Terrigal author Lisa Kenway will launch her debut thriller, All You Took From Me, at Erina on August 7.
Set between the Blue Mountains and a Sydney hospital, the book is brimming with great characters and nail-biting tension.
It tells the story of anaesthetist Clare Carpenter, who has just lost her husband and her memory in a single-vehicle accident.
She becomes convinced that an anaesthetic drug might help her access missing memories but there’s no way to be certain without jeopardising her career or her life.
Kenway, herself an anaesthetist, said the seeds of the novel were sown at a conference in 2017.
“My mind started wandering on how little we understand how drugs affect consciousness,” she said.
“We know how they work at a cellular level but the concept of connected consciousness was discussed at the conference.
“Essentially a certain percentage of patients under general anaesthetic can follow commands and afterwards have no recall.
“I found that extremely interesting as it suggested different planes of consciousness under anaesthesia, and as a writer that opened up possibilities to me.
“I decided to write a story to explore these ides in the guise of a fast-paced thriller.”
This will be the first published novel for Kenway, who began writing 10 years ago.
“Like many writers I have a novel in a drawer which was never published but taught me a lot,” she said.
These days, Kenway works as an anaesthetist three days a week and writes on the remaining weekdays and sometimes on weekends.
“Juggling the two is working well for me but as I approach retirement I see myself devoting more time to writing,” she said.
“When I’m writing a first draft I try to put down 500 words a day.
“It’s not a big target but it keeps me going.”
All You Took From Me was two years in the writing and by early 2000 Kenway was ready to look for a publisher.
But as COVID-19 hit, she found it wasn’t the best time to try to sell a dark thriller with a hospital setting.
“I had lots of rejections and some feedback from agents and in early 2023 I received an offer from Transit Lounge publishers,” she said.
Kenway chose the Blue Mountains as the setting for much of her novel.
“It’s a very special place for me – I spend a lot of time there – but I feel sometimes there is a sense of menace when out alone in the bush,” she said.
“That lent itself to a thriller setting.
“I think the setting is really important – it’s almost a character in itself.”
An earlier version of All You Took From Me was listed for the 2020 Richell Prize and was runner-up in the 2022 CYA conference competition (stories for adults).
Kenway was awarded a Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre fellowship for 2023 and was highly commended in the 2022 Writing NSW Varuna fellowships.
Her work has been published widely in journals and anthologies including Island Online, the Meanjin blog and Meniscus Literary Journal.
She is now hard at work on a second novel – another thriller, this time set in a fictional coastal town.
Meanwhile, All You Took From Me will be launched by Lisa Kenway in-conversation with Anna Downes at Book Face Erina from 6pm-7.30pm Wednesday, August 7.
RSVP to Book Face on 43655288 or email erina@bookfacestores.com.au