Interrogation Room #41: Janie Chodosh, author of DEATH SPIRAL

Janie Chodosh, YA mystery author

We have an exciting double debut here at the Sleuths, Spies & Alibis Interrogation Room today! A new author, and a new YA publishing imprint!

Janie Chodosh is the author of the YA mystery DEATH SPIRAL: A FAITH FLORES SCIENCE MYSTERY, which releases tomorrow, April 1. (Yes, we know it's April Fool's Day, but we're serious!) This is Janie's debut novel, and will be the first in a three-part series.  

DEATH SPIRAL also kicks off a new YA publishing imprint, The Poisoned Pencil, which is dedicated to YA mystery. (woo hoo!) You can find out about other forthcoming Poisoned Pencil books here and follow them on Twitter at @PoisonedPencil.

Publisher's Weekly has this to say about DEATH SPIRAL: "Sharp characterization and deft descriptions make this a solid addition to the amateur detective shelf." High praise! Intrigued? We were! Here's a bit more about the first book in this exciting new series:

Life is tough when you have a junkie for a mom. But when sixteen-year-old Faith Flores—scientist wannabe, loner, new girl in town—finds her mom dead on the bathroom floor, she refuses to believe her mom really OD'd. But the cops have closed the case and her Aunt T, with whom she now lives in the Philly ‘burbs, wants Faith to let go and move on.

But a note from Melinda, her mom's junkie friend, leads Faith to a seedy downtown methadone clinic. Were her mom and Melinda trying to get clean?

When Melinda dies of an overdose, Faith tracks down the scientists behind the trial running at the methadone clinic. Soon she's cutting school and lying to everyone—her aunt, her best friend, even the cops. Everyone, that is,  except the strangely alluring Jesse, who believes the “real” education's on the street and whose in-your-face honesty threatens to invade Faith's self-imposed “no-dating” rule. A drug-dealer named Rat-Catcher warns Faith to back off, but it doesn't stop Faith from confronting a genetics professor with a guilty conscience. When the medical examiner's body winds up in the Schuylkill River, Faith realizes if she doesn't act fast, she may be the next body in the morgue. Can Faith stop this deal gone bad from taking a sharp turn for the worse?

And now, Janie Chodosh faces our panel! (We'll go a bit easy on her today, since she's new!)

What was the original seed of the novel? Did you know from the outset that you were going to be writing a mystery?

The original seed for DEATH SPIRAL came from watching a documentary about the human genome project and about the decoding of our DNA—three billion pairs of A’s, C’s, T’s and G’s, and some thirty thousand genes. The knowledge of our inner biological workings seemed to me a Pandora’s box of medical and ethical questions perfect for fiction. When I watched the documentary, scientists were able to patent genes they discovered. (The Supreme Court has since ruled against this patenting of genes). My sinister (though I prefer to say imaginative) mind went crazy. I sat down right away and started brainstorming. If scientists could patent genes could they not hide information? Take advantage of a captive population? Science and medicine for profit, holding scientific information captive. All of these ideas intrigued me.

As young adult mysteries go, you’re a long way from Nancy Drew! Can you describe the process of writing about such topics for teens? Do you consciously tone down for your intended audience? Why or why not?

Teens, especially the upper teenage audience, are completely on board for real life topics and real life debates. I see the mystery of DEATH SPIRAL as one involving justice and ethics, and justice and ethics are topics that teenagers are very interested in. In this regard, I do not tone anything down. Today’s teens have so much to deal with, so much information, and they are exposed to so much. While I don’t write anything that I would consider graphic, be it sex or violence, I stay true to what I imagine Faith, my protagonist, an urban, 16-year-old who was raised by a junkie mother and no father, would experience. If that means swearing, then she swears. I always ask myself if what I am writing is authentic. If not, I delete. One topic I have thought a lot about is sex in a young adult novel. Should it be there or not?  In the myriad YA novels I’ve read, intimate relationships are almost always explored. This does not mean characters are sexually active, but sexuality and intimacy play a part of their growing identity. Since The Poisoned Pencil Press is geared to the older YA reader, I really felt that sex needed to be addressed. Whether they are sexually active or not, teenagers are curious and exploring this aspect of their lives.

