Bookwild - History, Horror, and Identity: L.S. Stratton's Sundown Girls

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

This week, I talk with L.S. Stratton about the her new YA mystery thriller Sundown Girls. Stratton discusses how the story began as an adult novel and transformed into YA once she shifted the perspective to a sixteen-year-old protagonist, allowing the narrative to flow more naturally.She shares the real-world inspiration behind the book, including historical sundown towns, racial violence, and real kidnapping cases, and how these histories shaped both the setting and Naomi’s identity as a formerly missing girl.We discuss her use of themes of belonging, family reunification, generational trauma, and racism—particularly how uncertainty, gaslighting, and “is this real or am I imagining it?” in the book mirror lived experiences of racism. She also dive into blending supernatural elements with psychological tension, the challenges of writing historical horror, the importance of family dynamics and emotional pacing in thrillers, and the decision to leave some questions—especially around Naomi’s kidnapped childhood—unresolved as part of her growth.Follow L.S. Stratton hereSundown Girls SynopsisWhen sixteen-year-old Naomi Stoakes and her family head to a secluded cabin in the Shenandoah Valley for summer vacation they don’t know the small, mountainous town of Sparksburg, Virginia has a dark and twisted past. But when they arrive, Naomi can’t shake the feeling that something about Sparksburg just isn’t right. When she learns Sparksburg had once been a Sundown Town—a town where Blacks weren’t allowed after sunset lest they be murdered—well Naomi’s unease starts to make sense.As Naomi digs more into Sparksburg’s violent origins, she finds herself haunted by the ghost of a girl, appearing nightly outside her window. Then she learns of two girls who’ve recently gone missing and suspects the past may still be present in Sparksburg and beneath the quaint façade of this tourist town is a palpable danger.When Naomi decides to track the disappearance of the two girls herself and confronts the ghost of another, she become suspicious of a local man who has kindled fear in Naomi more than once. When she learns he has a connection to one of the missing girls, Naomi is certain he’s responsible for the disappearances.When no one believes her, Naomi takes matters into her own hands. But to save the missing girls, she’ll have to finally face her own past trauma as a “missing girl”, and risk losing everything she loves. Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba 

This week I got to talk with Ella Stratton again, this time about her new YA mystery thriller Sundown Girls. But you may also remember her from being on the podcast back in August of 2025 for In Deadly Company, which is very fun. So if you want to go listen to that episode, you can as well. But Sundown Girls is her first YA, and she manages to weave in some historical and present themes to it. So this is what it's about. When 16-year-old Naomi Stokes and her family head to a secluded cabin in the Shenandoah Valley for summer vacation, they don't know the small mountainous town of Sparksburg, Virginia has a dark and twisted past. But when they arrive, Naomi can't shake the feeling that something about Sparksburg just isn't right.

When she learned Sparksburg had once been a sundown town, a town where blacks weren't allowed after sunset lest they be murdered, Naomi's unease starts to make sense. As Naomi digs more into Sparksburg's violent origins, she finds herself haunted by the ghost of a girl, appearing nightly outside her window. Then she learns of two girls who've recently gone missing and suspects the past may still be present in Sparksburg, and beneath the quaint facade of this tourist town is a palpable danger. When Naomi decides to track the disappearance of the two girls herself and confronts the ghost of another,

she becomes suspicious of a local man who has kindled fear Naomi more than once. When she learned he has a connection to one of the missing girls, Naomi is certain he's responsible for the disappearances. When no one believes her, Naomi takes matters into her own hands. But to save the missing girl, she'll have to finally face her own past trauma as a missing girl and risk losing everything she loves. This is fantastic. You guys know I don't read tons of YA, but there is some that really works for me. This is a really good example of one that worked for me.

