Q&A with Yasmin Angoe

 

Photo by Rodney Williams Creative Image Photography

 

 

 

Yasmin Angoe is the author of the new novel Not What She Seems. She also has written the Nena Knight series. A former English teacher, she lives in South Carolina.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Not What She Seems, and how did you create your character Jac?

 

A: I was inspired to write Not What She Seems by an old short story I used to teach my 7th graders. It’s a macabre story called "The Landlady" by Roald Dahl and basically about a sweet, docile old lady who rents her bed and breakfast out to young boarders, but the landlady is absolutely not what she outwardly appears to be.

 

The thought of what people are like beneath the masks they wear, the exterior they present to the world, fascinates me because there are many sides to each of us…a few of us are way more sinister than anyone would ever believe.

 

And I wanted to couple the idea behind that short story with one’s believability. Do you believe someone just because they look a certain way? Or are rich? Or from a higher class? Or of a certain race, over someone else just because of those factors? That’s what my protagonist Jac Brodie is up against in Not What She Seems.

 

As with all my characters, it takes a while for their “being” to come to fruition for me. I can’t sit down and write until I get a good sense of who that character is and what are the issues about themselves that they will need to overcome by the end of the story.

 

With me, the internal conflict for the protagonist is the first thing I need to determine. Then what created that conflict? What are the ramifications of that conflict? How was Jac before and how is she now? How does she need to get better and what external conflict will deter her from becoming a better version of herself.

 

That’s how I created Jac. We meet her at her lowest. She punishes herself with all the worst and reckless choices. She bucks against the system (the system is her mother) because she doesn’t understand or know who she is or what she wants. And then I build out her character from there, making sure I make her as realistic and well-rounded as possible.

 

Most of all, I need to make her relatable to readers in some way. We all have little quirks, and we can recognize Jac’s and then acknowledge that while ours aren’t hers, we have some too!

Q: The writer Ashley Winstead said of the novel, “In an astonishing feat, Angoe combines a dark-as-sin psychological suspense with a heartwarming tale of familial redemption, peppered with laugh-out-loud social commentary.” What do you think of that description, and what do you see as the role of humor in the novel?

 

A: I appreciate Ashley’s description so much because that was absolutely what I was going for with this story. I don’t mean to be funny, but I guess the humor kind of just slips out.

 

Now that I think about it, I think that’s how I am in real life…occasionally unintentionally funny through casual observations which other people seem to find funny or shocking.

 

I also like to slip in a tiny point or two about some sort of life realization or social commentary I’m dealing with at the time and the best way to deliver a serious message is in a way the recipient doesn’t feel is preachy or condescending, so through humor it is.

 

Q: The novel is set in South Carolina--how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: Setting is crucial to me because it shapes how the characters are going to move throughout the story. There was a certain landscape, a visual, that I wanted to be the backdrop for the kind of story I was trying to tell.

 

In South Carolina, everyone is charming. They all greet you whenever they pass by and ask about your family and are truly invested in hearing about how you and your family are doing. But… Everyone practically knows each other somehow and as a person who came from Northern Virginia, it blew my mind how chatty and seemingly open people here were.

 

But this beautiful place also holds some darkness. It has a dark history for people who look like me, right? And the history is not so far in the past because one moment you’re thinking this is such a pretty place and such Southern hospitality. The next second, you get a dose of what they truly feel about you, and you realize all of that charming niceness was a mask.

 

I needed that setting and feeling in this book because it’s exactly what this book is about.  Now, behavior like this happens in every state. I’m just discussing where it happened first for me, and how I worked through it.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: I want them to have the same takeaways like Ashley Winstead! LOL. I want readers to be really immersed. To not be able to put the book down or stop the audio version. I want them to have a good time and to end the book thinking, “Whew! Jac and those folks are a trip. And Yasmin made me ‘clutch my pearls!”

 

Most of all, I hope the readers take away a sense of fulfillment. That I satisfied whatever they were trying to achieve when they started the book and that they will come back to me for more.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m beginning to write my next thriller. I’ve been thinking about that internal conflict for my protagonist and how she’s going to get through and I’m nearly there hashing it all out for her. I’m looking forward to how it all pans out. Neither she nor I know!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Just thank you for reading and supporting me and the books!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Yasmin Angoe.