What do you find to be the hardest part about writing mystery novels for a younger audience? Did you face any particular challenges, and if so, how did you overcome it?

Many of today’s teen readers want to be entertained, but they also want to be challenged and engaged. How do you accomplish this as a writer? Teens are smart readers, so how do you write a mystery that will hook, engage, entertain, not condescend, not be solvable by page ten, and make them read to the end? These things, for me, are all part of the joy and the challenge or writing a YA mystery. As I write, I’m not conscious of each of these things. I’m conscious of telling a good story with authentic characters. If I stay true to Faith and Jesse (Faith’s love interest) and their quirks and insecurities, and if I imagine my own quirks and insecurities as a teenager (and there were many) then I know I’m doing my job.

As far as the mystery of DEATH SPIRAL is concerned, writing about a teenage sleuth in a scientific mystery, where understanding the science is critical to understanding the book, I had to be careful to explain the science in a way that was not “boring” or didactic. One way I address this is to have Faith and Jesse learn the science together and talk about what they’re learning. This way I can use their voices, their language, and their way of processing, to make the concepts clear. Another challenge in a YA mystery is thinking about what tools teens have available to them. For example, can they drive? Do they have a curfew? Do they have to skip school to investigate a clue? These are things we as adults don’t have to think about.

We understand you have a strong interest in science. How did that interest influence your writing of the book?

To begin with I love natural history. I am an avid bird watcher, which even to me sounds geeky when it’s written down! But I love the outdoors and nature, so that interest always appears in my writing. Even if a character is squeamish in the outdoors; I always acknowledge the presence of the natural world. In terms of a mystery, my husband is a PhD geneticist. Some of the things happening today in what is called personal genomic medicine seem like fiction, maybe even science fiction. I love talking to him about the projects he is working on, and I know from my years as a middle school biology teacher, that genetics has a strong pull for teens. They are very interested in self-discovery, and what topic could address self-discovery better than learning about your own genetic code? I always felt it would be interesting and fun to bridge the gap between my love of literature and my love of science. So coming up with a mystery that revolves around genetics was very exciting. And then to be asked to make the book into a series, really blew me away!

Are you an avid mystery reader yourself? What have been some of your favorite mysteries, real life or fiction?

I have to admit that before I started writing DEATH SPIRAL I was not an avid mystery reader. I am, and was, an avid reader of young adult fiction, but I mostly read realistic fiction. Having said that, I believe most YA, and most books, have an element of mystery. I mean the story has to unfold and if there is enough tension and drama, there is mystery. Now, however, I read many traditional mysteries and I love doing so. I love to do what every good mystery reader does, and try to figure out who the bad guy is and to look for clues.  One of my favorite middle grade mysteries is THE HOUSE OF THE SCORPION Recently I read CODE NAME VERITY, which was a fabulous page-turner. I loved the ultimate reveal because it was so not what I was expecting!

DEATH SPIRAL is the first in a series. Did you have an entire series in mind when you started writing?

I definitely did not have a series in mind when I started writing. When my editor suggested a series my first reaction was, “Um. Nope. Don’t think so.” And then, “Why not?” Initially I think I was confusing series with sequels, so when I understood that a series was the same character with a different mystery, I fell in love with the idea because I love Faith and Jesse. Both as individuals and as a unit, they did not feel “done” to me. Having a chance to carry their arc through several books is very exciting.

We don’t see many mystery series for older teens -- they're often stand-alones. What makes the idea of writing a mystery series with a teen sleuth so appealing to you? And are there any challenges in featuring the same teen sleuth across several books?

