Hi Readers! Fans of domestic suspense may remember today’s guest, Rea Frey, and her debut novel Not Her Daughter, which I featured on the blog in 2018. As I said in that review, Not Her Daughter was one of my most intriguing reads of the year, and that debut launched Rea as one of the genre’s most intrepid writers. I’m delighted to have her join me today in fielding my questions about her latest release, Until I Find You.

Rea, welcome! Of Until I Find You, you have said, “I wanted to put an extraordinary woman in the toughest circumstances imaginable and see if she could endure.” What inspiration brought the particular pieces of this story together?

As a lover of strong women (and a strong woman myself), I am always interested in resilience. How much can one endure before her world crumbles? Can she find her way through and not around? While we all deal with our own struggles, creating a brilliant musician who loses her sight, then her husband, then her mother, and finally, her son, could push anyone over the edge. But Rebecca Gray holds steadfast in her beliefs that someone has taken her son…and I really wanted to delve into that age-old fact that mothers always know when it comes to their children. Also, as an author, I wanted to challenge myself: yes, I’m a mother, and yes, I have terrible eyesight, but I am not a widow. I am not blind. And I have not lost a baby. So I wanted to walk a day in Rebecca Gray’s shoes and see if I, too, could survive.

In writing Until I Find You, what is one aspect of its creation that kept you up at night?

First, doubting if I could write from a vision-impaired perspective. I wanted to represent this community to the best of my ability, because we often don’t celebrate them on the page. Secondly, I actually kept having recurring nightmares about hearing a baby cry, reaching into a crib, and realizing the child was not mine. So, this story QUITE LITERALLY kept me up at night!

You are reputedly “insanely good” in a crisis. How so? Stories, please.

Ha! Well, as a child who was so accident-prone that I literally landed in the ER so many times, the doctors stopped letting my parents come back with me (in fear that I was being physically abused) set the foundation. I was always bloody, bruised, scraped up, etc. But I also loved learning how to mend wounds. So, when someone would get hurt, I was the steady, rational brain in the situation. If there’s a collective panic, I am calm. If there’s blood, I don’t flinch. If someone is freaking out, I can logically assess.

One day, when my daughter was in kindergarten, she fell and hit her chin. She approached me in the pickup line, wailing, and I looked at her and said, “Okay, that’s her chin bone sticking out. Check.” I promptly took her into the school nurse’s office and doctored her up myself while the nurses looked on, shocked. I probably should have gone into medicine or become an emergency responder. If someone is hurt or in hysterics, I’m your gal.

Tell us two unexpected things about you as a writer.

I was a journalist for a long time and covered several death penalty trials, so I’ve been on Death Row, which was shocking in more ways than one. I also got my start in writing through poetry. It is my first love and something I return to again and again.

And as a reader?

As a child, my heroes were African-American authors: Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes. I never understood the difference between African-American writers or white or brown writers. I simply sought good writing. Because I read so much as a child, it allowed me to stretch into different genres.

Currently, I have seven books on my nightstand: ranging from poetry to quantum physics to women’s fiction to thrillers to statistics to breathwork. Also, I have never read an eBook. I don’t own an e-reader and never will. Reading, to me, is a tactical experience. I need to sniff the pages, hold the book, and then give it away to someone who needs it once I’m done. I will never stop purchasing physical books.

Thank you, Rea! It’s been a pleasure having you here today.

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About Until I Find You:

2 floors. 55 steps to go up. 40 more to the crib.

Since Rebecca Gray was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease, everything in her life consists of numbers. Each day her world grows a little darker and each step becomes a little more dangerous.

Following days of feeling like someone’s watching her, Rebecca awakes at home to the cries of her son in his nursery. When it’s clear he’s not going to settle, Rebecca goes to check on him.

She reaches in. Picks him up.

But he’s not her son.

And no one believes her.

One woman’s desperate search for her son . . .

In a world where seeing is believing, Rebecca must rely on her own conviction and a mother’s instinct to uncover the truth about what happened to her baby and bring him home for good.

About the author:

Rea Frey is the celebrated author of Not Her Daughter, Because You’re Mine, and Until I Find You. She also is the founder and CEO of Writeway, where aspiring writers become published authors. To learn more, please visit reafrey.com or writewayco.com.

Buy the book here.

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Thanks to the author for providing me this book free of charge. All opinions are mine.