Taylor Stevens by Alyssa Skyes
In The Informationist, Vanessa Michael Munroe deals in information--expensive information--working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. A Texas oil billionaire hires her to find his daughter who vanished in Africa four years ago. Pulled into the mystery of the missing girl, Munroe finds herself back in the land of her childhood, betrayed, cut off from civilization, and left for dead. If she has any hope of escaping the jungle and the demons that drive her, she must come face-to-face with the past that made her what she is.
Please tell us about the character of Vanessa Michael Munroe.
She is a chameleon and predator with an innate savant-like ability for languages. Born to missionary parents and raised in Central Africa, her parents were long done caring for children by the time she came along. That detached relationship propelled her down unconventional paths and, as a citizen of the world, she holds no affinity to any particular country or group of people. She has developed her own brand of morality and a take-no-prisoners sense of justice. When we first meet her in THE INFORMATIONIST, it is after she has reinvented a traumatic adolescence into a career as an information hunter.
The character of Vanessa is compared to Lisbeth Slander, so how does this make you feel?
This is such a difficult question to answer. On the one hand, what debut author wouldn’t want to be compared to a writer who has sold over 50 million copies world-wide, and who has an enormous fan base? I haven’t read the Millennial series but I do understand that both characters come from rough backgrounds and are kick-butt women, so I get why the comparisons arise and I am grateful for the exposure they’ve brought to my writing. On the other hand, it’s not particularly fun to have work repeatedly framed in the context of someone else's—no matter how wonderful the praise—so the comparisons are what they are, and I appreciate that they’ve brought me readers that may have never otherwise picked up my work.
What is the appeal of the thriller genre for you?
I think it was more of an accident than an appeal. When I first began writing fiction, I had no concept of genre. I had been born and raised in a very strict, isolated, and controlled religious environment in which my education stopped completely when I was 12 years old. We weren’t allowed to watch TV, or listen to music from the outside, and were also forbidden from reading fiction. When finally I was free of that and able to make my own choices, not only did I have no reference as to what authors to read, I was too poor to go to bookstores to buy books. Everything I read came to me second hand, and as it was, most of the novels were suspense and thrillers. So I came to fiction with the understanding that stories were meant to be “exciting,” and that was what I emulated when I began to tell stories of my own—which actually worked out quite nicely given that writing suspense is what comes naturally to me.
Please tell us about the inspiration behind the story.
Oh goodness. The impetus and inspiration winds so far back that we would take pages to get to the root of it, but in its most concise version: I had lived in Equatorial Guinea for a little over two years and also spent several months in Cameroon, so I had been quite immersed in the location. When I made the decision to start writing, it was because I wanted to bring this tiny country to life for readers who might never have the chance to visit. I didn’t have characters or plot, but I knew I needed to show the experience of being there in a way that would make sense without turning the story into a travelogue, and it was through this that Vanessa Michael Munroe was born.
Please can you tell us a bit about your previous writing.
THE INFORMATIONIST was my first—and gratefully not the last! I suppose I’m somewhat of an anomaly in this regard. Many novelists have a manuscript or two tucked away in a drawer somewhere—early works on which they cut their teeth and honed their craft—or come from a background in writing such as journalism or teaching, or have done short stories and such. I had no writing credentials, or prior publications—or even a middle-school education. To be fair, the earliest attempts at THE INFORMATIONIST were a far cry from the finished version. I had to teach myself to write as I went (and I still can’t punctuate to save my life), but as I’d already lost my childhood, adolescence, and nearly a decade of adulthood to that isolated upbringing, I couldn’t afford to write for practice. Everything had to count. When I look back now, it’s difficult to even imagine what life would be like had this “writing thing” not worked out and I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the many readers and fans who’ve kept me going.
What is your writing process?
The process has changed a lot over the years. At the beginning, I was a mom at home with two babies. I wrote in stolen moments, but I had no idea what I was doing—which meant learning as I went, and also meant a lot of re-writes just to keep the first parts of the book consistent with the latter parts as the quality of the writing improved. With THE INFORMATIONIST, I didn’t outline and I started with no plot, no characters—nothing except the location. Things are very different now as I head into the fifth book in the series. I’ve had a chance to learn what works for me and what doesn’t. I’m still a fulltime mom, but now I have quiet hours and I work when the kids are in school. I also outline and get the story straight in my own head before I begin the writing as this gives me a feel for who the characters are, how they interact, and what their motivations are, and also allows me to keep the plots tighter and saves the frustration of writing in directions that ultimately don’t work.
Who are your favourite reads in the genre?
These days, I rarely read thrillers—or even much fiction. Shocking, I know! When I do, I have a tendency to turn toward humour and light reading—brain candy. I expect this has something to do with the many hours I already spend each day immersed in racing plots and action sequences. That said, Robert Ludlum will probably always be my favorite, if only because it was when reading the last of the Bourne Trilogy that I had the flash of inspiration that propelled me to write fiction. I craved to create the things, the people, the worlds and stories in the way that Ludlum could create them. Vanessa Michael Munroe and THE INFORMATIONIST were the fulfillment of that desire, and I’m not being facetious when I say that Robert Ludlum changed my life.
What is next for you?
The next in the series, THE INNOCENT, takes readers inside the cult of my childhood. It is as close to real life as I could get in a genre-specific, word-count based, fictional format. For that reason, it is more psychological and has less blood and violence than the first—but the realism is uncomfortably accurate. The high octane continues with THE DOLL, and we are now getting ready to publish the fourth in the series, THE CATCH, in the United States. I’m excited because with each new title I hear from more readers, and I do love to interact with my readers. For those who are interested in hearing from me, I email regularly via www.taylorstevensbooks.com/connect.php.
The Informationist by Taylor Stevens is available now (Arrow Books £6.99)