To be honest, I was worried at first about writing a series with a teen sleuth, or a series at all for that matter. How do you keep each book fresh? I did not want Faith to just happen to fall into another mystery, like OMG! There’s a dead guy, better investigate. I wanted whatever sleuthing she would be doing to be authentic and related to her life circumstances. So what I love about writing book two and thinking about book three is the overall arc of Faith’s story. Where does she need to go for her own healing growth process and journey? I don’t just mean where does she have to go emotionally, but physically. So book two takes Faith to New Mexico. It is in the authentic experience in New Mexico where she finds herself involved with not just one, but two mysteries.  (As if writing one isn’t hard enough). I also like to broaden the “whodunnit” aspect of mystery to personal mystery, in this case the mystery of Faith and her identity. I think teens can really relate to this idea of one’s identity being a mystery. Who am I? In Faith’s case, she does not know who her father is or even what her ethnicity is, so there is a lot of personal mystery for her to figure out.

What writing secret will you reveal only under the harsh lights of the interrogation room?

It takes me a good hour of puttering before I can get writing. I am not a putterer (is that a word?) or a procrastinator by nature, but when it comes to writing, I must, literally MUST, clean something before I sit down to write.

Janie, you can come clean our houses anytime! 

Seriously, thank you for coming in today, and we hope to have you back in here as a "repeat offender" when the next book in the series comes out! 

Here's where to track down Janie Chodosh:

Her website
Facebook
Twitter: @jmegchod

Interrogation Room #40: Elle Cosimano, author of NEARLY GONE

Today marks the release of a book that I've been dying to read since I first met Elle at a conference in the summer of 2011.  A YA thriller with page-turning tension, a mind-bending mystery and a melty romance?  I'll take two!

Kirkus Reviews calls NEARLY GONE "Tense and engaging."  Publishers Weekly says that "Cosimano weaves together math riddles, science-based clues, an edgy romance, and psychological terror to create an unpredictable page-turner."  And, in a starred review, School Library Journal said, "Eloquently written and packed full of suspense, debut author Cosimano strikes gold with this page-turning thriller that will have teens chomping at the bit to get to the end."

Bones meets Fringe in a big, dark, scary, brilliantly-plotted urban thriller that will leave you guessing until the very end

Nearly Boswell knows how to keep secrets. Living in a DC trailer park, she knows better than to share anything that would make her a target with her classmates. Like her mother's job as an exotic dancer, her obsession with the personal ads, and especially the emotions she can taste when she brushes against someone's skin. But when a serial killer goes on a killing spree and starts attacking students, leaving cryptic ads in the newspaper that only Nearly can decipher, she confides in the one person she shouldn't trust: the new guy at school--a reformed bad boy working undercover for the police, doing surveillance. . . on her.

Nearly might be the one person who can put all the clues together, and if she doesn't figure it all out soon--she'll be next.


Elle agreed to sit in the interrogation room to allow us to help celebrate the launch of her debut novel, and to learn more about the book that has readers staying up into the wee hours of the morning.

1)  I know you are an alumni of the Writer's Police Academy.  How did your experiences there influence NEARLY GONE?

Every class I take at WPA is an opportunity. The experiences and lessons ad authenticity and a richness to my settings, plots, and characters. But a few in particular stand out as being exceptionally helpful with this book. First were the classes I took about serial killers -- the various kinds, what defines them as such, and perhaps most importantly for me, what motivates them. My killer needed a motive. There had to be a compelling reason for the murders. And these classes helped take me inside my killer's head.

The other was a ride-along with a deputy sheriff. During our ride, he took me through a trailer park very much like the one my character lives in. We talked at length about the challenges residents face there, and the types of crimes they often see, and how the teens in this neighborhood adapt to the challenges of poverty, drugs, and unsafe living conditions. It was an eye-opening first-hand look into Nearly's life, and I felt the experience brought me much closer to her story. During the same ride-along, I learned that the deputy had a lot of previous experience working with confidential informants. I had the opportunity to ask a lot of questions about CI's (what motivates them and how they work) that helped me to better understand Reece's character.

