Interview with H.Y. Hanna, Author of The Taverna at the Edge of Night (Deadly Destinations Thriller Collection)

What's the story behind the story? What inspired you to write this book?

I have dreamt of writing this book ever since I was fourteen, when I first read Mary Stewart's "The Moonspinners" and fell in love with the wild island of Crete. I love atmospheric thrillers with rich immersive settings, and I especially love the combo of an isolated heroine becoming entangled in a murder mystery and international crime, against a menacing landscape where beauty conceals danger… Crete is the perfect setting because it embodies all those elements naturally; it has gorgeous beaches and sumptuous food and dazzling sunshine—but it’s ancient and wild and dangerous too. I'm endlessly fascinated by the "what if" of being stranded in a foreign country with no language, no local knowledge and no familiar faces to turn to—what if you're drawn into a murder, a mystery, a crime? Can an ordinary person in that situation survive on nothing but their own resourcefulness?

What's your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?

My favourite types of stories are "woman in jeopardy" thrillers with lots of atmosphere and a strong sense of place, a vivid, immersive setting. I miss the classic suspense thrillers featuring strong, resourceful women finding mystery and danger (and romance!) while travelling in beautiful, international locations. They don't seem so trendy on the market now, so this book is me writing what I want to read and can't find.

What books are on your TBR pile right now?

I just discovered this new subgenre of "destination thrillers" which is the closest to what I was searching for: Ruth Ware's "The Woman in Cabin 10", Lucy Foley's "The Paris Apartment", Alex Michaelides "The Fury" and Lucy Clarke's "One of the Girls" - the last 2 are both also set in Greece! I also just finished Donna Tartt's "A Secret History" and really enjoyed it, so I am trying to decide which of her other books to read next - probably "The Goldfinch".

What scene in your book was your favorite to write?

I love writing tense, immersive action scenes, so probably the scene when my heroine Daphne is abducted in the middle of the night from the taverna in the fishing village where she's staying. She manages to escape her captors and falls into a gorge by the sea, which she then has to navigate in the dark. It's a real page-turner of a scene, the kind you read while holding your breath—full of suspense but also filled with atmospheric details, so you really feel like you are there with her: struggling and fighting against her captors, throwing herself off a moving vehicle, falling down the mountainside... and then the long, hard trek through the rugged terrain of the gorge to reach the fishing village and safety.

Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)

The "cat on lap" is non-negotiable - haha! But not my choice; my cat just insists on it. My only other quirk is that I need to be able to "hear" the story in my head in order to write it - it's like I can hear the sentences of prose or the dialogue between the characters, and I just transcribe what I hear. And so if I can't "tune into the right frequency", then I hear nothing but static and I can't write!