I really enjoyed it. The ending is very action-packed and a little bit wild. so prepare yourself for that but that being said let's hear from ls stratton so i am so excited to talk with ls stratton again you are just pumping out the books like was it august last time i think so yeah yeah i thought that was a summer one so um yeah this one this one is kind of a little bit new for you It's Y.A. But I feel like it also has a lot of your signature suspense and thriller elements that we've all come to love too. So I'm excited to dive into Sundown Girls.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Yeah. So I always wonder, especially when authors kind of like shift genres, which is not a total shift just because it's YA. but did you approach it because you kind of wanted to write a YAA novel or is it kind of like this was the idea that came to you and it happened to be YA? Well, actually this story was originally meant to be an adult story. I had tried YA in the past and I was basically told like, I don't know if you really have

the voice for this. So the way the story was originally written, I was telling you. it from the perspective of a woman who was visiting a town and she was getting a lot of flashbacks to her past of what happened to her when she was a teenager. And so the rule of writing, if Moses's story is happening in the past, then that is where your story is. So I thought, like, rather than to keep doing flashbacks, I basically would have to tell it from the perspective of a six-year-old girl, which was incredibly intimidating to me because like I said, I didn't really know if I had the voice for YA, but I didn't want to keep trying to beat the story into something it didn't want to beat. So I said, okay, I'll take the sleep of faith.

And basically once I switched to telling the story from the perspective of the 16-year-old Naomi Cameron, the story started to flow a lot faster. the characters were shaping up faster. It became more vivid. And so I said, and I sent, like, just a couple of chapters to my agent to say, like, how does it, how does it seem so far? She was like, it's great. Keep going. Keep going.

So I said, all right. Okay. So I will follow this through to the end. And the final product is the Sundown Girls. That's awesome. And it's so fascinating to me. Just like the different ways stories, like, come to people and, like, present them. and then like even then sometimes you pivot with it.

Yeah. The other element, one of the prominent elements in the story, is that Naomi or Cameron, the reason she has kind of two names. Two names. Yeah. Is that she was kidnapped when she was a baby. And now she has been returned to this family that like, of course, you spend 15 years growing up somewhere else.

The family doesn't feel like her family. but they are her like biological family so and i don't want to get into spoilers but it ends up working so well for also the rest of the story arc that that's like part of her identities so how did that kind of come together for you well i had heard a story that was very similar that happened actually in real life about a girl who was kidnapped um by i think it was her the nurse when was born. And she was raised by this woman and eventually she was reunited. But her experience is much like Naomi's and that it wasn't this great grand like, oh, I missed you my whole life. It's so wonderful to be around you. And it, from what I understand, caused a lot and a tremendous

amount of friction in their family to the point that I think they actually ended up severing ties actually after she was reunited. So I wanted to take that story, but take it hopefully in a more positive direction. And I do think, like you said, it's very realistic that even though she's reunited with her family and they're so happy, like, to get their daughter back, she doesn't know these people. She knows that she's genetically related to them. She knows that they missed her. But for her, she's like, that was my mom. That was the woman who raised me.

that was the woman who took care of me. And even though that woman is a villain to them, this is the caring, nurturing mother that she knew her entire life. And so she's trying to reconcile like the reality of, yeah, she was carrying and nurturing. She was still your kidnapper. And these are the people who really are your family. But of course, there's this cognitive dissonance that she's like, I want to love them. I want to bond with them.

But I don't know these people. And that's like the springboard for the trip of why they end up going to this little town in the Shenandoah Valley because they're trying to bond. The therapist suggests like you guys need mutual territory. It's obvious she fills out of place in your home. So maybe if you take a vacation together that none of you have been to, this is your chance to bond. Unfortunately, her family did not choose. In retrospect, the best. place to do that but like that when it comes to the story it all makes sense in the end why she's there

yeah unfortunately they didn't know they were in a thriller book which is the case i always love with characters that people are like they should have known it's like how would they know right with their starring it so yeah so they're like yeah this will be a family body vacation it's like okay well no we didn't know the town had that background before we went there but yeah right Right. Yeah. So it is in the title, Sundown Girls. They do, or Naomi is the one who really starts to realize that they are staying in what used to be a sundown town, which is this concept that, again, it like blows my mind every time I read stories like this. And it's like, this was still happening in the 1950s to the 1950s to the 1970s. Like, I think that in 1970 something was one of the dates referenced, but for people who don't know a sundown town, it's essentially where like once the sun goes down, like if you're not white, but more importantly, if you're black, you should not be in the town anymore. Because of racism and violence and hatred and all of all of that stuff. So was that kind of part of the central idea that kind of came to you that you kind of wanted to. to write a thriller in that atmosphere.