2) I love that your main character, Nearly Boswell, is obsessed with the personal ads, and that the killer uses the personal ads to leave clues to the upcoming murders.  Where did this aspect of the story come from?  Did you read a lot of personal ads to prepare?

The inspiration for Nearly's character came from watching one of my co-workers read the Missed Connections during her lunch break at work. She read them obsessively, making fun of the people who wrote them, but when she thought she was alone, she looked so lonely reading them. As if maybe she secretly hoped one of the ads had been written for her. I did read a lot of Missed Connection ads when preparing to write certain scenes of the story. Some of them did make me laugh. But a lot of them were heartbreaking too. It was a fascinating look into Nearly's world, and it really got me thinking about what she might be looking for in those ads.

3) I find that writing a mystery presents its own set of challenges.  What was your process for constructing the mystery?  Did you plot it out in advance?  Were their suprises along the way?

I created a loose plot and an outline, but tried to give myself the freedom to recognize opportunities along the way. This left the door open for some really fun surprises. Of course, it also leaves openings in the floor for some big, fat plot holes. Once the guts of the mystery and plot were in place, it took me several passes to tie up all the loose ends. 

4) What was the most challenging aspect of writing a thriller for a young adult audience?

The things I love about YA lit are also the elements that make it so challenging to write. Within the scope of YA, genres can be bent and blended any which way. It's not unusual to see books that fall into three or four different categories, as is the case with NEARLY GONE. It's a thriller, and a mystery. It has a pinch of paranormal, but could be described as contemporary, and it has a strong romantic thread. It's definitely YA, but it has a lot of cross-over appeal for adult readers. And the trick with a book that crosses so many boundaries is that it has to commit to do all of these things well. NEARLY GONE couldn't be just a great thriller. It had to have a solid mystery that's difficult to solve. It had to have a compelling romance. And the paranormal elements had to be woven in very carefully. 

5) Rumor has it that NEARLY GONE has an amazing romantic element.  How did you balance the romantic aspects of the story with the thriller aspect?  Were you influenced by any particular authors or genres?

The romance between Nearly and Reece was the spoke in my wheel while I was building the story. It's the part of the story that remained the same from draft to shelf, the part I held tight to when the rest all fell away through three major revisions. In Nearly and Reece's case, the balance has always come from the tension between them -- tension that helped keep the plot tight and magnify the other conflicts in the story. For the romance to stand out, the tension had to be strong enough to stand up to the tension of a rising body count. If the romance wasn't as tense as the mystery or the thriller elements, then it would fall even flatter by comparison to the rest of the story. Nearly and Reece had to be strong. There had to be fire between them. And their romance had to be tested at every turn.

6) NEARLY GONE is your debut novel.  What has been the most satisfying part of the publication journey for you so far?

It's a strange and lonely thing, to have all these characters living inside your head, and then on the page. They almost don't seem real until I share them with someone else -- a crit partner, my agent, my editor. And suddenly, lots of people are getting to meet Nearly. Her story is out in the world, and so is the piece of my heart where she lived for the three years it took to bring her into the world. It's a beautiful and terrifying thing, to finally be able to share her with so many people. 

7) Now that NEARLY GONE is out in the world, what's next for Nearly?  For Elle?

A sequel, NEARLY LOST, is planned for release in 2015, in which Nearly takes an internship at a local forensics lab, and the crimes start hitting a little too close to home. As for me, I'm looking forward to attending RT Convention in New Orleans in May, and another round at the Writers Police Academy in September.

Visit Elle on Facebook

Visit Elle on Twitter

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Elle Cosimano is the daughter of a prison warden and an elementary school teacher who rides a Harley. As a teen, she spent summers working on a fishing boat, baiting hooks and lugging buckets of bait. She majored in Psychology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and set aside a successful real-estate career to pursue writing. She lives with her husband and two young sons, and divides her time between her home near Washington, DC and a jungle tree house in the Mayan Riviera.

