The writing of The Genesis of Misery spanned a good number of years, from 2018 onwards. The backdrop of those years saw a blooming sea of conspiracy and misinformation. Groups of adherents bled into and fed one another, and their beliefs were as nonsensical as the consequences of those beliefs were horrific. Families estranged, insurrection attempted, deaths untold from disease. The question of what made people believe in things that patently reject common sense became increasingly urgent. I found myself reading too much about these neo-cults, and thinking too much about those who had fallen prey to it, and these thoughts crept into the novel I was drafting and re-drafting.
Circus Girl, The Hunter, and Mirror Boy
As an orphaned sixteen-year-old, Lynette was haunted by the ghost of Mirror Boy, the drowned child who replaced her reflection. Ten years later, she’s built herself a new life, but all that is threatened when Mirror Boy returns, warning of danger. A hunter has come for both of them, and unless Lynette can figure out what’s going on, they will both perish.
