By Lynn Slaughter
Years ago, I was at a writer’s conference chatting with a New York book editor. He asked me who my favorite YA writer was. I named her, and he said rather dismissively, “Yes, she’s good, but she always writes the same book.” To which I replied, “But it’s such a good book.” In fact, there was a theme or pattern that ran through many of her works at the time. By choice or circumstance, an older teen leaves home and becomes part of a new community in which she builds authentic connections and finds her way to adulthood.
Now that I’m launching my fifth young adult novel (“Missing Mom”, Melange Books, January 14, 2025), I’ve begun to see some familiar patterns and themes in my own work. In large part, they stem from my own experiences. My sisters and I grew up with a single parent dad who had definite scripts he tried hard to impose upon our lives. Our father was well-intentioned, but I was thirty years old when the therapist I’d begun seeing asked me: “What do you want?” I was startled and amazed at the question. I could not recall having ever been asked this question—not only by my father, but by anyone in my family.
Not surprisingly, this is coming out in my work. Although the settings and plot lines of my books are quite different, a central challenge for the protagonist in each book is figuring out who she is and what she wants as distinct from the messages she’s received on the home front. In my novel, While I Danced, Cass’s father doesn’t want her to pursue a career in dance, which is her passion. And he certainly doesn’t want her finding out the truth about her mother, which she’s determined to do.
In It Should Have Been You, Clara’s murdered twin, a piano prodigy, was the star in her musical parents’ universe. The message Clara’s consistently gotten at home is that she is the lesser twin, more or less an afterthought for her family, since her interests and gifts are not musical. And in Leisha’s Song, Leisha’s African American grandfather wants her to become a physician and opposes her interest in pursuing vocal music, as well as her romantic relationship. After all, it was when her late mother sang at a “low life” night club and got mixed up with a white man that her life went on a downward spiral.
The importance of figuring out who you want to be even appears in my adult mystery, Missed Cue. Homicide detective Caitlin O’Connor has a bad habit of getting involved with married men. When she finally goes into therapy, she realizes that her unhealthy behavior stems in part from the childhood messages about women that she received from her police chief father whom she’d adored. He didn’t think that marriage and family mixed well with careers in law enforcement for women.
Another recurrent theme is that even in the most difficult and challenging of circumstances, resilience is possible. For example, Noelle has a perfectly horrible senior year in high school in Missing Mom. Not only is her mother missing, but she makes a horrifying discovery about her father. Despite these painful events, she discovers that she has the strength and newfound independence to move forward with her life.
A third theme that emerges in my novels is the necessity of creating an intentional family and community of support when your family of origin is unable or unwilling to offer unconditional love and acceptance. In Deadly Setup, for example, Sam’s single parent heiress mom is narcissistic and only capable of focusing on her own needs and feelings. Despite their immense wealth, Sam is lonely and neglected by her mom. She turns to her housekeeper, close friends, a trusted teacher, and especially her boyfriend and his family for caring support.
I admit to being a diehard romantic at heart, and the other theme that I’ve noticed is that love is transformative, consistent with my own experience. After some romantic disappointments, the protagonists in my novels end up becoming involved with people who are first and foremost caring and supportive friends. These guys don’t rescue, and they don’t solve their romantic partners’ problems. But they sure do make the journey a whole lot sweeter.
So, am I, like my favorite author, writing the same book over and over? In one sense, yes. But my hope is that my stories connect with readers because they deal with universal themes and rites of passage. It is never easy to grow up and differentiate from parents and cope with the myriad of messages we get about what we’re supposed to look like, act like, or be interested in.
Sometimes we go through awful things and discover strengths we didn’t even know we had. And we all dream and hope to find caring community, as well as that special person who not only sends our pulse into overdrive, but who is a genuinely caring friend.
My hope is that if indeed, I am writing the same book over and over, it’s a good one. And if I’ve told an entertaining story and touched a heart or two along the way? Mission accomplished.
Lynn Slaughter loves the arts, chocolate, and her husband’s cooking. After a long career as a professional dancer and dance educator, she earned her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. In addition to her adult mystery, MISSED CUE, she is the award-winning author of five young adult romantic mysteries: DEADLY SETUP, LEISHA’S SONG, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU, WHILE I DANCED, and MISSING MOM. The ridiculously proud mother of two grown sons and besotted grandmother of five, Lynn lives in Louisville, Kentucky where she’s an active member and former president of Derby Rotten Scoundrels, the Ohio River Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. Learn more about her at her website or follow her on X.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Everyone thinks it was suicide, but Noelle Ehrlich knows better that the mysterious disappearance of her mom is more than an open and shut case. In her new Claymore finalist YA romance mystery, “Missing Mom” (Melange Books, January 14, 2025), award-winning veteran author Lynn Slaughter crafts an emotional mystery featuring a young dancer searching for the truth inside her own family.
Drawing upon her background in dance and the performing arts, Lynn Slaughter has written five award-winning YA romance mysteries in which artistically-inclined teens are in search of more than clues to the mysteries set in front of them. ‘Missing Mom’ dives into the main character’s search for her mother that helps her discover even darker secrets hidden below the surface.
Devastated by her mom’s sudden disappearance and the evidence pointing to suicide, seventeen-year-old Noelle, an aspiring ballet dancer, doesn’t believe her mom would ever have taken her own life. She undertakes her own investigation to find out what really happened to her mother. Meanwhile, Noelle is dealing with growing romantic feelings for Ravi, her best friend and fellow dancer. And she’s worried about her little sister, who won’t talk about why she doesn’t want to visit their dad. As she pursues the truth, her story intersects with that of Savannah, a woman escaping an abusive marriage who might be the key to finding Noelle’s mother.
‘Missing Mom’ honors the resilience of women forced into impossible situations and the power of love and friendship in hard times.