Interrogation Room #39: Elisa Ludwig, author of PRETTY SLY

Today marks the release of our very own Elisa Ludwig's PRETTY SLY, the sequel to her heart-pounding debut, PRETTY CROOKED, about teenage thief Willa Fox.

PRETTY SLY, called a "crackling-good adventure" by Kirkus, asks the question, "What would you do if your mom disappeared and forbade you to come after her?"

In between celebrations for her launch, Elisa bravely agreed to an interrogation about her writing process.

1) Something I'm dying to know: How did you research the terrific scene where Tre teaches Willa how to pick-pocket in PRETTY CROOKED?

Heh heh. I used a combination of my own real life experience as a pickpocket victim, some shady websites and some very cool YouTube videos—there's a great BBC series called The Real Hustle, which gave me some interesting ideas for mixing up the thieving scenes. The reality is there's a lot of criminal how-to out there for the reading, but that could be a good thing, if people use it to avoid being victimized.

2) Can readers expect to see some familiar faces in PRETTY SLY (besides Willa and Aidan)? Did you pluck any smaller roles from the first book and give them a larger presence in the second book?

Yes, the principle characters are all there, though the Glitterati only have a bit part, which turns the catty quotient in this sequel way down from the first book! I don't know that anyone has a larger presence but even the main characters in the first book are pretty mysterious and secretive, so the second book deepens our understanding of them—but also raises many new questions ...

3) How much downtime did you have between books? Was it easy or difficult to return to characters from the first book? 

I think I finished PRETTY CROOKED in February and started PRETTY SLY in May or June. Not too much time had elapsed, and I was working on copyedits and things while drafting the sequel so that helped keep everything fresh. I loved coming back to the same characters. It was so much easier to start a book in a place where I already understood my characters and their motivations. Sometimes that process alone will take a few drafts. It allowed me to focus on the increasingly more complicated plot!

4) Was your high school experience anything like the experiences of your characters? Was there a clear-cut line between the haves and have-nots?

My high school experience was only similar in that I went to a private school and, as a middle class student, was very aware of class distinctions and how students communicated their status through clothing, cars, etc. While the mean girl behavior in my high school was much more subtle, there was certainly a sense that some (but not all) of the most privileged kids "ruled the school" socially. But I was definitely more of a fringe-y character than Willa. Like the Say Anything dudes say, "by choice, man." Or so I told myself!

5) What challenges did you face in writing SLY that were different from writing CROOKED? Was anything easier the second time around?

I think the challenge with SLY was to make Willa's experience more difficult and keep turning those screws. This book has much higher stakes: she's in greater danger and she's also facing some really difficult emotional truths. The tone here shifts as a result, and keeping that in balance with Willa's bubbly personality and the lighter feel of the first book was at times tricky. On the other hand, I felt really lucky that SLY sends things in such a different direction that it truly felt like a whole new adventure to write. As I said, the characters were much easier the second time around, and I think I had a much better handle on the structure of the story from the very beginning. Also, it certainly didn't hurt that I was working with the same brilliant editors, so I always had their voice in my head when I was drafting, keeping me on course.

6) When you wrote PRETTY CROOKED, did you always know it would have a sequel, or did you envision it as a stand-alone? If you did map out the sequel early on, how much did the finished product of PRETTY SLY compare to your original plan?

I always knew it would be a trilogy. Parts of PRETTY SLY were imagined originally as part of PRETTY CROOKED (through the first leg of their road trip, basically), but as time went on it became clear that Willa's time at Valley Prep really deserved its own book. That being said, all of the key clues except maybe a couple we added in copy edits were already in the first book when it came time to write the second. The third book was much more vaguely conceived going into it, and it probably changed the most dramatically in revisions—down to the actual answer to the mystery!

7) Besides Willa's vicariously satisfying Robin Hood-esque scheme of "spreading the wealth around" at her school, there is a second, overarching mystery about Willa's mother. When you have two (or three!) separate mysteries going on, how do you keep track of each person's head space at different points of their respective time lines? 

