Cherie Priest: Be Careful Who You Take Criticism From
Cherie Priest is the author of two dozen books and novellas, including the Booking Agents mysteries Grave Reservations and Flight Risk, southern horror novel The Toll, acclaimed gothic Maplecroft, and the award-winning Clockwork Century series, beginning with Boneshaker. Follow her on X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram.
Cherie Priest
Photo by Libby Bulloff, 2018
In this interview, Cherie discusses the rabbit hole that helped inspire her new thriller novel, The Drowning House, her advice for other writers, and more!
Name: Cherie Priest
Literary agent: Stacia Decker at DCL
Book title: The Drowning House
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Release date: July 23, 2024
Genre/category: Thriller
Previous titles: Grave Reservations, The Toll, Boneshaker, The Family Plot, and many others
Elevator pitch: A house washes up on a beach, and the sight of it stops the heart of the only woman alive who knows what it means. Now her grandson has vanished in her wake—but two of his childhood friends are on the case, scouring a remote Pacific Northwest island for answers.
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What prompted you to write this book?
I’d gone down an internet rabbit hole about the history of mass-market gothics, and I got thinking about how those spooky Victorian haunts were mostly considered spooky Victorian haunts because they were written (by and large) by midcentury authors … and they were writing about houses they considered old and out of fashion at the time.
In essence, they were describing their grandparents’ style. Upon this realization, I was seized by the impulse to write a gothic thriller that was unexpectedly modern, and not stylistically retro.
My own grandparents lived in a series of midcentury homes, and it wasn’t until I was middle-aged myself that I came to appreciate the vibe. For the longest time, it felt old and out-of-fashion to me, all internet inspo to the contrary.
So, I sat down and wrote a gothic thriller set around a haunted midcentury modern house … or two of them, really: the one that washed out to sea, and the one that stayed.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I was still noodling around with the broad idea when I decided I wanted to set it in a real place, ideally on an island. I wanted to go remote. No, more remote than that. Really remote.
I’ve lived in the boonies half my life, and the isolation angle is half the fun; so, I went poking around on Google Maps—just looking for a likely spot to set my story. It only took a day or two to find the perfectly named “Marrowstone Island,” then another day or two to plan a Writer Field Trip with my pal Kat Richardson (of the Greywalker series).
A couple of weeks later, we drove several hours south around Puget Sound, then up again to the very northeastern point of the Olympic peninsula. There, we stopped a few miles away from our destination at a 100+ year-old alcohol plant that once made ethanol for industrial use, and we used that as our home base while we scoped the island for a couple of days. (At the time, there was no place to stay on Marrowstone—not even an Airbnb.)
That was back in October of 2021, so it took about two and a half years to write a draft, rewrite it a couple of times, go out on submission, and get picked up by the marvelous folks at Sourcebooks—and the final product hits the shelves this July. In my experience, this is roughly typical.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
I think The Drowning House gets my personal award for Longest Discussion About the Title; the conversation went on for months. (Alongside the production process.) The working title was simply “Marrowstone,” but the publisher wanted something punchier… and between us (me, my agent, my editor, her boss, etc.) we went round and round for what felt like ages. Ultimately, I’m quite happy with the finished title (and the finished cover!), but for awhile there we were throwing quite a lot of spaghetti at the wall, trying to find something that would stick.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I really had to take a step back on this one and remember that my familiarity with rural living is not universal. In short, I found myself explaining things that I wouldn’t need explained to me, and that’s a tricky line to walk—providing sufficient helpful exposition versus dumping far too much of the same into the text.
For example, not everybody knows what it means for mail to come general delivery. I can ignore it and let people wonder, or get wild with the history of rural parcel delivery starting with the Pony Express … and the right course of action is usually somewhere in the middle.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
A good spooky time, and a healthy appreciation for easy access to emergency services.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Be careful who you take criticism from. Never take it from somebody you wouldn’t ask for advice. Likewise, you’ll never please everyone, and your stories will read like they were written by committee if you try. Instead, pick maybe two or three people whose opinions—and ideally, whose writing—you respect, and get their feedback instead.
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