Q&A With Emily Carpenter 

I’m so delighted to be doing this Q&A with author of suspense Emily Carpenter! Emily is the author of Burying The Honeysuckle Girls, The Weight of Lies, Every Single Secret, Until The Day I Die, Reviving The Hawthorn Sisters & her new novel I read in December Gothictown is available today on March 25^th! What’s very fascinating is Emily has worked as an actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes soap opera assistant for the CBS shows, As the World Turns and Guiding Light. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. 

Q: Emily, would you give a brief description of each of your novels beginning with your upcoming release Gothictown? 

A: In my past five books I’ve vacillated between more family-based stories that incorporate the ghosts and secrets of a family’s gothic past (Burying the Honeysuckle Girls and Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters, The Weight of Lies) and books that are more straightforward gothic thrillers (Every Single Secret, Until the Day I Die). What they all have in common is a dollop of horror – and by that, I mean, not gore, but just that creeping dread of something that is perhaps not of this world, like a family curse for instance, or a ghostly presence. They’re all Southern – and they all involve a woman at the center who is just a regular person thrust into an extraordinary situation and who must fight her way out of it. 

Q: Where do your ideas for your novels come from? 

A: I don’t really understand it myself! That’s the magic of writing…is how these ideas spark, take hold, and coalesce into something that becomes bigger than the idea itself. For instance, with Gothictown, it all started because back in 2017 I read an article in New York Magazine about this town in southern Italy that was offering villas, castles basically, for free if you committed to investing money in the restoration process – and if you committed to living there for decades. I’d been aware of other US cities trying to attract new citizens with work incentives, but this was over the top. So, gothic. I immediately thought, “Oh, there has GOT to be something scary in that town.” All I had to do was pivot the setting to the South – which is my milieu – and voila! There was my hook. Then, of course, I had to build the characters and everything else. But that was the spark. 

Q: I know for Gothictown you wrote that you used the town you lived in Georgia to create Juliana. I know you used very real history for the story as well. How long did it take you to research & write Gothictown? Was it challenging in any way? I love how you blended mystery, history & horror together to create Gothictown a story that really kept me entranced! 

A: The research I had to do for the book was very specific. Like, I did have to research the gold rush in Georgia and the process of land lotteries and all that. I had to brush up on my Civil War era facts, like Sherman’s path to Atlanta in his march to the sea. I also had originally thought Billie, the main character, would open a bookstore in Juliana or something like that. But as it turned out, during the lockdown, I had started working as a host for my friend who owns a local cafe in town and it was the perfect opportunity to see the inner workings of a restaurant, and I decided that Billie was going to have had a really successful place in Manhattan that she lost during the pandemic…that she really wanted to reopen in Juliana because somehow it felt like unfinished business for her. So, my restaurant research was very hands-on!  

Q: You have worked as an actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes soap opera assistant for the CBS shows, As the World Turns and Guiding Light before becoming an author! Has being a screenwriter & producer helped in writing your books? What were those experiences like?

A: What I learned from working for the soaps was how to keep an audience hooked from day to day – and how to incorporate A plots and B plots and how to create characters that aren’t perfect but that the audience loves. Screenwriting has always informed my fiction writing as well because I tend to see my stories very cinematically in my head. I use Syd Field’s screenwriting template as an outline guide when I first plot out my books. It’s a basic three act structure with turning points, and it helps with pacing and intention, I think, especially for a suspense book that needs to move briskly and with purpose. My books tend to be slow burns – there’s not a million explosions or twists and turns – but I’m always heading toward a plot turn in a very intentional way, as I turn up the heat. 

Q: First off, congratulations on Hollywood getting the tv rights to Gothictown! I can’t wait to see what they do with the tv series & it’s been a while since we’ve had a great horror mystery series on tv! Are you going to be a writer for the show & have they started casting or filming yet? Who would be your dream cast to play the characters in Gothictown? 

A: Thank you! It’s a dream come true for me, for sure, as I am as big a fan of TV and movies as I am of books. I’m not going to be writing on the show, but I am a co-producer, which means I’ll be consulting with the showrunner and other writers for each episode. We haven’t started casting or filming yet, the show is being written now. In terms of cast, it’s funny – I never really had a person in mind as I wrote Billie. I tend to “head cast” side characters more than my main character – I suppose because that main character feels like a true, 100% creation of my own. So, I pictured J. Smith-Cameron as Mayor Dixie Minette. She was Gerri in Succession and played the wonderful Southern mom in Rectify (which is one of my all-time favorite shows). She’s just brilliant. Also, I envisioned Clayne Crawford as Jamie Cleburne. He was in Rectify as well and is from Alabama, so he has got that authentic Southern accent and oozes charm. 

Q: Since we are discussing Hollywood and having the rights to Gothictown, does Hollywood have the rights to the rest of your books?

A: No, all those rights are available at the moment.  

Q: If you are currently writing a new novel now, can you reveal any details?

A: I can! It’s called A SPELL FOR SAINTS AND SINNERS and it’s about a young woman who inherits her grandmother’s psychic business and old townhome in Savannah, Georgia. She is struggling financially to keep it all going until one day when she does a spot-on reading for a bride-to-be from a very wealthy local family. She’s subsequently drawn deep into their lives…as well as way too close to their dangerous secrets.  

Q: What’s it like having The Weight of Lies receiving starred reviews by both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly & Publishers Weekly & Kirkus Reviews calling The Hawthorne Sisters “refreshingly modern gothic tale” & “an exciting, gothic-tinged quest.”? It sounds like such an honor & dream come true! 

A: Oh, I was over the moon! It’s most important for me to really connect with readers, as I really want them to love the books I write, but honestly, it’s always nice to get good notices from trade reviews as well. It’s the whole package. Maybe it’s something left over from our grade school days. We all like a star beside our name!