Episode 74: Alice Early, award-winning author of The Moon Always Rising
Alice Early talks about The Moon Always Rising, a story that takes the reader on a journey from the Caribbean island of Nevis to the Highlands of Scotland.
The novel is already a multiple-award winner, including overall winner in the 2020 National Indie Excellence and American Fiction Awards. It’s also unusual in that one of the main characters is a ghost.
We chat about the challenges of writing a genre-bending novel, added to being a debut in 2020 during the pandemic, along with how the book changed as it evolved—at one point it was almost twice the length! And Alice has an excellent list of book recommendations.
Books Mentioned:
The Moon Always Rising by Alice Early
The Schuyler Sisters Trilogy, Beatriz Williams (plot-driven historical fiction)
Indelible, Laurie Buchannan (murder mystery, first of a trilogy)
Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart (winner of the Booker Prize, fiction based on his own experiences)
You Again, Debra Immergut (thriller)
Beauty, Christina Chiu (literary fiction)
The Sweetest Days by John Hough
The Exit Strategy, Lainey Cameron (women’s fiction)
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!)
Lainey 0:00
Hey, this is Lainey Cameron. I'm here with Alice Early, and we're going to be talking about her debut novel, The Moon Always Rising. And first off, I want to say congratulations, because this novel was a winner in the American Fiction awards, and the National Indie Excellence awards. And I think it's had like seven or eight awards and recognitions and total that it's either been a finalist or one. Congratulations, Alice.
Alice Early 0:23
Yeah, thank you. I mean, you know, we know how hard that is to do and how gratifying it is to have that kind of recognition. So that's been a big boost, especially in the beginning, when I didn't know how the book was going to be received.
Lainey 0:35
Yeah, isn't it validating like, it really has been astonishing to me to win these awards, because I had to fight so hard to get the book into the world. And right, kind of internalized all of the rejection. I don't know if you didn't, but I internalized all of the rejection along the way. And so it was a surprise when it started winning awards.
Alice Early 0:51
Yeah, you know, and I think also, we're in our little echo chamber, and I personally did not have that much of editorial help after I finished the manuscript. My publisher didn't supply a lot of editorial, and neither did my agent. And so I thought, you know, well, the book is done, but I don't know if it still needs work. And so hearing from others readers that it was done as far as they were concerned, and that it was really working, made me so relieved.
Lainey 1:21
I can relate to that. 100%. And, in case folks don't know, you and I are both 2020 debut authors, we both had the same debut year last year. And so it's fun to talk to someone that I've known online for the last year in the debuts grip, but we've never actually met over video before, right.
Alice Early 1:37
And so and we had the slog of trying to bring a book into the world, both of us being debut novelist, both of us having a business background, finding this, this is our first rodeo, and to bring a book out in in the middle of COVID, with all of the normal things not available to us for marketing and for releasing, which just was just quite an amazing experience for me. I don't know about you.
Lainey 1:58
Yeah, no, it wasn't easy. It was a very, I was really grateful to have the debut community because we could commiserate with each other about how hard it was to be stuck in the middle of the pandemic, you know, when honestly, you know, the world was on fire. And we all felt a little guilty about talking about our books, I think, right?
Alice Early 2:14
Yeah, I mean, we had small problems. And they really were small problems. But I found huge support from other authors who were releasing during 2020. And groups of them who formed to back up back each other up into to be of help, and they have become my friends online, most of them. And it's just been wonderful to get to know that many people even if it's only virtually and some of them are all over the world. So I think that was a plus that I do not expect.
Lainey 2:40
Yeah, no, I completely agree. But let's get to talking about the book because I want to make sure people hear more about this book. So it's called the moon always rising. It goes from the Caribbean to the highlands of Scotland. People love the settings, I noticed in your reviews, the two things that come up very frequently in the reviews of this book, people love the setting love the highlands love the back and forth, right, the idea of these two very different settings. And also I loved that one of the most popular phrases on Amazon for your book is hard to believe. And I clicked in on that because I thought What do you mean hard to believe? Hard to believe the location? Nope, three different people comment. It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel because it's so well written.
Alice Early 3:20
Well, that's, that's really nice. I had a conversation with somebody who called to explore the possibility of a film. And his first comment was, I couldn't believe this was a debut novel either. So that to me is really music to my ears. Because you know, yeah, it was yeah, it was just it was just a great feeling.
Lainey 3:40
Isn't that fabulous? And I had to tell you that because amused me. Yeah. So tell us about the book. Why don't you summarize for those who have not heard of it yet what it's about.