Oh, man. That's only the tip of the iceberg with this series! It can be tough, that's for sure. I wish I was one of those people who used Post-Its or a big magic marker or something, but truthfully, I just used a lot of Kanye West all-caps-esque notes to myself in the text as I wrote. Stuff like "REMEMBER: SHE ONLY KNOWS X,Y and Z, HERE!!!" and "HOW THE HECK IS SHE GOING TO COME TO THIS CONCLUSION?!!"

9) PRETTY CROOKED resolves certain plot elements perfectly, while still serving as a cliffhanger. Did you get any angry letters about the ending? Was it difficult to write a conclusion that leads directly into a new adventure?

Yes! Maybe not super-angry, but a lot of teasing and frustrating ones. My editors and I went back and forth about where to leave things, and ultimately decided on the cliffhanger, which has its old-fashioned charms. I wouldn't say it was difficult to write that ending but I maybe felt a bit guilty to do that to readers. I hope PRETTY SLY will satisfy them!

10) I love Aidan and Willa's banter, as well as Willa's friendship-chemistry with Cherise and Tre. Do you have particular techniques you draw on to keep your dialogue so sharp? 

Thank you so much! I like to read dialogue out loud (if no one else is in the house!) to get a feel for how someone might really say something. And it's definitely something I fine-tune in revision, stripping it back more and more, because most people speak much more efficiently than I actually write.

11) When is book #3 coming out?

March 2015!

Check out the trailer for PRETTY SLY, below, and then enter to win a free copy of BOTH BOOKS!




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Interrogation Room #38: Laura Marx Fitzgerald (UNDER THE EGG)

When we sleuths picked up chatter about a fantastic new debut novel in the vein of CHASING VERMEER and FROM THE MIXED UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER, we had to track down its author, Laura Marx Fitzgerald. Today -- on the eve of the release of her much-anticipated UNDER THE EGG, we've managed to haul Laura into the Interrogation Room.

When Theodora Tenpenny spills a bottle of rubbing alcohol on her late grandfather’s painting, she discovers what seems to be an old Renaissance masterpiece underneath. That’s great news for Theo, who’s struggling to hang onto her family’s two-hundred-year-old townhouse and support her unstable mother on her grandfather’s legacy of $463. There’s just one problem: Theo’s grandfather was a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she worries the painting may be stolen.


With the help of some unusual new friends, Theo's search for answers takes her all around Manhattan, and introduces her to a side of the city—and her grandfather—that she never knew. To solve the mystery, she'll have to abandon her hard-won self-reliance and build a community, one serendipitous friendship at a time

And here's a bit about Laura: 

Laura moved around a lot as a child, living everywhere from Norman, Oklahoma to Pensacola, Florida. A Harvard graduate and former copyeditor, Laura never imagined she'd write a novel until she had an idea about a girl who discovers a stolen painting in her attic. That novel is UNDER THE EGG. Laura lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two kids.

UNDER THE EGG is an Indie Next pick and has been selected as one of Amazon's top spring titles. It releases on March 18th (tomorrow!). We feel lucky we managed to nab Laura first....

1. What inspired you to write UNDER THE EGG? Do you have any unique experiences or interests that drove you to develop the story?

I studied art history in school and, honestly, found it a disappointing experience. I realized that what interested me was the stories art inspired, not the specifics of brushwork or provenance. Twenty years later I was watching Antiques Roadshow, and I was struck by how it captured what makes art interesting for most people. Where did the piece come from? Who made it? Why? What story is it telling? How did it get here?

Around that time, I was reading a fantastic book by Edward Dolnick called The Forger’s Spell, whenthese three lines jumped out at me:

The easiest test of an old master—and the one test almost certain to be carried out—is to dab the surface with rubbing alcohol. In a genuinely old painting, the surface will be hard, and the alcohol will have no effect. If the painting is new, the alcohol will dissolve a bit of paint, and the tester’s cotton swab will come up smudged with color.

That gave me the idea that someone might intentionally paint over a more valuable painting, with the plan to later remove the top layer. All those Antiques Roadshow questions came back to me—who made it, and how did it get here?—and Under the Egg was born.

