"I wanted to explore the everyday evil committed by people in power who think they are right."
Rene Denfeld on turning images into scenes, not writing "bad guys who are just plain bad", and her evocative new literary thriller, SLEEPING GIANTS
I came across Rene Denfeld’s THE CHILD FINDER right after I finished Tana French’s backlist and desperately needed a new character-driven, literary thriller. Since then, I’ve been a Rene stan: Her hallmarks include lush prose, poignant relationships, complicated female protagonists, and complex, layered mysteries.
Her latest, SLEEPING GIANTS (which came out March 26), is no exception. It follows a woman trying to figure out what really happened to her older brother, who—as a child, twenty years earlier—drowned on a remote Oregon beach, his body lost to the sea. Her investigation brings her face-to-face with dark secrets, monsters charged with taking care of vulnerable youth, and unsettling questions about her own identity.
Rene and I chatted about banal cruelty, heroines who are as vulnerable as they are valiant, and the secret to publishing book after book. Check out the collection of past Words With (Author) Friends, wherein I g-chat with an author and you get to read over my shoulder, and buy Rene’s beautiful book!
Rene: Hey Andrea! My first time using G chat did I get it right? Lol
Me: Rene, hi!! You absolutely did!
Thanks for hopping on with me! How are you doing?
Nervous! How are you?
About my new book not you ha
Haha, fair enough! I'm good but also relaxed because I don't have a book coming out right now. :)
Can you share a little about SLEEPING GIANTS?
Of course! It’s a story about a woman’s search to find out what happened to her older brother, placed into an orphanage before she was born. A literary thriller!
Your thrillers are always so beautifully written and character-driven! Where did the idea for this one come from?
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