Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Date Published: 01-06-2024
Publisher: 44th Morning LLC
Haunted by insurmountable grief, the nearly indestructible Susie Drake temporarily sacrifices all memories of her human friends. Unbeknownst to her, Ren Pith, a semi-immortal plagued by seizures and OCD, snatches her remembrances in pursuit of a time traveler, with the hope of rewriting the past.
Meanwhile, recruited by the grandchildren of her forgotten friends, Susie confronts a murder investigation intertwined with her purloined past and teams up with a private eye to unravel a perplexing link between her stolen recollections and a man who taunted her nearly a century prior. Racing against the possibility of total memory loss, Susie and the detective navigate time and space to follow a lead and venture into the future of an alternate Earth.
Susie’s quest intertwines self-discovery, justice, and a high-stakes race into a tangled web bridging past, present, and parallel worlds.
Interview with Jay Hall
Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?
If only I could write with the same clear precision as Richard Brautigan!
How do you select the names of your characters?
The surnames are always the hardest. Google searches always help.
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
Secrets pertaining to my characters or me? Yes, both.
What was your hardest scene to write?
The opening scene. I rewrote the introduction to the protagonist several times. Much as I wanted to describe her background in more words, I went with the hope that less is more. I hope in the end it will make readers anxious to learn more about her in other books.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
The current novel is both a stand-alone book and a lead-in to what I intend to be a series of prequels.
What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?
To flesh out the protagonist, Susie Drake, who is one of main characters in the prequels, and place her into situations where she grows and undergoes change by the book’s end. As she’s not one who prefers growth, I think I succeeded. I was more pleased with what I intended for the antagonist, Ren Pith. To say more regarding him ventures into spoiler territory.
What inspired you to write “Susie Drake and the Stolen Memories”?
A dream. It took place in the future, following another pandemic (sorry), one far worse than the one we just endured. Someone had begun to blow-up the newly-invented flying delivery vehicles. I decided to run with the dream as a novel and bring in my favorite character, semi-immortal Susie Drake.
Can you tell us a little bit about the next books or what you have planned for the future?
My series is called The 44th Morning and each book will have a subtitle. These prequels begin with a mission in New York, post-WWII, which turns into a mass murder circa 1951. From there, the story jumps into the turbulent 1960s, where we met a younger Susie Drake and her extraordinary friends, who are the victims of the fallout from the New York killings.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in “Susie Drake and the Stolen Memories”?
Susie is a former assassin who possesses some amazing powers. As already mentioned, she’s almost immortal. She’s also impervious to all known means of destruction and with the touch of a finger to anyone’s skin, she can control their actions, thoughts, and memories. The individual she suspects has stolen her remembrances is Ren Pith, a troubled man who suffers from epileptic seizures and a severe case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
Putting myself in the story as a character with whom Susie exchanges some heated banter. Is that an example of breaking the 4th wall in fiction? If so, I hope readers will enjoy it.
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