2. What is the most challenging thing about writing a mystery for young readers? What's the most rewarding part?

I was absolutely blown away by The Westing Game as a kid. I started re-reading it as soon as I finished to see how all the pieces fit together. When I decided to write a mystery, I wanted it to do the same thing for the same audience.

What I admired about The Westing Game too is that the book doesn’t shy away from adult topics.Bombs, bookies, religious extremism, and degenerative disease all make an appearance in the book. I find the subjects that interest me lie squarely in the adult world, while my ideal audience is much younger. That means I have to work hard to find ways to make these concepts understandable and digestible for middle grade readers.

After all, what are the middle grade years for if not to uncover all the secrets adults have been hiding from you?

3. What is your writing process like?

I always start off with lots of reading and research. I love discovering the impossible-but-true stories that have been lost to history, so I follow the stories from one book to the next. For example, my reading for Under the Egg led me from The Forger’s Spell to a book about the widescale Nazi looting during World War II to The Monuments Men (the source for the recent George Clooney movie). Elements of each book made it into Under the Egg.

Once I’m ready to outline—and I live and die by a meticulously detailed outline—there’s an enormous amount of procrastination, punctuated by fluctuating spells of crushing self-doubt and manic creative energy. But once the outline is finished, then I get down to business: 9:00a.m.-12:00p.m. Monday through Friday, at my computer until I have a draft.

4. What have been some of your favorite mysteries, real-life or fictional?

The Name of the Rose. Possession. The aforementioned Westing Game. And Encyclopedia Brown, of course.

5. What is something that no one knows about you?

I've never read A Wrinkle in Time.

6. What writing secret will you reveal only under the harsh glare of the interrogation room lights?

As long as you’re wearing gym clothes, the people at the YMCA Childwatch will think you’re dropping off your kids to work out and not to revise your draft in the hallway.

Leave it to a mystery author to have a sneaky trick up her sleeve. Congratulations on your debut, Laura. We were thrilled you took the time 

Want to learn more about Laura?

Click here to visit her website!

Follow her on Twitter @MarxFitzy

Click here to order your copy of UNDER THE EGG now! 

Interrogation Room #37: Leah Cypess, Author of DEATH SWORN

Today we're packing up the Interrogation Room lights and moving off-site to interview  author Leah Cypess in a mysterious network of caves, similar to those in which her new YA fantasy-mystery novel DEATH SWORN takes place. Here's a quick summary: 

Ileni is losing her magic. And that means she’s losing everything: her position as the rising star of her people, her purpose in life, and even the young man she loves. Sent to the assassins’ cave, hidden deep within the mountains, she expects no one will ever hear from her again. The last two sorcerers sent died within weeks of each other. Accidents? Or something more sinister? As Ileni navigates the dangers—both natural and human—of the caves, she’ll discover secrets that have been kept for decades. And she’ll find an ally in Sorin, the deadly young man who could be the assassins’ next leader. With Sorin determined to protect her, sparks—magical and romantic—will fly. But will even he understand the choice she must make in the end?

And here's a bit about Leah Cypess: 

Leah Cypess wrote her first story in first grade. The narrator was an ice-cream cone in the process of being eaten. In fourth grade, she wrote her first book, about a girl who was shipwrecked on a desert island with her faithful and heroic dog (a rip-off of both The Black Stallion and all the Lassie movies). After selling her first story while in high school, she gave in to her mother's importuning to be practical and majored in biology at Brooklyn College. She then went to Columbia Law School and practiced law for almost two years. She kept writing and submitting in her spare time, and finally, a mere 15 years after her first short story acceptance, she sold her first novel. Leah currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with her husband and children.

DEATH SWORN releases on March 4th (tomorrow!), so we're detaining Leah with a few questions. Leah, you'd better hope your answers satisfy our readers' curiosity...that is, if you ever want to see the light of day again... 

