I meant to be prolific. Truly, I did.
First things first, though: I am so happy to be back in the mode of having a book coming out. THE HIDDEN THINGS is my first novel in more than four years. (And a very warm thank you to Crimespree Magazine for celebrating the cover reveal with me. I’ve been gone so long, the last time I had a new book, hosted cover reveals weren’t even a thing! I love it!
But in the last four years, my daughters needed a lot of rides. I was mostly in the car. And politics broke my brain. So I was compelled to watch really excellent shows on TV. Then it seemed like time to read a bunch of well-written books and books on how to write well, so I did some of that.
In the end, though, it’s not about excuses. I did other things and it doesn’t matter. One hard truth—the great news/terrible news about fiction is that if you don’t write it, plenty of other people will. Type or don’t, the shelves will still be full to buckling.
Then I saw a video.
It’s funny what snags the sleeve of my writerbrain. In the viral video I ran across online, a young girl fends off an attacker in the foyer of her house. Of course I was relieved for her. She was safe. That’s the important thing. But I got stuck on why the heck the family had security cameras inside their house? (I’m sure there are good arguments for real-time monitoring of your rooms, but the possible wisdom of it is well outpaced by the mortifying thought of me being candid-me, only recorded.)
I also wondered about how the girl felt about that video, and what it might do to your personality to see yourself in an extreme situation from the one vantage point forever denied to you – outside yourself.
So that’s where we start in THE HIDDEN THINGS. Fourteen-year-old Carly Liddell is attacked inside her home and the video of her heroics goes viral. But it’s a huge problem for her family since Carly and her mother didn’t know there were cameras in their house. Her stepfather is left manipulating all the moving parts of their lives to keep his secret for as long as he can. The hidden camera was only ever supposed to be for his own peace of mind, there to keep watch over the stolen painting just barely visible in the corner of the shot. And now it’s out there where people who know what it is, and how he came by it, will see…
Bad things happen.
Some good things, too.
And this cover! I love it. Hidden things: cameras, secrets, thoughts, motives, and special strengths, they all succumb to a little light.
And I’ll leave you with the epigraph, the wonderful quote from Rembrandt that rendered the title. (I love it so much, I had a plaque made of it for my office.)
Try to put well in practice what you already know, and in so doing, you will in good time discover the hidden things you now inquire about.
THE HIDDEN THINGS is available August 13th 2019, wherever books are sold. You can find out more information about Jamie Mason at her website Jamie-Mason.com
