The Last Broken Girl, the debut thriller by author Cynthia Rice
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!
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The Last Broken Girl
Erin Moore, kidnapped as a teenager and held for months, learns her abductor is up for parole. The police always believed her captor acted alone, and that the female accomplice Erin described years ago was the fabrication of a traumatized mind.
Twenty years later, Erin leads a rigidly structured life with her husband and two young daughters and has a successful psychology practice in the same small midwestern town.
When her abductor is paroled early and goes missing, leaving behind a large pool of blood, Erin and her husband become suspects. Erin receives threatening notes she is certain came from the accomplice, but she is unable to convince the police the menace is real.
As Erin watches her life unravel, including her marriage, career and possibly her sanity, she knows the only way out is to bring the accomplice to justice, even if it’s twenty years late.
To purchase The Last Broken Girl, click any of the following links: Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books.
Interview with the Author of The Last Broken Girl — Cynthia Rice
The Last Broken Girl centers on Erin Moore. What would you like readers to know about her?
Erin is an educated, intelligent woman and a practicing Psychologist.
Even with her education and professional insight, she’s never been able to move past the events of her teen years. It affects her relationship with her husband and her sister, as well as how she approaches her practice.
The Last Broken Girl is a thriller about a kidnapping. What drew you to that scenario for your debut novel?
In the plotting of the novel, I wanted Erin’s backstory to include a major traumatic experience which she survived but has had a lasting impact on her personality, and one where evil comes calling on her years later.
The kidnapping fit the bill.
The Last Broken Girl is set in rural Wisconsin, a place you have strong ties. What led you to set your novel there?
My father lived five miles outside a small town about forty miles from where my story takes place, and I was a frequent visitor to the area.
It was a town in decline, with the Shopko and Kmart closing, high unemployment, lots of bars, and only one grocery store.
There is an idyllic stereotype of small-town safety which ignores the very real problems of poverty, sexual abuse, drugs, violence and broken families. I find the dichotomy between perception and reality makes these small towns fertile ground for crime fiction.
How does being a physician impact your writing?
As a scientist, I tend to approach life in an analytical fashion, and that has its downside when it comes to writing fiction.
My first drafts tend to be light on the characters’ emotions, and that’s something I’m working on. There’s a great podcast series The Shit No One Tells You About Writing featuring Bianca Marais, Carly Watters, and CeCe Lyra, where they discuss increasing the ‘interiority’ in the scenes, and this is something I pay attention to in my editing.
I also find myself occasionally using terms or phrases which are confusing to people without a medical background, and my critique group has been helpful in curtailing this. For example, I described ‘the dependent’ side of a body bag, meaning the side down, and that was flagged.
When my kids were younger, I once asked the information desk at Bloomingdales in NYC which floor Pediatrics was on, in a moment of weakness. (This made Elena laugh out loud!)
I am also a mediocre golfer! What do you enjoy most about the sport?
For me, golf is mainly about social interaction. I have several groups of friends I play with. I have taken lessons to improve, and recently returned from a five-day golf camp in St. George, Utah, which was lots of fun.
In the end, golf is about being outside on a summer day with friends and getting to drive that little cart around. The score is secondary, although it’s an undeniably sweet feeling when your drive goes straight and long.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a final draft of a mystery, still unnamed, the first novel in a potential series, which takes place in Door County, Wisconsin. The protagonist is an ER physician, but this is not per se a medical mystery. It deals with themes of unhealthy family dynamics and obsession.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:
It’s important to find and keep a community of writers, whether through groups like Mystery Writers of America or a small critique group.
To quote Neil Gaiman, “Everything good that happened in my writing career happened because someone, normally another writer, helped me. Suggested me for something, put in a good word, and so on. The idea was always that you help others and they help others in turn. It’s not a win or lose game.”
Author Pet Corner!
I have a one-year-old kitten Clarice, a Siberian Forest Cat, who was not named for Clarice Starling, whose favorite spot for napping is on my laptop keyboard.
(When I shared the name with my kids, they both immediately texted me a photo of Hannibal Lecter.)
I also have an 8-year-old domestic shorthair rescue cat named Porkchop named by my son, and whose nametag reads Porkchop Rice.
Cynthia Rice — Author of The Last Broken Girl
To learn more about Cynthia, click on any of the following links: Twitter, Instagram & Website.
Elena Hartwell/Elena Taylor