Yeah. I had always wanted to write because of course, like the idea of the sundown like you said, it's just so mind-growing. I had always wanted to write a story about it. I just had to wait for the right story. Like you have a concept, but you're like, I know it's there, but I have to wait for all the elements to fall into place. And when I thought of the story for Naomi, I'm like, okay,

I think I can see the themes. I can see the consistency. I can see how this could relate to her on a personal level, not just because she's a black teenager, but the theme of like people going missing, which this town, the fictional town of Sparks for Virginia, is known for that, that it has that tragic history

and that the people who were caught in town after dark disappeared. And so her having her past as a mission, missing girl it relating to these missing people and I'm like yes I've got it now we can all come together and then that's the story flows from there yeah I think it it gives her such a like there's there's such a reason that she's like not going to let it go like maybe everyone else in her family even though they've kind of been through the same experience technically yeah yeah for her she's like I I'm assuming it's never said explicitly but you're kind of like I wish someone like cared when I went missing or could have done something.

Yeah. And I think she relates to it definitely a lot more personally because she understands what it likes to be in limbo because she's still in limbo, even though she's been found by her family. She even says, like, I feel like I don't belong anywhere. I can't go back to my mom because her mom's in jail. I'm with these people and she refers to them like most of the books. She refers to them like they're another family.

She used their last name. She loses their first name. She, she, it feels weird to call them mom and dad. And so she was like, I don't feel like I belong here. So I'm just floating like a ghost. I'm not, I'm not a real person. And I don't have a real identity. So that's how she relates to this place.

She relates to all the lost souls that are populating it because she feels like I'm that too. Yes. Yeah. So you mentioned ghosts. Well, you mentioned her feeling like a ghost a little bit. But she also is maybe seeing ghosts. Like she's seeing things that other people aren't seeing.

And the town smells terrible to her. Yeah. Just to her. She has these like two experiences that like no one else is having. So it kind of like is like blending kind of like historical horror almost into it. So how did you, yeah, how did you kind of approach those elements? Well, I knew she wanted to see ghosts, but the idea of the smell actually didn't start coming until edits. That I wanted something that would just give a hint ahead of time before she starts to see the ghost, that something's off.

And it's also, okay, the reality I think in what she's experiencing is that she's also questioning her standard. It's like, okay, if I'm the only one experiencing this, is something wrong with me? Like, I keep telling people and they're looking at me like I'm crazy. And to me, sometimes, even with the reality of racism, is that it can be very relative and that you're like, is this all in my head and I'm just being hypersensitive to it? Or is this really an aggression or microaggression that's really happening? I didn't even draw that. Yeah.

That's such a good point. Yeah. So for she even like when she's seeing things in town that she's like, this is all. It's not even just the ghosts. It's like other things, the way people are treating them. Like that she's like, am I just being hypersensitive to this or is this really happening? And to me it's those same experiences that that it's like, like, like is it in my head or is it real? And I wanted something that, like, is the, yeah, it's part of speculative fiction to see ghosts.

But it's, like I said, it's also the experience of racism that you're like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what's being perceived versus what's really happening. Yeah. Yeah. I do think, too, what you were talking about earlier, it's when there is some of that, like, emotional grounding for the character, it's, What I was randomly noticing this in The Beast in Me is a show on Netflix that I watched here recently. And it kind of did a similar thing where it's like the main character, like it is a thriller, but there's so much emotional work similar to kind of what you're saying, where you're also like, well, is she just kind of really sensitive? Because this violent thing happened to her. Like, is she wrong? And it kind of makes that tension feel like real and earned in thriller.

