Evie Green Interview - The New One

Photo Credit: Charlotte Knee Photography

Evie Green is a pseudonym for a British author who has written professionally for her entire adult life. She lives by the sea in England with her husband, children, and guinea pigs, and loves writing in the very early morning, fueled by coffee.

        

  

When/how did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?
I always loved reading: I was the kid who carried a book around to avoid having to talk to people and I was constantly lost in fictional worlds. I also loved writing and was always scribbling little stories and poems through my childhood, but the moment I saw a path to writing novels came when I read Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood, in my teens. I’m not sure what it was about that book, but it unlocked something in me. From then on I was desperate to write books and to do it all the time. I obviously will never be Margaret Atwood, but she’s inspired me at every stage, and she still does.

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to have a life in writing?
This is going to sound painfully obvious, but write. Write, and keep writing, and then when it becomes difficult, write some more. There’s a moment that every writer hits, when you’re far enough into the story to have lost the wonderful momentum of writing something new, but the end is too far away to be motivating. That’s when people give up. The key to making that leap, to making writing your life, is finding a way to push through. And the only way to push through is to do it. So — write! Everything else is secondary to that.

And as they say, you can’t edit a blank page. So write it badly, and then you can go back and write it well because it exists, and knowing that everything you do is making it better is extremely motivating.

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?
Appropriately for a book that centres around a teenage daughter, it was my teenage daughter Lottie. She is, luckily for me, not at all a tearaway like Scarlett in The New One, but she had exams, and then she had covid, and she needed me a lot through all of that. So she was my priority, and at times the book had to take a back seat.

Can you tell us when you started THE NEW ONE, how that came about?
I remember it so clearly: I was out walking with my husband, Craig, in the countryside in Cornwall and I started talking about an idea I’d been thinking about. We went through a series of ‘what if’ questions — what if your child was injured, and you were offered a new one? What if the new one was better in every way? What would happen if the original woke up? By the time we came home, the story was pretty much planned. My agent and editor were immediately on board, and here it is!

What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters?
I set out to write a story about a family with a nightmarishly difficult teenage daughter, who is seriously injured in an accident. When they’re offered an apparently miraculous lifeline and a new life in Switzerland they take it, though it seems too good to be true.

It’s hard to say this without spoilers, but one character in the book does something that surprised me even as I was writing it. That’s never happened to me before: it just unrolled onto the page and shifted the direction of the story I thought I was telling Sorry to be cryptic, but if you read it, you’ll probably spot it (if not, email me!).

MEET THE CHARACTERS
I’m so attached to the characters from The New One! These are the main players:

TAMSYN is mid-forties, married to Ed, and lives in a trailer in Cornwall, on the south-western tip of the UK. She works multiple jobs and when the story opens is in despair about the impossible behaviour of her teenage daughter, Scarlett. When Scarlett runs off in the night and is hit by a car, Tamsyn is faced with a question that can only have one answer: do they take the medical trial and the new life in Switzerland, or stay where they are and watch their daughter die?

In Switzerland everything is different. With a beautiful home, money in the bank and breathing space Tamsyn feels like a new person. And the clinic presents her with Sophie, who is exactly like Scarlett, except better. Sophie is loving and considerate — the perfect daughter. Tamsyn has everything she ever wished for . . . for now.

SOPHIE comes into being in Geneva, as a beautiful fourteen year old girl with the world at her feet. She’s happy, sociable and secure of her place in the family . . . it’s just a shame no one has thought to tell her that she’s a replica and that her original self is still lying in a coma, showing signs of starting to wake up. Sophie does NOT want Scarlett muscling in on her perfect life, and will do whatever it takes to stop her.

SCARLETT is out of control for a reason. Her parents don’t understand why and she can’t manage to tell them. When she’s hit by a car, she wakes up to find she’s in a new country, a new life, and that someone else has stepped into her place. Sophie has taken everything from her, and Scarlett cannot allow that to happen. It’s time to fight back.

ED is Tamsyn’s husband, Scarlett’s father. He’s a hard working chef who takes a practical approach to life, and so when they’re offered the opportunity of a move to Geneva, top notch medical care for Scarlett, and a wonderful new daughter, he takes it. Ed has a lot of secrets, but there’s no need for them to come out . . . is there?

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? 

The first thing I think of is the book I’m currently writing, because early morning is my totally protected writing time. The second thing is coffee. The third is: will I manage to creep out of the room to start writing without waking my husband? It’s about 50/50, but luckily he doesn’t mind at all.

What is your most memorable travel experience?
About ten years ago I was at a crossroads in both my writing life and my personal one. There was a book in my head that I was desperate to write, but it wasn’t the one my then-editor wanted: I’d been writing psychological thrillers for years and my editor quite reasonably wanted more of the same. The story in my head was centred around the image of a young woman with amnesia in a snowy place, not quite knowing why she was there. I tried to merge the two things, but it just wasn’t working

I decided to see if I could find the snowy place in my head, in real life, and landed on Svalbard, far north of the north coast of Norway. I scraped together all my money and went there on my own for a week. I spent all the time writing and walking, looking at the snow and the sky and feeling the book unfurl in my head and on the page. I went on a boat trip and saw three polar bears. It was summer, so it never got dark. The story took shape, and when I went home to England I walked away from my previous publisher and wrote my new book, The One Memory of Flora Banks, my first for young adults. It was a totally life-transforming trip and I loved Svalbard so much that I’ve been back several times, including on honeymoon.

Which would you choose, true love with a guarantee of a heart break or have never loved before?
True love and heartbreak for sure. I think by being open to love you have to be open to heartbreak. I’d take the feelings every time.

What is one unique thing are you afraid of?
I have a real thing about shower curtains. If I go into a bathroom and there’s a shower curtain and it’s closed I have to fling it open because otherwise there could be some kind of murderer lurking behind it, and the chances are, they’d probably be a clown.

When you looked in the mirror first thing this morning, what was the first thing you thought?
Oh I look weird. I’d forgotten I had my hair coloured yesterday.

A suspenseful, cutting-edge novel about two parents who finally get the daughter they've always wanted--it's too bad she isn't real. From the author of We Hear Voices.

For Tamsyn and Ed, life is tough. They both work long hours for very little money and come home to their moody, rebellious daughter, Scarlett.

After a tragic accident leaves Scarlett comatose and with little chance of recovery, Tamsyn and Ed are out of options until a lifeline emerges in the form of an unusual medical trial. In exchange for the very best treatment for Scarlett, a fully furnished apartment, and a limitless spending account, the family must agree to move to Switzerland and welcome an artificial copy of their daughter into their home.

Suddenly their life is transformed. Tamsyn and Ed want for nothing, and the AI replacement, Sophie, makes it feel just like having their daughter back--except without all the bad parts. Sophie is engaged, happy, and actually wants to spend time with her parents.

But things take a turn for the worse when Scarlett makes a very real recovery and the family discovers that the forces behind their new life are darker than they ever could have imagined.

You can purchase The New One at the following Retailers:

        

1 Winner will receive a $10 Amazon Gift Card.

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