As a writer, I am impressed by anyone who sits down and pens any content they decide to put out into the world. Just finishing up with the last of my edits for my first novel, I give kudos to anyone that can sit and write a story from start to finish. It’s a process that reaches into your soul and pulls everything out of you. Pouring yourself into your characters, their lives and designing a story that will keep people engaged for hundreds of pages is no easy task, so when I hear of authors who not only do that but also write a book within a book, well, I’m impressed.
Source: Amazon
Catherine McKenzie is one of those authors. Her recent publication, Fractured (via publisher Lake Union) tells the story of the best-selling author, Julie Apple, as she moves away from one dangerous situation (which includes a stalker and the truth behind her book) only to find that her new life is even more hazardous than the one she tried escaping from.
So what makes this story unique is that Catherine McKenzie didn’t stop at just writing the story, she wrote Julie’s story as well. A book within a book that she self- published for her readers. Many books may mention books in their stories, but few go as far as to create these books, yet some do it rather successfully, which is the case here with McKenzie.
When McKenzie sat down with Entertainment Weekly she explained what made her take on the task of writing a book within a book:
I actually wrote The Murder Game before I wrote Fractured. I wrote it ten years ago and someone I should not have listened to told me that no one would buy a book with an unreliable narrator! So I put the book in a drawer. When I was writing Fractured, I knew that Julie’s (the main character’s) book would be a character in the book and I was having trouble anchoring that in something that didn’t exist. So I decided to base it on The Murder Game. Once Fractured was complete, I decided it would be fun to put The Murder Game out as Julie Apple.
When asked what the hardest thing about writing this project was, McKenzie said:
The challenge of this book was finding a way to have a different voice for Meredith—the innocent she was in law school versus the hard-nosed person she’s become 12 years later.
Go on, check out Catherine’s book within a book! Happy Reading!
YouTube Channel: Kristen Martin
Featured image via Entertainment Weekly