So I've really been liking that where like people do take the time to create a character where you're kind of like, well, I do know she has all of this going on. So like, I guess I'm not even sure what's happening. It does like add to it. And I like those stories better. I like the ones that make you question your perception as a reader as well. Because to me, it immerses you into the viewpoint of the character because you're like, okay, am I being led in this one direction?

but is that really what's happening? And I find those stories much more interesting than the straightforward, like, slasher, everything is happening. Yes, this is real ghosts. They're stalking out. Yeah. But that's just my personal, I think. I think sometimes that's easier in, like, a movie form, maybe, like, if you're just

wanting something kind of easily digestible, because you're only spending, like, an hour and a half with, like, a book, you're spending, like, eight plus hours. like you kind of want to feel connected yeah yeah and it was like if you you want to go on a journey that if i'm going to invest all this time i want to feel like i am i'm in this that i want to feel the fear and the confusion that they're feeling too totally yeah yeah yeah it gets it gets scary um what was the other thing that was i was just thinking of It might have completely left me. But the family dynamics, you kind of talked about them, are really complicated, but it's also a good, like the story is also an arc about them kind of even growing as a family too.

So was that something kind of from the beginning you knew you wanted to have be part of it? I knew I definitely wanted it there. And it was actually kind of a back and forth with my editor in that we were like, when it comes to thrillers or horror in particular, pacing is incredibly important. So you know when you're taking the time to develop these relationships and these emotional moments between the characters, you're slowing down the pace. But for me, the tradeoff was more important because I wanted it to be a bigger story. it's not just about the thrill and the chills. It's also about her fighting, like, a sense of belonging and a sense of place and how even the adults in her life are having to grow as people because of this experience.

And in order to do that, you have to develop the characters. You have to show who they are as people and you have to show the transition of the relationship and the moments that would slow down the pace. but to me are important to give the story more depth. Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah. The, I finally remember my other question. So it takes place in Appalachia.

And I know that's probably like somewhat because like we've got to get kind of into the south to get to sundown towns in most cases. But it was also making me think of when when ICE recently. went to that area, they were getting scared in the woods, basically. And there's a lot of lore in that area with like ghosts and like all like all kinds of things. And it was kind of making me think of that. I was like, this is kind of like that setting. Because then I was of course in a whole TikTok feed like seeing all the creepy stuff that people feel like happens there. So was that was that intentional too for the location. Well, I would say, and to be honest, Appalachia, because it was a mountainous area, it didn't

have a tremendous amount of slavery. So it didn't have a lot of sundown towns, to be honest. But, but like you said, because of the lore, because of the place, because of the spookiness of the hollow and the, I guess it's also a regional like Bigfoot is like very, like, very popular around there that it the wildness of it is born to a lot of people and it's for people who are especially for my area the D.C. area to just be able to drive there and be dropped into this. It's very disconcerting. And so for me, I wanted that feeling of people who are like from the suburb and they they're like, oh, we're used to having like the mall just.

like, within a 15-minute drive. And now you're in this complete isolation and darkness and you're just surrounded by nothing. And just for me, from the perspective of like a city dweller or suburbanite, it's like that's terrifying to just be that isolated. And it becomes the fodder for imagination of what's out there. Like what are in those dark trees? And so, yeah, I thought it, the images could go.

go crazy. Like the imagination, the reader's imagination could do a lot more than I can do it. True. Yeah. I just talked with John Fram about, he had a book just come out called The Midnight Knock. And he was, he said something kind of similar because when he was driving through just like the like big open spaces of Texas one time, he like stayed at a motel off the road and was like, he was like overwhelmed thinking of like how much nothingness. was like all around him. And I did not know about the concept of open, I think he called it open air claustrophobia,

but it's like, because there's like nothing important near you, even though it's actually vast and open. It's kind of the same feeling because you feel like, I don't even want to walk out of this room. Like I don't know what's happening out there. No, exactly. It's like you,

it's the great beyond. It's like walking on the moon. It's like anything could be in that space. And I'm alone. I'm completely alone out there. Yeah. Yeah. It was it's so freaky when you like actually think about it. I'm definitely Yeah. I'm not in a big city, but I am a suburbs girl like I have access to everything pretty close to. Um, the so what was my follow up questions about? I keep forgetting things lately this week. Were there, I'm assuming, like, you did some research to kind of, like, create the town and all of it.

