What was the initial spark for The Vanishers—a scene, a character or an event?
I live in New York City, and everyone in New York City is always looking for the perfect summer house in the spring. It seems like a wonderful dream, to be vacationing and living on the beach instead of sweltering in New York during the summer months. So I guess that was the initial spark for me in writing this book. I decided to do a “what if?” What if the dream summer house suddenly turns into a nightmare summer house? What if it turns everything in your life—in your world—upside down? That’s what happens to Megan Foley in The Vanishers.
Your novel blends horror with paranormal elements. What did you find was the biggest challenge in combining the two ideas?
Actually, the horror and the paranormal pretty much work together in The Vanishers. What seems to be a horror story at first soon turns into a story about paranormal events that are causing the horror. So that wasn’t really an issue for me in writing the book. The biggest challenge was keeping it as a thriller—along with the horror and paranormal elements. I’ve published more than 25 thrillers as an author. And so I wanted this to be a thriller too. Just a different kind of a thriller for me.
How did you come up with the setting for The Vanishers? Is there a specific house that inspired you?
I’m not quite sure how I came up with the idea to set the book at the Connecticut shore. Most people in New York get summer houses on Long Island or the Jersey Shore or maybe even on Cape Cod. But I think that’s what appealed to me about putting the house in Connecticut. It wasn’t an area of the shore that got written about a lot. It would seem to be the last place in the world something so incredible would happen as the events that took place in this house. That made it more interesting to write about for me than any of those more familiar shore locations.
Are you a fan of haunted house books or books with paranormal subplots yourself? What are your favourites?
My favorite haunted house book is Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I first read it many years ago when I was alone in a big, creepy old house—and I gotta tell you, it scared the hell out of me. I mean I knew it was just a horror novel, but I still kept looking at the windows to make sure no vampires were out there like was happening in Salem’s Lot. King has written a lot of great, scary, creepy stuff—but I think Salem’s Lot is the best. In terms of paranormal stories, most of that for comes from TV and movies. I guess I was thinking a bit about Invasion of the Body Snatchers when I wrote this. I also was a huge fan of the X-Files which took paranormal to new levels.