1) DEATH SWORN was an interesting angle on the traditional fantasy featuring magic. What inspired you to write this story?

I got the basic idea for Death Sworn while reading The Elenium by David Eddings, which featured a sorceress who served as tutor to a military order. I started wondering what would happen if the sorceress and the knights didn't get along as well as they did in Edding's book, and several twists or turns later, I had the basic idea for Death Sworn.

2) Ileni was such a strong and realistic character. Her fatalistic attitude and philosophy in general were very interesting. Can you talk a little about how she came together as a character for you? 

Ileni was one of those rare characters who came almost fully-formed as I was writing the first scene of the first draft (though that scene does not actually appear in the current book)! It was very easy for me to get into her head and know how she would react to events. My character-building is mostly intuitive, but I usually have to put a lot more work into getting deeper into a character during revision. Not with Ileni.

3) Many events in DEATH SWORN were linked to (or could only happen because of) incidents long in the past, pivotal moments carefully planned out by the Master and others. What is your process of puzzling together a mystery that is dependent on a complicated history involving many different players?

"Process" might be too kind a term. I don't have one set way, but it usually involves a lot of revisions, a lot of charts, a lot of outlines that I then discard in favor of new outlines, and a lot of oaktags and colored post-its. At some point in the process, I swear that with my next book, I will plan everything out in advance and be super-organized and efficient. But so far I haven't managed that.

4) If you could meet one of your characters in real life, who would you choose, what would you take them to do (out to dinner? mini-golfing?), and what one question would you ask? 

Well, I think it would be kind of cool to talk to the master, assuming we had some sort of you-promise-not-to-have-me-killed agreement. Since he never leaves the Caves, I guess I would have to meet him there, and I would ask him to tell me the most valuable secret he knows. I suspect it would be very valuable.

5) Dare we ask...? Are there sequels planned for Ileni and co.? 

Yes! There is a sequel scheduled for publication a year after Death Sworn.

6) What did you learn from the process of writing DEATH SWORN? How do you think you've grown as a (mystery) writer? 

All my books are fantasy-mystery blends, but Death Sworn is the first where a straight-up murder mystery plays a central role, so I did some reading to help me plot it out. One book I read, How To Write Killer Fiction by Carolyn Wheat, was especially helpful, as was this blog post by Lisa Harris: http://keepmeinsuspense.blogspot.com/2006/07/plotting-your-cozy-mystery.html. Both these books continue to inform my writing, even for those books where a mystery is a secondary element of the plot instead of the primary one.

7) What is the hardest part of writing mystery for a YA audience? What's the most rewarding part?

I've never written for another audience! And to be honest, when I started Death Sworn, I thought of it as an adult fantasy novel. By the time I finished it, I had published two YA books and realized how vast and rewarding the YA field is -- and also realized that my books seem to naturally finish at around 70,000 words ;). So there was no question in my mind that Death Sworn would be YA. The great thing about YA is that it's such a warm, helpful, enthusiastic community, both among fans and among other writers.

8) What is something no one knows about you?

Earlier today, I was at my sister's home, and when she went out to take care of an errand, I ate the last of her zucchini sticks. (Hey. If it was important, I would hardly be spilling it on a blog.)

9) Do you have any writing quirks, superstitions, or customs that get the job done?

I think I do my best writing outdoors. In an ideal writing world, I would wake up every morning, eat breakfast, take a brisk walk to someplace scenic, and then write for two hours.

10) What do you hope readers will take away from DEATH SWORN? 

I don't hope they will take anything specific -- but whatever aspect of the character or the story resonates with them (even if it's "oh, cool, twisty solution to the mystery"), I hope it makes them close the book feeling satisfied.

11) What writing secret will you reveal only under the harsh lights of this Interrogation Room? 

My list of overused words that I have to go through and delete in every manuscript. It's over a page long. Oh, you want the complete list? You're going to need some harsher lights.

Rats, I knew we should have replaced those! Thanks, Leah, and congratulations on DEATH SWORN's debut!

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