Zibby Mag

Book jacket biographies don’t tell us nearly enough about the authors we love. That’s why Zibby Mag launched the Author Snapshot, giving readers an inside look at the lives and work of our favorite writers.

This week we’re featuring Alex North, internationally bestselling author of The Whisper Man and The Shadows, as well as The Angel Maker, which comes out on Tuesday!

Can you share the inspiration behind The Angel Maker?

I’ve always been fascinated by stories about rare and forbidden objects: films or books that are only rumored to exist, perhaps with macabre histories, and which people are drawn to seek out. With The Angel Maker, I wanted to do my own riff on that, and settled on the search for a notebook written by a notorious serial killer. But having explored various family dynamics in previous books, this time I wanted to write about the relationship between siblings. The story grew out of those two ideas—but also changed a great deal as it went! My first and final drafts are always very different.

How do you balance writing a suspenseful story and crafting resonant characters?

I honestly think the two go hand in hand. You can only have a very limited kind of suspense without characters you care about. But equally, a resonant character generates suspense in and of themselves, because you want to follow them through the story to see what they do and what happens to them. A well-written character drives the story. In an ideal world, they are the story.

Do you ever get scared writing your own books? Do you find that your characters or storylines creep into your dreams?

I get invested in my characters, but not enough to dream about them. And I’m never scared by my own writing. If anything, there’s a kind of glee in coming up with something creepy! I sleep well at the end of those days.

What other books would you recommend readers pick up after finishing The Angel Maker?

It’s tempting just to list my favorites! But that would take too long, so I’ll go with a couple of choices that, while very different from The Angel Maker, deal with some of the same themes: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, and The Other Side of Night by Adam Hamdy. I read them last year and thought both were excellent.

Are you working on anything new and, if so, can you share what it is?

I’m about halfway through another novel. But I’m superstitious when it comes to talking about work in progress—it always feels like if you say too much then it takes away the urge you have to write it. And as I said, my first and final drafts are always very different, so what I think it’s about right now will change. But fingers crossed it will be scary and emotional. Those are the main things I aim for.