Ginny Myers Sain
About Author
Ginny Myers Sain tells ReadingZone what inspired her latest page-turning YA novel, One Last Breath.
Ginny comes from a long line of writers, although her first love has always been the theatre. She has a degree in theatre and has spent most of her career teaching acting and directing plays and musicals.
Ginny currently lives in St. Cloud, Florida, with her college-age son and a wild goldendoodle named Magnolia. When she is not working in the theatre or writing, you're likely to find her listening to true crime podcasts, taking pictures of alligators, eating tacos, travelling to spooky places, or hanging out at Walt Disney World.
Interview
One Last Breath (Electric Monkey)
March 2024
One Last Breath is a suspenseful, pacey murder-mystery in which two teenage girls try to get to the truth behind the murders of two girls, decades previously. We find out from author Ginny Myers Sain what inspired her new thriller, how she develops stories from the settings and landscapes she knows, and how she gets inside the heads of her characters.
Read a chapter from One Last Breath
Review: Twists and turns abound throughout this fast -paced book.
Find out about the real-life unsolved crimes that helped inspire Ginny Myers Sain's new thriller!
Q&A with Ginny Myers Sain, introducing One Last Breath
"My books are dark, twisty thrillers with atmospheric settings and a touch of magic."
1. It's great to have you join us on ReadingZone. What brought you into writing for YA readers, and what have been your writing career highlights so far?
I've spent most of my life up until now working in the theatre teaching acting and directing plays and musicals. I worked primarily with high school students who were seriously interested in pursuing a career in the professional theatre. Because I worked so closely with young people, I knew when I started writing that I wanted to write for that age group. I just felt like I really knew their hearts and their minds and I love how passionate and loyal and creative teens are. It's such an interesting age where you are poised on the brink of something that might be amazing, but something that is also kind of terrifying.
Some of the highlights so far have been finding out that Dark and Shallow Lies made the New York Times Bestseller List and that it won the Crystal Kite award from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I've also loved getting to do events and meet readers!
Other than working as an acting teacher and theatre director, I also spent some time working in a really cool art museum. That was a really fun job. I worked at the front desk and at special events.
2. How would you describe the kinds of novels you write, and what draws you to an idea?
I always tell people my books are dark, twisty thrillers with atmospheric settings and a touch of magic.
Usually, it's an interesting setting that draws me to an idea. I come up with a place I want to set a story, then I ask myself who might live there and what problems they might have.
3. What happens in your new book, One Last Breath?
This book is about a girl named Tru who has grown up in the shadow of a gruesome double murder that happened in her small town, decades ago. She's always been fascinated by the case. When a new girl comes to town who has the same interest in those old murders, the two of them team up to solve the old crime, but they end up being caught up in a deadly game with a serial killer.
"When I started writing One Last Breath, I knew I wanted to explore the idea of what it means to grow up in the shadow of a horrible tragedy,
particularly a gruesome, unsolved murder."
4. What inspired this story of deep dives, unsolved murders and past lives?
I always try to incorporate a bit of real life or actual history into my stories. I grew up in Oklahoma, not far from the location of the infamous Girl Scout Murders. As a kid, I was both terrified and fascinated by what happened at Camp Scott in the 1970s. Those murders loomed large over my childhood, and my friends and I spent a lot of time whispering about and speculating about what happened to those girls. Because of that, when I started writing One Last Breath, I knew I wanted to explore the idea of what it means to grow up in the shadow of a horrible tragedy, particularly a gruesome, unsolved murder.
Then, as a high school student who would be starting college soon, I had also been deeply affected by the murders Danny Rolling committed in Gainesville, Florida in the early 90s. Eventually the Girl Scout murders at Camp Scott and Rolling's crimes melded in my mind to become the story of the murders at Hidden Glen and the crimes of the Glades Reaper.
I had fallen in love with the deep, gorgeous, and mysterious freshwater springs of central Florida years earlier, and once I started writing, I always knew I would set a story in that rich environment. One Last Breath became that story. The oppressive heat and isolation of the thick, tangled scrub. The wild element of the alligators and venomous snakes. The beautiful, but possibly deadly, allure of those seemingly-bottomless cerulean pools. It was just an irresistible setting for a thriller, especially when you add in the element of freediving, which creates an extra layer of danger.
"I always know my endings. It's important for me to have a road map of where I'm going."
5. What drives the story for you, and with suspense books like this, do you need to know the ending before you start to write?
For me, it's a combination of setting, plot, and character. I don't think you can really depend on just one of those things. I like my thrillers to have a lot of character development!
I always know my endings. It's important for me to have a road map of where I'm going. Every writer is different, though.
6. What's the writing process like for you - do you live and breathe your characters as you're writing?
I tend to get really inside my character's heads. I approach it in sort of the same way I would approach building a character as an actress in the theatre. All of the characters in this book were so much fun to write, but I particularly fell in love with Tru's boyfriend, East, he's just such a golden-hearted character.
"There's a line in One Last Breath about how in a small town, everyone's roots get all tangled up.
I think that's true."
7. Can you tell us about the setting of One Last Breath, Mount Orange in Florida, and what draws you to writing about rural communities like this one?
Mount Orange, Florida, is a fiction town but it's sort of loosely based on the town of High Springs, Florida. I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, then lived for years and years in a little town in Arkansas. So rural communities are where my heart is.
I think small towns are such interesting places. There's a line in One Last Breath about how in a small town, everyone's roots get all tangled up. I think that's true. There are great things about living in a small town, for sure, but there are drawbacks too. Everyone gets very much drawn into everyone else's business.
8. There's a lot of deep diving in the novel. Why did you decide to make this so central to the story - and how did you research it? Did you attempt freediving yourself?
I haven't done any diving myself, but I have spent years watching freedivers at the springs in Florida. I was just so fascinated with the idea of it. It seems terrifying and claustrophobic to me, but divers talk about the peace and euphoria of it. And of course it's really dangerous. So when I started thinking about setting this book at the Florida springs, I knew I wanted to bring freediving into the story. So I did a lot of research by reading about the sport and talking to divers.
"I do most of my writing in my haunted writing room, which is actually not haunted! It's just full of fun, spooky stuff.....
We have a full size skeleton that sits on the couch in there."
9. What are you writing currently - what can readers look forward to next from you - and is your writing room really haunted?
I'm finishing my final round of edits on book four! It's another thriller with a magical element to it. This one is set in the Arkansas Ozarks, which is an area I lived in for a lot of years, so writing it felt like going home.
I do most of my writing in my haunted writing room, which is actually not haunted! It's just full of fun, spooky stuff my son and I have collected over the years. He has always loved Halloween and anything creepy, so when I started writing these spooky books, we had a lot of fun collecting cool creepy stuff together! So we have a full size skeleton that sits on the couch in there. Stuff like that. It's lots of fun! I also do lots of writing on our covered back porch, especially during the winter months in Florida when it's really lovely outside.
10. Where are your favourite places to go, when you're taking a break from your writing room?
Since we live in Florida, we spend lots of time at the beach and exploring around the state. We love the Florida springs, of course. And we spend a lot of time at Disney World. Other than that, I love to spend time reading all kinds of books, but I do read a lot of other young adult thrillers. As far as TV and film go, I love true crime documentaries and horror movies!
One Last Breath
Dark and Shallow Lies
