Cherie Priest is the author of several popular series and standalone books (The Clockwork Century series, The Borden Dispatches, I Am Princess X, and so many more), and is one of the authors we look forward to on book release calendars.
She has the creepy new ghost story The Family Plot hitting shelves September 20th, and it’s a book you’ll want for this Halloween season.
She writes characters that are easy to care about and story lines that will keep you reading til late just to find out what happens next.
We caught up with her for a Quick Six Interview:
What inspires you recently?
Home improvement shows and ghost-hunting shows. I get my best ideas from stories about things that have “actually” happened. (Note quotation marks, heh.)
What do you do when you aren’t actively writing?
Watch TV, play video games, and hang with my husband or pets. Either that, or housework/yardwork. We have two large dogs and two fluffy cats, so there’s always fur someplace that needs vacuuming up – or holes in the yard that need to be filled.
How do you know when a book is finished?
When I’ve run out of time on the deadline, and have to hand it in whether it “feels” finished or not.
If you could spend a weekend with a fictional character in your world or theirs, who would it be?
I don’t know, maybe I’d kick around with Harold and Bear from Person of Interest. The subway hideout seemed like a good time.
Any film/tv adaptations either make you cringe or make you think, they nailed it?
Right now I’m enjoying the TV adaptations of a number of comic series, including Dark Matter and iZombie. I don’t see a lot of movies these days.
What’s next for you?
Cherie: Next on the shelves: The Family Plot, a haunted house story from Tor; then Brimstone, a period piece set in a 1920s spiritualist community from Penguin; and The Agony House, a young adult story with a comic book (illustrated) element for Scholastic.
Excerpt from review of The Family Plot, Pop Culture Beast 2016:
The Family Plot, like all well crafted ghost stories, slowly creeps up on you. Somewhere in your peripheral vision, it unsettlingly teases, dropping chilling clues. Then, in the dark, it pounces.
Scared the hell out of me, and that’s difficult to do. I have fairly exacting tastes when it comes to horror and ghost stories. Priest has crafted the tale masterfully, and it will leave you creeped out for days.
THE QUICK SIX: POP CULTURE BEAST LETS ARTISTS CHOOSE FROM OUR STANDARD TEN QUESTIONS – WE LET THEM TELL US WHAT THEY’D LIKE YOU TO KNOW.
(SOMETIMES THEY ANSWER MORE THAN SIX, WHO ARE WE TO SAY NO?)
Previous Quick Six: Dar Williams
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.