Photo: Contributed
A Kelowna author is on a roll.
Several years ago Castanet featured Kelowna author Tyrell Johnson and his debut novel, Wolves of Winter, which landed on the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star’s fiction bestsellers’ lists.
This time Johnson has one-upped himself with his follow-up novel, The Lost Kings, released this past summer to rave reviews in the New York Times.
Earlier this month the publication placed it on its list of best crime novels of the year.
“So far, it’s been featured in The New York Times three times. So that’s exciting, because the New York Times is really, really hard to get into,” Johnson said.
“It’s one of those platforms that’s so big that it boosts sort of everything. It’s a big deal, and it’s really exciting.”
Johnson said his new book is a psychological thriller, and the Penguin Random House website describes the novel: “Twins Jeanie and Jamie King are inseparable. Stuck in a cabin in rural Washington with their alcoholic father, they cling to one another for safety and companionship. Until one night, when their father comes home covered in blood. The next day, he is gone … and so is Jamie.”
“The first one, the Wolves of Winter, was definitely a post-apocalyptic thriller. This one’s more of a psychological thriller that’s very character led. I find myself working in that genre a lot. I read a ton of thrillers, but something about the way that I write the way I put characters and plots together lends itself to the thriller category,” Johnson said.
The father of three, who moved to Kelowna after growing up in Washington state and attending the University of California, said he was thrilled to see his new book on the shelves at the Indigo at Orchard Park Shopping Centre.
“I got a picture of my daughter. She took her friends and showed them my book, and she was all proud. We were so excited to see where it ended up. This one was right up front on the new fiction shelf and right up there in front of the store. So that was pretty cool to see.”
Johnson said as a writer he spends plenty of time by himself, so it’s a thrill to see his finished product on bookstore shelves and now being recognized internationally.
“It’s always just bizarre, a bizarre feeling. Because, you know, I love to go to bookstores anyways and buy books, but coming up and Oh, there’s that thing that I wrote … it’s pretty cool.”
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