Did you visit anywhere near there or just kind of do other research? I did other research. I've been to, I've been into the mountainous areas of western Maryland. So I know what it's like to be out in the mountains, but not that particular region. So I had some experience facially of what it was like, but yes, I had to do research. And so, like I said, what the towns were like, even, like, downloading videos of accents from the Shenandoah Valley. And my husband's family, actually, is from that area. Originally, they're from, like, the central area of Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

So, like, his family has experience being from that region as well. So, yeah, I definitely had to, it wasn't a tremendous amount of research because I always feel like, if you do too much, it can bog down the story. But I wanted to have at least, like, some passing knowledge of what that place would be like. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Was there, I think we talked about it. last time when we were talking about how in Deadly Company was kind of like a breath of fresh air

after writing this one since it was so heavy. Yeah. Yeah. Were there specific scenes that were more difficult to write or like what was it like writing about basically historical horrors and present ones? Yeah. I think writing one about the past of the town. That was very hard.

And I wanted to make it believable. So I tell the story from the, she's like she's reading a book from the perspective of a scholar from the University of Virginia who supposedly researched the town of Sparkford to the point that my editor was like, did you lift this from other texts? I'm like, no, I completely had to make it up. But yeah, but I, but going into that darkness was hard. And what's worse to me, actually, about it is that as dark as I got, I still could not equal the story that I had to read about to research it. About, like, Wilmington, North Carolina, the massacre that had from there, the massacres that happened in Georgia. And even though, fictually, I went to some dark places, real life has gone darker. So for me to have to take those stories, try to adapt them, and basically replay them,

but put it in the context of this town, that was hard. Another hard scene was when, I don't want to give away, but when she is in a situation again and she is trying her best to help those around her and she figures out what what really happened yeah um to them and so that was i wanted a twist but i knew i was like oh that was one that's going to be hard to rate um when she discovers this so yeah um that was another hard part of the world yeah were there any characters that surprised you like that were like more fun to write than you thought or or like they kind of came up later

if it doesn't spoil anything. Well, I really like to write her, the character, Khalil, her boyfriend, who kind of balances her out because she feels so isolated and he is finally, for once she finds somebody that she can connect with. And he tries his best to be, even though he's the same age,

basically the same age as her. I think I've made him like 18 maybe. that he tries his best to be the voice of reason and he keeps getting dragged into situations because of her he was a fun character to write because he was a lot more level-headed and it was someone she could play off of

that she wasn't just in her head the entire story yeah and his family was fun yeah I loved his family Uncle Otis was fun to write yes Yeah. And his, was it Nana? Is that what he called? Yeah. His grandma too, or, yeah. Yeah. She's his great grandmother, but he calls her Nana. She was, she was a cute character as well. And she, to me,

it's like, I always try to have, like, a character that I feel is, like, maybe like the spiritual center or the one that, for the reader that lets them know, like, okay, everything's going to be okay. I'm taking you to some dark places that everything's going to be okay. And I think Nana is that character. Yeah. Yeah. She's like been through some stuff. Oh, absolutely.

Still has some of her own joy in the present. Exactly. Exactly. With the other things since I was thinking about families, so she, Naomi basically has like two new siblings after like having no siblings. And I liked that you, I know, you kind of talked about it a little bit, but I liked that it wasn't just like, oh, my family and everything is so easy. Like when you're when you're all like, I don't know if like was the teenager quite yet, probably preteen. But when you've all had that lives so separate, it's not like you're all of a sudden going to be super nice to each other.

So is that kind of like really intentional with those siblings too? because then we kind of get the arc of that relationship happening but not like really quickly. Exactly. When I was younger, I had my own experience with my aunt passed away. And I was a teenager and my cousin, my parents basically took her in. And it's like, okay, accepted her as her daughter. Both of us are grown up as only children. Wow.

So even though I knew, I knew that she. she had gone through a tremendous amount of trauma. And even though she knew like, hey, my aunt and uncle loved me, it was still very hard for us to adapt of having to share a space and to get used to each other. So I wanted to show that relationship with Naomi and her older sister, Maya, that those two haven't seen each other since Naomi was 10 months old and Maya was two. And so even though Maya kind of makes a half-hard effort to like try to bring her in, but when she sees she doesn't respond, she's like, whatever, forget her.

And which to me is a very teenage girl reaction. And so it evolves from forget her to those two are now openly hostile to each other, that Maya feels like that Naomi is ungrateful. she's encroaching on their space that she doesn't want to be part of the family and yet the kids are forced to adapt to basically someone who's essentially a stranger and Naomi feels frustrated

because she was like, I don't even want to be here and now I have to deal with this girl she has a slightly better relationship with her little brother but I think it's probably different for Blake too because he has no real history it's just he has now he has just he had in one annoying older sister now he has too from his perspective so he's much better at adapting and his relationship is much better with Naomi than Maya.