Alice Early 3:49
It's, it's it takes place between 1998 and 2000. So it's almost historical fiction now. That's how long it took me to write it. Um, it's about a Scottish woman who's 33. Her name is Eleanor, Els,. She goes by Els. Gordon. She has lived a life of privilege and she is a very ambitious woman who is trying to become a managing director in her investment bank. She is however, falling apart. She's lost pretty much everything that matters to her. Her the love of her life. Her father, the state where she grew up, and she's just it's starting to leak through. She's very tightly wrapped but it is not. She's not holding it in anymore. So she goes on a forced vacation to the Caribbean island of Nevis where I've been going every year since 1996. and wrote a lot of the book there. She goes there on vacation and she gets completely obsessed to acquire this derelict plantation house. She buys it syncs all her current savings into it, renovate it, move in because she has no choice except to live there and finds out that that She's got the ghost. They call it a jumbie down there of the former owner as her roommate. And they just sort of establish this very testy relationship. He's a pain in the ass, honestly. And he, I love him. He was the most fun character to write. But he's, he's a, he's a difficult character. And she is a difficult character, because she's prickly. And she's defensive, and she's reticent. And she a lot of people don't like her love, the readers don't like her in the very beginning of the book, that was intentional on my part. But she, they make a pact, she's going to help him make amends with the women that he wronged in life, he is quite the Casanova. And he pushes her, not that she wants him to do this, but he does it anyway, both to be open to the possibility of a new love with one of his friends. And also to get her mother who's a stranger, who ran away from Scotland when else was only two. And nobody in the family would talk about it. So he wants her to get that mystery solved, because he realizes what she doesn't, which is that being an abandoned child has so shaped her life. And so made her feel unlovable that the possibility that she could be available for love, again, is not going to be resolved unless she does something about this relationship with her mother. So she does
Lainey 6:26
That's very much women's fiction, right that your character is being pushed out of her comfort zone. And she's growing over the curse of the novel. And I love the fact that it's by ghost, right, but show that you can do that in all kinds of different ways. And I, you know, I hadn't thought of that.
Alice Early 6:42
But I guess that's probably true. There are other ghosts that have had, you know, big jobs in books to push the plot along. But in this one, you know, she she probably goes, this ghost only works because she knows that it's true. It's just uh, she didn't want to do it. And when she finally gets around to it, she does get her mother there. But the mother she gets isn't the mother she fantasized over all these years, you know, it's not this loving, you know, I'm so sorry, I treat you that way kind of a relationship. And they both have to work at it. So while it's it's a it's a genre bending book. It's got elements of mystery of romance and paranormal. It's a women's fiction book with elements of literary. And it's won an award actually, for that, which made me feel very good because it was hard to market books that was genre genre bending.
Lainey 7:34
Anytime that a book doesn't fit neatly in one box. It's really hard, right? People want to read our books neatly in only one box. Right?
Alice Early 7:41
And yeah, it's hard to find. It's hard to find a publisher. When you
Lainey 7:45
Ya, exactly. Let's take a quick peek at one review, one blurb that I'd love to share with folks here, because I think it also captures it really nicely. And this is from Martha Hall, Kelly, who people may know as the author of the international bestseller, Lylac Girls, and it's prequal Lost Roses. And she says The Moon Always Rising takes your imagination on a trip to lush Caribbean Nevis and the Scottish Highlands in an engrossing story about love and forgiveness, and how that can help broken people mend. I especially loved the fabulous ghosts such a unique and intriguing character. And I love the idea that the ghost is the main character in the book. It's fabulous.
Alice Early 8:25
Yeah, he really is one of the one of the one of the biggest actors in this whole drama. Yeah.
Lainey 8:31
Yeah. So I have a question for you. If folks read the book now, has it changed a lot? You know, you talked a little bit about not getting a ton of input from your editor, necessarily, or publisher. Like, if they would read it today? Has it changed a lot from your earlier versions? Or is it pretty close to where you started?
Alice Early 8:47
Oh, it is so different. It is so so different. I I wrote it in pieces. I wrote a lot of it while I was working with a writing group here on the vineyard. I, I put it all together when I got all my debts, and I had 200,000 words. And that's two whole novels. And I had to cut so so much in order to make it down to 100 ish 1000 words. Then I hired a developmental editor who gave me some fabulous advice, but but she caused me to have to rewrite a bunch of it. So I dumped 50,000 words, and wrote a new 50,000 words. And that's what ended up being the final novel. So it has changed so much from the time that I got to that stage. When I was looking for my agent and then when we went to find a publisher, the novel really was only it was only tiny polishing and proofreading it was really not changed after that. But up until that time, it had just been changed tremendously. Dropping characters merging characters, you
Lainey 9:52
know, so what have you learned through that process that you might be able to share with other writers good writing advice for those who'd like to get a book that has seven or eight different not, you know, awards and recognitions.
