children she sees—if she can make sense of them. The disturbing images lead her from her home
in suburban New York City to small-town Louisiana, where she takes a commission
to write a true-crime book based on the case of Gabriel Deveau, the young heir
to a wealthy and infamous Southern family, whose kidnapping thirty years ago
has never been solved. There she meets the Deveau family, none of whom are
telling the full truth about the night Gabriel disappeared. And as she uncovers
long-buried secrets of love, money, betrayal, and murder, the facts begin to
implicate those she most wants to trust—and her visions reveal an evil closer
than she could have imagined.
The Gates of Evangeline is out now (£16.99 HB, Macmillan)
You can also find her on Facebook and follow her on
Twitter @HesterAuthor
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