Right. Maya is and Maya and Naomi have to go through a lot in order by the end of the book in order to feel like sisters to each other. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's different too when it's like like the same gender. as well and you're so close in age like yeah it feels more like you're kind of competing for resources or attention or like like blake's just like a little boy still kind of yeah yeah and it

i think like i said he's just he's kind of a chill little boy for the most part and maya is definitely i think like she was used to being the queen bee of the family yeah um the princess and now she has this new girl or her sister come back um in then he doesn't like it at all yeah yeah can i ask you some spoiler questions if we uh warn yeah okay sure so you kind of uh touched on it like when she so eventually Naomi is uh kidnapped as well essentially uh no that is the right term for it um yeah and so then she's down in basically someone's basement and she's talking to the girl she was looking for who's name I can't think Andrea? It was like Andrea was an A name, right? Yeah. And Ellie? And I can't ever, yeah. Yeah. So and then she ends up realizing that they were ghosts. I'm assuming

that was kind of what you were talking about as well. So like when did that like idea come to you? like how did you approach that? I knew I wanted them to be ghosts in the beginning. Oh, nice. And because like part of it is like they're the lost girls too is that and they and I felt like, oh, okay, that could be a twist that the reader is like she's spending all this time and effort trying to track these girls down and she feels like like I can finally have my own redemption arc.

if I can rescue these girls and bring them home. And she ends up getting there and they're already gone. And so I was like, that to me would be the moment where she could finally have her realization. It's like, I'm not going to get this redemption art. This is just who I am. This is my story and I have to come to terms with it. I don't want to die down here.

I don't want to forever be. a missing girl. And so that's when she realizes that, okay, I got to get out of here. And the girls, the ghosts basically decide we got to help you get

out of here too. And what is her name? I can't, Amy, maybe that's her name. That she, I can't remember. She's, yeah, she was like, I die in the wrong zip coat. I am not going to be stuck here

for all eternity. I refuse. I refuse. I am getting out of here. And so they realized the only way that they could possibly get out is to help her out. And so that's when she's like, they were like, okay, we're dead, but we're going to find a way to get you out of here. We're going to find a way to get you out of here. Yeah. And then she obviously, she does escape and kills Liam, who was the, like, captor. But there's kind of like an illusion to like it seemed like someone kind of like possessed him almost or overtook him. And then she kind of references it again in the epilogue. And it was making me wonder like was that kind of an illusion to like was he maybe possessed by like. Reverend Meacham? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I wanted to, I basically was trying to say like Sparksburg is a place to keep its locked in its past. It's trying to be brand. It's trying to start it over again. But you can't, if you don't acknowledge what you are and what you did. And so the Liam is so overcome by grief and anger and hatred by outsiders that this spirit. both metaphorically and literally starts to take him over. And his cousin could, or his, I don't want to say it,

but that person could have stopped him but chose not to. And she could see that it was getting worse and worse and worse. But that, like I said, it was a metaphorical hatred that was taking over in a literal. that he was basically pulling something in. And so, but they were like this whole town, like, it's something here. It's just, it's stuck. But the reason why it's stuck is because it won't make a tone for the past. It won't admit what it did.

So, yeah. Yeah, you can't move forward when it's just whitewashing. Exactly. Essentially. Yeah. Essentially. I know. Were you snuck in when you were talking about.

about the rebrand. I had a highlight and I was like, oh, yeah, you even like make something about how the town can be great again. I was like, oh, yeah. No. And that's what the family is like, oh. Yeah. The parents are even like getting uncomfortable. They were like, did he just say what I think he said? He was like, yeah. He said it. Yeah. He did. Yeah. The only other thing, It's in spoiler territory is so her mom that was like the only that it ends with her kind of like going to the prison. I'm assuming to maybe go talk to her more. Were you ever like tempted to like kind of dive into the like why she was kidnapped like or really dive into the mom the relationship there or were you kind of like it's there but I don't need to like explain it all. I think I want it for it to be there.

but she can't because even if her mom gives her an explanation. Right. It's not a legitimate explanation for what you did. Right. She is just like, I was ripped away from one family and then I was ripped away from my mother. I need this just to at least say, I acknowledge what you did. I'm ready to move on and I want you to know that I'm moving. on that it's not a question mark anymore.

