Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Second Star

A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of young renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers. Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete's nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she's falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up--and the troubled beauty trapped between them.

If you could write a modern day re-telling of another fairy tale which would you choose and how would you make it modern?

I can’t pick just one! I have always loved fairy tales, and I absolutely love reading and writing reinterpretations of them. I hope that more than one fairy tale re-telling is in my writing future.

How long does it take you to write a novel?

Honestly, every novel I’ve written has taken a different amount of time to write. Sometimes, I get an idea, and I write notes on it for months – years, even – before I actually sit down to write it. Sometimes I’m on a deadline, and that sets the clock for me. Sometimes the notes I receive from an editor are light and don’t take long at all, and sometimes each revision feels like starting all over again from scratch.

What is your favorite TV show and if you could write a novel about a character from that show which character would you choose?

My favorite TV show of all time is The West Wing, and I would love to write a story about how – years after Josiah Bartlet’s presidency – Sam Seaborn becomes president, with Josh Lyman as his chief of staff. My current favorite TV shows are The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. I’d love to write about the years the characters have spent off-screen – what Damon was doing between 1864 and 2009, or what Elijah was doing for the centuries before he returned to Mystic Falls and New Orleans. The shows give us wonderful glimpses into the characters’ pasts from time to time, but it would be so great to spend more time with them there.

If you could be another author dead or alive who would you choose to be?

I wouldn’t want to actually be another author, but I’d love to spend time with other authors – my dream-author-dinner-party would probably include Ernest Hemingway, Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joan Didion, and Alice Hoffman. 

What do you have planned for the future in terms of novels?

My next novel is called Faceless, and it will publish next year. It’s the story of Maisie Winters, a girl who’s normal life is thrown into a tailspin after she’s in a horrible accident. Maisie’s injuries are so severe that she is a candidate for – and eventually receives – a face transplant. Writing and researching this book has been fascinating, upsetting, and thrilling, and I can’t wait for it to be out there in the world for people to read.