L.A. Murphy
L.A. Murphy likes fast-paced novels with turns at every corner that will make you doubt everything you think you know. She is looking forward to making connections with potential readers and other authors.
Tell us about your background. Who you are, where you are from?
I am from a small town, located in the ‘River Hills’ along the Pee Dee River in North Carolina. I loved reading from a young age, then came the writing. I am currently in the process of promoting my new e-book called ‘Strange Things in Nerium’ and am excited to meet potential readers and fellow authors.
What themes does your book explore and what do you hope the readers will take away from the experience? Is there a particular feeling or experience that you hope to evoke in the reader?
If I could sum the theme of my novel up it would be: You may know what you’re looking for, but you never know what you’re going to find. The reader will most likely be left with their head reeling from the twist at the end, and it is my intention to evoke the feeling of doubt. To make a person doubt everything they think they know. The overall tone of the book is that of an eerie, small town with a dark side.
What prompted you to be an author and did you have a specific inspiration in mind? Were you influenced by a certain person, artist, or genre?
I treasure books. Collecting and reading them seems something akin to awe. My inspiration came from my love reading novels with twist and turns, how humans interact with one another and how misunderstandings that happen in everyday life can happen in books as well – leading to alternate theories and conclusions, and the idea that small town life can actually turn into irony when the concept of evil is introduced. I have been influenced by many authors throughout my life, from the classics, like John Steinbeck, to the master of horror, Stephen King.
If you could compare your book to any other existing works, which ones would it be and why?
I would compare my novels to those of Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield, The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff, and the novels Ghost Flower and Rosebush by Michele Jaffe. Stephen King also inspired me with his many novels about how small town life is never what it seems.
Tell us about your latest work and what inspired you.
My latest book is called ‘Strange Things in Nerium‘. Here is a summary of my novel:
The town of Nerium is famous for its honey, but when cryptic circumstances invade the town intertwining residents and a faceless presence coats the community, enemies will be made and bonds will be forged that are thicker than the honey that glazes this small, eerie town as they search to unveil what lurks behind the surface of Nerium. They say there’s no place like home and for some that is true, but for residents of Nerium their home is changing.
Things are not as they seem in this peaceful, small town.
Following the peculiar death of longtime resident Mrs. Garrity, a chain of events is set into motion that carries unforeseeable consequences.
People are disappearing, unexplainable incidents are occurring, and perfectly healthy people are dropping dead.
After the first murder is discovered, the town can no longer deny the fact that something has befallen Nerium with devastating intentions and a darkness cloaks the town bringing paranoia and pandemonium with it.
With strange and dark circumstances surrounding Nerium, bizarre events and troubling actions of residents leave the town fighting for their lives.
As told through the eyes of select residents whose lives drastically differ, but gradually begin to intertwine as the sinister force is slowly unfolded to reveal the truth behind these seemingly random incidents, deaths, and disappearances to pull them all together in a final revelation that will decide if the future of Nerium can survive or succumb to the frightening and deadly faceless phenomena that plague their town.
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