Call Me Elizabeth Lark
Author: Melissa Colasanti
Published: 9th March 2021
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Domestic Suspense
Synopsis:
Your daughter went missing twenty years ago. Now, she's finally back. You thought she had returned a few times in the past, and your husband tells you she's not the one, but you feel it in your bones.
Now, what will you do to keep her home?
Twenty years ago, Myra Barkley's daughter disappeared from the rocky beach across from the family inn, off the Oregon coast. Ever since, Myra has waited at the front desk for her child to come home. One rainy afternoon, the miracle happens--her missing daughter, now twenty-eight years old with a child of her own, walks in the door.
Elizabeth Lark is on the run with her son. She's just killed her abusive husband and needs a place to hide. Against her better judgment, she heads to her hometown and stops at the Barkley Inn. When the innkeeper insists that Elizabeth is her long lost daughter, the opportunity for a new life, and more importantly, the safety of her child, is too much for Elizabeth to pass up. But she knows that she isn't the Barkleys's daughter, and the more deeply intertwined she becomes with the family, the harder it becomes to confess the truth.
Except the Barkley girl didn't just disappear on her own. As the news spreads across the small town that the Barkley girl has returned, Elizabeth suddenly comes into the limelight in a dangerous way, and the culprit behind the disappearance those twenty years ago is back to finish the job.
My Interview
Hello Melissa, thank you for being on my blog today! To start, tell us 3 reasons why we should read your book “Call Me Elizabeth Lark” – besides for its gorgeous cover!
Thank you for having me! I appreciate it so much. I loved writing the little cast of characters in the book, so I’m certainly biased. But I think Call Me Elizabeth Lark has three very intriguing central characters with complicated relationships. There are several big twists and layers of family secrets. If you enjoy domestic suspense this is definitely a book where I hope readers will get caught up in this little family with big secrets.
If you had to pick one character as your favorite, who would it be and why?
If I had to pick, I’d say Gwen is my favorite. She is the guilt-ridden older sister who was supposed to be babysitting the night her sister disappeared from the beach. Because of this, her relationship with Myra, her mother, is very strained. I thought about this even before writing the novel. What is too much for a mother to truly forgive? And even if this forgiveness is granted, would the teenage girl who lost her sister, never to return again, ever forgive herself? Twenty years later, when Elizabeth Lark enters the family’s life, Gwen is a bit prickly, a perfectionist, trying to control everything so she doesn’t make the same mistakes with her own kids. As a result, she’s caught up in this façade of ‘the perfect mother’ that we see portrayed on social media, the societal expectations of women. I felt for her as I wrote her, but also, I wanted to make her not entirely likable while still sympathetic. So she’s the character I worked with a lot to achieve that middle ground. I wanted to be free to explore all of these characters’ flaws—because they are deeply flawed—while keeping them intriguing. And Gwen’s personality is generally guarded so I had to work harder on showing the vulnerable side of her.
What was the funniest thing about writing this book?
I have six kids. And I used to have quiet time when the majority of them were at school and a babysitter was helping out with the youngest. Or when I could leave them home and work at Starbucks or the library for a few hours. But with COVID, we were suddenly all home together. And the babysitter option was out because I felt it was too risky. Eight people and two dogs in a house together when I was on a tight deadline for revisions on this book. Now, this part isn’t funny, but the creativity it took to get this done kind of was. I wrote in my walk-in closet, with the bedroom door locked, and the bathroom door locked, and the closet door shut just to slow them down and mute out the perpetual, “Mommy! Mommy! Can I have a snack?”
Is this your first published book or are there more of your novels?
I have another book, written under Melissa Woods, called That Night on the Bayou, which is literary fiction. This is my suspense debut, which is why I write under a pseudonym.
If you could work with any author, who would it be?
Ooh this is tough because I admire so many authors. I just finished Ruth Ware’s latest novel. So, I’m going to say Ruth Ware.
What was the most rewarding experience you’ve had since being published?
Seeing my book on bookstore shelves! As a young child, this was what I wanted more than anything. My life’s dream. And having this book on a lot of bookstore shelves has been an amazing experience. Of course, as authors we’re always looking toward the next goal—whether that’s sales or the next book deal or reviews—but I think it’s so important to go back to that child’s mind, the one that made you want to be a writer in the first place. And for most of us, it was because we loved reading, and we wanted to be storytellers. This is a tough business, with lots of rejection along the way, with highs and lows. But if I take my mind back to the place it was in before I knew this was a business, seeing my name on a book at the store is a huge accomplishment.
About the author:
Melissa Colasanti is a mother and an author. She has a BFA in fiction from Boise State University. Her writing has appeared in Lithub, Memoir Magazine, The Coffin Bell Journal and others. She is the Stephen R. Kustra scholar in creative writing for 2019, and was awarded the Glenn Balch Award for fiction in 2020.
The Giveaway
Great interview, thank you! This book sounds great!
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