Alice Early 10:05
I think one thing would be that, if I'd known what I know now, two things I would have done. One is I would have written the book, just straight through. Even if it was really, you know, the proverbial shitty first draft, I would have done that. Because writing it in little pieces like that, and writing it and taking those for critique, and a group meant that they got critiqued and rewritten and rewritten, and then they got dumped. I think if I had written the whole thing, and then started editing, it would have made a lot of sense, and it would have saved me years. The other thing I would have done is I would have joined a taking a writing course, a course in writing a novel, which is I've been writing all my life and I was a creative writing major in college, but I didn't know how to write a novel. And I fussed around with it. I'm such a DIY kind of a person, you know, I like to try to figure stuff out on my own. This is not something that is a good idea for a novel. So had I gone to a novel workshop or to an incubator or something like that, I would have had criticism and structural help much, much earlier in the book. And finally, I had to make that part of myself I had to take apart what I had and structurally revamp it and carve it up and re you know, re sculpt it. Which which worked I learned a tremendous amount but it was it could have been a lot less work and it could have been a lot shorter a process.
Lainey 11:32
And I know you're you're reading a lot of novels know that you are yourself award winning published author, you're getting asked to blurb you're getting asked to read different novels, tops was a little bit what have you been reading anything you can talk to us about or recommend?
Unknown Speaker 11:45
Well, um, interestingly, this summer and in the last year or so, I've read a number of books by friends that took me into thriller, Fantasy, Romance, mystery, murder, mystery, all things that I wouldn't necessarily have read. And some of them I enjoyed very much I went back and either will or have read sequels or other parts of the series from some of those same writers. Just as an example. I picked up Beatriz Williams, one of her Schuyler Sisters books, and it was so much fun. I read another one. And there's a third, I'm looking forward to that. I because I was I wanted to, I wanted to read things that are plot driven. I tend to read books that are character driven literary fiction is mostly character driven. And I was sort of wallowing in that writing my new book. And I really wanted to expose myself to plot driven. So I wrote, I read Lauren Buchanan's Indelible, which is the first of a three part murder mystery series. I read. Well, this is this is literary, but I read Shuggie Bain, which was the Booker Prize winner, who was written by a writer friend of mine, Douglas Stuart, I read something by Debra Immergut, which is called You Again, which is so interesting structurally, because it's got a character who sort of reappears and it's really a brain teaser to try to figure out what's going on there. Um, another one called Beauty by Christina Chiu. I read The Sweetest Days, which is a new novel by John Hough, my writing instructor here. And the fun of that was that I got to interview him when he was launching this new book. And he's written like eight novels. And you know, so to be able to pay back something of the support I've gotten from him. So it was really a mixed bag, very much of a mixed bag. And very,
Lainey 13:47
because that's a really long list. And I'm prep. I'm sure the podcast listeners are going like crimini, I can't keep up, I'll make sure I put all of those in the shownotes on the web, I'll give you my list and find them. That will be perfect. And so I want to talk about how people can connect with you. Let me just quickly show that because you are so interesting, and you've learned so much. And I think your book and just your whole journey is fascinating. So if folks want to follow you on Instagram, you're at Alice early on Instagram, on the web, they can find all your other social medias at Alice airlie.com. And I always like to wrap up the interview by asking, is there anything you wanted to talk about that I haven't asked you about? I don't think so. Well, I will say on your behalf then that if folks have book clubs, I think this would make a great book club book. I should have said that. Well, there you go. That's teamwork here. So if folks are interested, they can reach you from your website from your social media. And yeah, I think it'd be a fun book club book. You've got the locations, you've got goals, you've got all kinds of different things going on. I think it'd be a fun but sublime.
Alice Early 14:49
I love doing books and I've done a few locally but I've done a lot of them virtually all over the world and all over the country anyway, and they're they're just a lot of fun. I love that. Hey,
Lainey 14:59
Well It has been so much fun to talk with you, Alice and I really appreciate you taking the time and your great writing advice for other writers and the great list of books you had there.
Alice Early 15:08
Well, thank you and it's been so much fun to get to know you over social media. I applaud you for your own novel and hope you're writing another and I so appreciate your inviting me to come on the show today.