I know who I am. I've accepted what you did. In some ways, I forgive you and I'm ready to move on. Yeah. And her parents are like, I'm not ready to forgive her, but we love you or not that we accept that this is what you need to do to be who you want to be. And when I was talking to my agent about it, she was like, as a a parent, it's incredibly profound to be able to accept your child for who they are and say that

whatever you want to be or whatever you need, I'm here for you. And her parents through the course of the book had to come to that point. Yeah. That to be like, I personally still hate this woman. She ripped almost could have like completely ripped our family apart and she caused so much pain. But I acknowledge who she is to you. And if this is what you need to do, we are fully supportive of it. Yeah. And that's how they show their love for her, that they're like, I'm willing to, I'm willing to let you do and be what you need to be in order to be happy.

Yeah. Yeah. That is, like, actual unconditional love. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it's a little complicated because at least from my interpretation of it, it's also like it wasn't like her mom or whoever took her. It's not like she was abusive to her in like day to day.

So like that I feel like that would make it so conflicting too where you're like I lived with this person. I understand she like kidnapped me but also like yeah she was nice to me for the most. Yeah. It was like she was loving protective. She educated me. And they, she acknowledges or at least the family is like, but she also isolated too. she cuts you away from other kids

she that that wasn't something that was completely selfless right she understands why her mother did it was like well if you kidnap a child you can't exactly enroll them in the public school system but from their perspective

they're like she still in her own way kind of abused you because she didn't allow you to fully be who you needed to be and so But I think they acknowledge, like, we're not going to make that same mistake that your mother made. Right. We can't hold you back.

So, so, yeah. Yeah, it's more that covert abuse that, like, you're not going to be aware of until you're, like, out of the situation. Exactly. Well, I loved it, obviously. So people need to go buy it and read it or listen to it, do whatever. I do always ask, but it's been a short time since we talked last. But are there any books that you've loved recently or just like books that you always recommend? Well, I just started meeting Last Chance Live.

This is a YA by Helen Haywood, Henry. It's about a girl who's on death row. and in order to get off of Defero, she has to basically compete in a TV show with other kids. Whoa. Yeah. So that just recently came out. Two books that I'm looking forward to that I already have pre-ordered, Dead First by Johnny Compton. I read the Spite House by him.

It's a horror book. And I thought it was really good. So I'm looking forward to this one. I'm also looking forward to the arcane inheritance by Camila Cole. I don't normally go for dark academia, but I'm willing to try it for her. I haven't been in a dark academia since the magicians, the magicians series. But I'm always game. As you know, I try everything.

So I'm always games for something different. So I'm excited to read her book. Those all sound really good. I love Dark Academia. Yeah. Yeah, it comes out on the 30th. Nice. December the 30th.

Oh my gosh. I love that. Yeah, you kind of write everything, too. Like I read your thrillers, but you read and write all the genres. Well, and for me, it's kind of like, like I said, if the story wants to go a certain direction. Yeah. I feel weird saying like, no, you need to be this or saying like, well, I just can't write that. Because I'm like, if you never know, you never know, because like I said, I thought I didn't have the YA voice and I guess it just wasn't the right story that I was writing when I tried YA the first time.

So, yeah, I think keep an open mind. I would say that for your reading and your writing, if possible. Yes. You never know where the journey will take you. I know. My friend Gare and I were just talking about that because like I, two years ago, I would have told you I would never read historical fiction and I didn't read much horror. And then this year I read so much historical horror and historical horror. Yeah. I went all in this year.

Yeah, it's fun to try stuff. It makes it more, yeah, especially when you're reading for a long period of your life, which I expect to read for the rest of my life. Like, eventually you're like, let's try something new. Yeah. I would greatly encourage it. Yes. Well, everyone should go grab this one for sure. And thanks for being on. I can't wait to see what you do next. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me again.