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Kym Roberts | Cozy Corner Interview: A Map to Mystery with Peng Shepherd

March 28, 2022

Who doesn’t love maps? Sure, they can be confusing, puzzling, and downright impossible to fold, but the adventures they hold are amazing. When I saw the latest release by Peng ShephardTHE CARTOGRAPHERS, I had to check it out. It’s a little bit adventure, a little bit mystery, and a whole lot of intrigue and fun. Peng is definitely a writer you want to keep on your list of go-to of authors, so of course I had to invite her to sit down with us at the Cozy Corner and find out how her heroine, Nell Young, came to life.

 

Kym:  Welcome to the Cozy Corner, Peng!

Peng: Thrilled to be here!

 

Kym: Maps, I love maps! The art of map reading has been lost on the youth of today thanks to GPS giving them directions and that’s why I loved the premise of your latest release, THE CARTOGRAPHERS. How good of a map reader/folder, are you?

Peng: Pretty good, although I definitely got a lot better during the writing of this novel! I spent a lot of time looking at one map in particular, the map which the book is based on—by the time I finished writing the manuscript, I knew the area I was writing about so well that I probably could give you turn-by-turn driving directions to various sites by heart now. Folding though, that’s another art in and of itself. It still takes me a couple tries to get that right.

 

Kym: LOL, maybe you could do your own version of Siri or Google maps directions – your voice would be a much better choice. THE CARTOGRAPHERS takes place in New York and although it’s an adventure/mystery novel, it never leaves New York. No Indiana Jones snake hazards high above the earth for Nell Young, but she does experience more than her share of perilous situations. If you were going to go on a treasure hunt, where would you like to search – a jungle, a desert, the ocean, or an ancient city below a city? 

Peng: An ancient city for sure. My favorite part would be all the forgotten languages carved into doors and walls that I’d have to decipher using scrolls I’d brought from my research lab or found there in order to unlock the path forward.

 

Kym: You and me both! The Cartographers mixes adventure, magic, and mystery – it’s full of classic childhood fantasies. I feel like the creativity of youth is being lost in the electronic social media age of today. As a kid, my best friends and I buried treasures in the hillside across the street and we drew maps to locate spies in our neighborhood. Is THE CARTOGRAPHERS inspired by some of the adventures you experienced in youth?

Peng: That is such a wonderful memory! I also used to draw maps to exchange with my brother and my friends, and we’d try to follow each other’s routes to arrive at whatever secret destination the maker had planned. Sometimes the maps would be comprised of pictures instead of place names, or contain riddles, or be drawn upside-down, so it was always a challenge! The only prize was bragging rights, but those are some of my fondest childhood memories.

 

Kym: I’m so glad your book not only to the author back to her childhood, but the readers as well! Many authors put a little piece of themselves in their main characters. Is there a part of Nell, or any of your other characters, that you identify with? 

Peng: We’ve all experienced some of the things Nell goes through (family drama, a breakup, a romance, losing a job, etc.), but I didn’t draw on anything specific from my own life to create her. She’s definitely her own person!

 

Kym: When someone reads your title, THE CARTOGRAPHERS, they may as well be reading THE BOOK CLUB – I swear I’ve met your characters at my local library! Did any readers inspire some of the personalities of your characters?

Peng: I always say that writing a character feels less like a process of creating a person than meeting them fully formed. I’m always discovering who they already are during the first draft, not making them according to my desires. It’s a mysterious process, and a little odd for them to have such control since they aren’t real, but I think it makes the book feel more authentic in the end, because their wants, fears, and personalities are wholly their own.

 

Kym: You delve deeper into cartography than most of us are aware of, how much did you know about it before you wrote this book and what kind of research did you do?

Peng: I’ve been fascinated by maps for years, but before I started writing the novel, I spent several months doing research. I wanted the cartographers in the book to be believable, and I also wanted almost all the maps that are mentioned in the story to be real maps – if you look them up, you’ll be able to find almost all of them on Google! Because there’s something mysterious, and a little bit mystical, going on in the story, having those links to reality was really important to me.

 

Kym: That is awesome! Nell finds a hidden map in the library and has a riff with her father that ends in estrangement. She later locates that same map at her father’s office in her mother’s belongings. (I don’t want to give away too much!) If you were to hide a map for your children to find after you were gone, what kind of map would they find? You can keep the location a secret.

Peng: What a fun question! I’d probably send them on a scavenger hunt across the globe, with every stop being one of my favorite restaurants. Now I really want to make this map!

 

Kym: You and me both. What are you working on now? Please tell us another adventure with Nell! And if so, will we see Nell traveling outside of NY? 

Peng: I’m halfway through the first draft of my third novel, but it’s another standalone. I can’t say much about it at this point, except for that if you consider The Cartographers a fantasy or mystery, this one would be more of a thriller with some light science fictional elements. My editor and I have discussed writing a sequel to The Cartographers, but we’re still deciding—so Nell’s adventure may continue yet!

 

Kym: Please make it so! Where can our readers find you on social media?

Peng: You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @pengshepherd! I also have a website, www.pengshepherd.com, where you can find news about any upcoming live events.

 

Kym: Thanks for joining us at the Cozy Corner on Fresh Fiction!

Peng: Thank you so much for having me!

 

Until next time, get cozy and read on!

THE CARTOGRAPHERS by Peng Shepherd

The Cartographers

 

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field, and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable, and also exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence… because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret, and discover the true power that lies in maps…

 

 

Thriller Arcane [William Morrow, On Sale: March 15, 2022, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780062910691 / eISBN: 9780062910721]

An engaging and thrilling mystery sure to entertain and keep you up reading past your bedtime!

Buy THE CARTOGRAPHERSAmazon.com | Kindle | BN.com | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | Powell’s Books | Books-A-Million | Indie BookShops | Ripped Bodice | Love’s Sweet Arrow | Walmart.com | Book Depository | Target.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR

About Peng Shepherd

Peng Shepherd

 

Peng Shepherd was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet. She earned her MFA in creative writing from New York University, and has lived in Beijing; London; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; and New York City.

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About Kym Roberts

Kym Roberts

Kym Roberts writes by day and is a pro-surfer in her dreams by night. Her humor is often raunchy, her jokes are often bad, but her hunger for a story keeps the adventures coming fast. Experience the thrill & catch the wave of passion, mystery, and suspense with her at kymroberts.com, on Facebook @KymRobertsAuthor911, and on Twitter @kymroberts911.

 

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