Exploring How One Pivotal Occasion Can Form the Course of Our Lives

Map of My Escape by Cheryl Reed

On the lookout for a gripping, character-driven thriller that can preserve you on the sting of your seat? Then Cheryl L. Reed’s Map of My Escape is simply what you want. It’s the story of a younger lady on the run — from the legislation and from her traumatic previous.

In highschool, Riley Keane misplaced her youthful brother in a mass taking pictures. Since then, she’s been an outspoken — and sometimes arrested — anti-gun activist. This stands in stark distinction to the beliefs of her lover, right-wing Chicago politician Finn O’Farrell. Regardless of their political variations, the 2 share a deep connection — however can it stand up to Riley’s sudden disappearance after her finest buddy, Chicago cop Reece Taylor, is shot?

You could find out extra about Map of My Escape right here in our full evaluation, or learn under to study what went on behind-the-scenes to carry this story to life.

Q: What impressed you to put in writing this guide?

A: I’ve watched as one mass taking pictures after one other is roofed on the information. I’ve reported on a number of myself as against the law reporter. However I all the time puzzled what occurred when the satellite tv for pc vehicles have been gone and the reporters had packed as much as head to the subsequent taking pictures. How did the survivors transfer on? That’s why I’ve set the guide 13 years after a highschool taking pictures. Additionally, I used to be interested in how you can elude the police as a wished fugitive in a digital age. I coated fugitives in my early profession as a journalist, but it surely’s a lot tougher now that there are such a lot of cameras and monitoring units. And the opposite side — as a result of I by no means write a guide about one singular occasion — I’ve all the time been interested in islands which might be reduce off from the remainder of the world for months at a time. I puzzled what it could be prefer to overwinter on an island and what would possibly you study your self with out the affect of the surface world.

Q: What made you resolve to set the story primarily on the chilling, distant islands of Lake Superior?

A: As I discussed above, I’ve all the time puzzled what it could be like to cover out on an island and I assumed it was an ideal place to set an insular world.

Q: The place did you discover inspiration for these characters?

A: As a journalist, I’ve interviewed actually a whole bunch of individuals. And I research folks. What motivates them, what drives them to behave or react in a sure method. As an creator, I need my characters to be fascinating and, for essentially the most half, unpredictable. In any other case, the reader would get bored. That stated, these characters are based mostly on components or items of individuals I do know, folks I’ve interviewed. I need my characters to look actual, believable. Riley is the gutsy, fearless lady that I’ve all the time been impressed by. Reece is the difficult quiet man that everybody all the time underestimates. And Finn is the seemingly joyful man who has a darkish previous.

Q: How did you stability the story’s motion and suspense with the characters’ improvement?

A: There are many theories about how one can intersperse inside monologues with exterior motion. I believe the tactic that works finest is what emulates actual life. When a personality is in an motion — both because the giver or the receiver — they’re within the second. However later they ruminate over what occurred. One of the simplest ways to form a personality is to present them an existential drawback, which all these characters had in multiples.

Q: The story touches on problems with grief and the characters’ self-discovery. Are you able to inform us the way you went about addressing these themes?

A: Early on within the guide, one of many NativeAmerican islanders warns Riley: “The island does humorous issues to folks … You need to discover out what you’re fabricated from, who you actually are? Spend a winter on Angelica.” The island forces folks to handle who they’re and their very own resiliency. On the identical time, I consider that unresolved grief will preserve arising till a personality offers with it. That’s actually true for these three characters. They’ve chosen paths in life particularly to take care of their grief as taking pictures survivors.

Q: How would you examine your guide to different thrillers? Are there any books or authors that influenced you?

A: I don’t simply see this guide merely as a thriller. One in all my readers informed me that she didn’t see it as against the law novel, however reasonably as a human-interest story. Too many occasions books get labeled one style or one other as a result of it’s simpler to categorize and promote. However the actuality is that there are many literary books that function crimes. I take into consideration Donna Tartt’s novel The Secret Historical past, a couple of group of associates who carry the story of a homicide amongst them. I take into consideration The Colony of Unrequited Desires by Wayne Johnston, which is historic fiction, however whose gutsy lead feminine character is on par with Riley in Map of My Escape.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from this story?

A: I hope they arrive away with an understanding of how one pivotal occasion can form the course of the remainder of our lives. Though this isn’t an anti-gun guide, the guide does have a look at our mass homicide epidemic from a number of factors of view and I hope they consider what’s the reply. How will we cease these mindless acts of violence? I hope in addition they contemplate the trick our eyes play on us, how what folks see might not be what is basically taking place: a lady taking pictures a gun, a person filming from a second-story window. These all transform one thing aside from what they look like.

Publish Date: 6/18/2024

Style: Thrillers

Writer: Cheryl Reed

Web page Rely: 412 pages

Writer: Working Wild Press

ISBN: 9781960018175