Debut author, Amy Hagstrom, joins the blog this week to discuss her novel
Author Name: Amy Hagstrom
Book Title: The Wild Between Us
Book Genre: upmarket book club suspense
Release Date: November 7, 2023
Publisher: Lake Union
Welcome, Amy! How would you describe The Wild Between Us?
The rescue of two missing boys in the Sierra Nevada mountains relies on solving the mystery of an eerily similar search fifteen years before.
What sparked the idea for this book?
Three inspirations converged to spark the idea for THE WILD BETWEEN US. The first was growing up in the Sierra Nevada of Northern California. When I write, I always start with a sense of place, and this place in particular captured my heart from childhood. During my teen years, I had a couple of friends who loved playing pranks on one another in this wilderness. One night in particular stayed with me, and while that bout of teenage immaturity ended uneventfully, my imagination begged the question: what if it hadn’t? Finally, years later, I spent several years volunteering for my county Search and Rescue organization in Oregon, and those searches, sometimes for children, stirred something profound in me as a parent myself.
How long did it take for you to write the book? Did you do any research?
I have been writing this book since 2008. No joke! The earliest drafts of the novel that would one day become THE WILD BETWEEN US constituted my first attempts at novel-length fiction. Those early drafts eventually went into a drawer, I wrote two additional manuscripts, one of which landed me my agent, and didn’t return to editing and revising WILD for several years after that. I think it’s fitting that this first manuscript of mine has ended up being my debut, but for many years, I didn’t think that would be the case. As noted above, my research for this book was primarily real life experience, peppered in with some interviews with current SAR members and law enforcement personnel, and some emergency wilderness medical research.
Any words of wisdom you give your pre-published writer self (or to a new writer)?
Persistence, persistence, persistence! Success in publishing is a marathon, not a sprint, at least for most of us! I can’t tell you how many times I was told by agents or editors that a particular manuscript wasn’t ‘right for their list’ or ‘didn’t speak to them at this time’, and sometimes, it really does take that magical moment of ‘right time and right place and right book’ to get your break.
Are you working on a new project? Please tell us about it.
I do have a second book coming out with Lake Union in 2024, currently titled SMOKE SEASON. Set in rural Oregon during wildfire season, two women combat challenges even greater than the blaze threatening their town, families, and livelihoods.
Where can readers find you?
Find me at amyhagstrom.com, which is where readers can also sign up for my monthly newsletter to stay up-to-date on my book publications or contact me to join your book club event. I’m also at @amyhagstromwrites on Instagram.
Thank you, Amy! The Wild Between Us is out now.
The Wild Between Us
The rescue of two missing boys in the Sierra Nevada mountains relies on unraveling the mysteries of the past in an addictive novel of heartrending suspense.
After inheriting his uncle’s lodge, Silas Matheson hopes the grandeur of the California Sierra Nevada will be a fresh start for his two young sons, and a chance to finally face his demons. It was here, fifteen years ago, that Silas and his friends Jessica, Danny, and Meg ventured into the mountain wilderness and Jessica vanished without a trace. When his boys go missing in the same dark woods, the fear and guilt that Silas has been running from ever since come crashing back.
Silas’s panicked call brings in the local search-and-rescue unit, and two familiar faces: Danny and Meg. As the frantic search gets underway, the three friends are plunged into a painfully recurring nightmare, each of them thinking, This can’t be happening again.
With a storm brewing and the boys’ fates threatened with every desperate hour, the secrets of the past begin to surface, and this time, for Silas, Danny, and Meg, there’s no escaping the truth.