Elisabeth Elo, member of Sisters in Crime New England, stops by the blog today to answer questions about Finding Katarina M, which was released in March. Want to share your thoughts about Elisabeth's tagline or questions about her book? Comment below!
Writers usually hate writing book summaries. Will you share with us your real book blurb or one you wish you could have used?
I honestly think that half the battle of selling books is to connect each book with the subset of readers who will love it. Those perfect-for-this-book readers are out there, but how do you find them and connect? A big tool for doing that—and the only one I know—is the book description. It has to quickly offer a sense of the book that’s both accurate and compelling. That’s hard to do! Especially for a book like Finding Katarina M., which doesn’t fit squarely into a particular sub-genre. So I spent a lot of time working on the book description, and then cast it into several lengths: several paragraphs (for the flap copy and retail book pages), a one-sentence tagline, and a brief summary for blogs like this one. Here’s the tagline and brief 150-word version. Let me know what you think!
An American doctor travels to Russia to find her estranged grandmother, only to uncover dark family secrets and a dangerous international plot.
Natalie March is a successful doctor enjoying a busy life in Washington DC. She always thought that her maternal grandparents perished in the gulag, Stalin’s notorious network of labor camps. But when a young Russian dancer comes to Natalie’s office claiming to be her cousin, Natalie must face a surprising truth: her grandmother, Katarina Melnikova, is still very much alive. Natalie eagerly travels to Siberia to meet her, only to be drawn into a web of mystery, intrigue, and danger that will push her to the limits of her endurance.
How far will Natalie go to find Katarina M.? How much will she risk to protect her Russian family and her own country from a deadly threat? FINDING KATARINA M. takes the reader on an extraordinary journey across Siberia—to reindeer herding camps, Sakha villages, and parties with endless vodka toasts—while it explores what it means to be loyal to your family, your country, and yourself.
Is there a setting in your book that you would like to visit?
I was naturally concerned that my complete ignorance of Russia would hamper my writing a novel set in Russia. A saner person would have seen this yawning chasm as a clear warning not to proceed. As I am not a saner person, I ventured forth. You can get a lot of information online, and I’m a hungry reader of non-fiction, so I educated myself as best I could with what I could lay my hands on. But I knew I couldn’t write about Siberia without going there. Siberia is its own unique place—different from Russia, different from Asia. I was drawn to its utter vastness, its many ethnic groups, its frightening history, its possible future, and so on. The region is largely unknown to most westerners, and for me it was a sort of cultural and geographic frontier. I love novels that take me places I haven’t been and show me things I haven’t seen, and as I believe writers should write the books they want to read, the Siberian setting was a good fit for me.
What is the hardest part of writing a book?
Starting a scene. Coming up with the first sentence, then the second, and so on. Once a scene is underway, the drama will usually carry me along. But beginning is hard—that’s the point when writing feels almost impossible. You’re pulling something out of nothing, out of thin air. A good piece of advice that I’ve heard many times is to stop the day’s writing in the middle of a scene so you can just slide back into it the next day. I’ve tried that. But once I’m in a scene I usually feel compelled to see it through, even if I have to write for more hours than I intended, so, more often than not, I start the next day facing yet another blank page.
What meal and drink do you think would pair well with your book?
Caviar on ice. Borscht with sour cream. Reindeer meat and vodka.
Were there indispensable people without whom you couldn’t have written the book?
For sure. Lots of people. Despite being sort of an introvert (“social introvert” is the term that best describes me), I’ve built up relationships over time that have proved to be the most valuable and wonderful part of my writing life. I really don’t think I would have stuck with writing as long as I have without the support of the terrific writer-friends I’ve been lucky enough to get to know. For starters, I’ll mention Linda Barnes, Shannon Kirk, Holly Robinson, Leonard Rosen, Hank Phillippi Ryan, and Joanna Schaffhausen. There’s a truly staggering amount of talent, passion, discipline, and wisdom packed into that little sentence! And then there are all the other inspiring people I won’t name because it would take too long. I love writers—love the way they notice so much and think about the world from such surprising yet perfectly sensible angles. And, just between you and me, mystery writers are the best of all!
Elisabeth Elo is the author of two suspense novels, Finding Katarina M., called a “heart-stopping saga” by Booklist, and North of Boston, chosen by Booklist as one of 2014’s Best Crime Novel Debuts. Elisabeth grew up in Boston, attended Brown University, and earned a PhD in English from Brandeis. She worked as a children's magazine editor, a high-tech marketer and product manager, and a halfway house counselor before starting to write fiction. To learn more, visit www.elisabethelo.com.
Photo credit: Sean Sliney