The Opportunist by Elyse Friedman
Happy publication day to Elyse Friedman’s newest book, The
Opportunist!!!! Thank to MIRA books for including me on the blog tour. I always
love hearing behind the book so I have a Q&A with the author.
Blurb:
A deliciously sly, compulsively readable tale about greed,
power and the world’s most devious family.
When Alana Shropshire’s seventy-six-year-old father, Ed, starts dating Kelly,
his twenty-eight-year-old nurse, a flurry of messages arrive from Alana’s
brothers, urging her to help “protect Dad” from the young interloper.
Alana knows that what Teddy and Martin really want to protect is their father’s
fortune, and she tells them she couldn’t care less
about the May–December romance. Long estranged from her privileged
family, Alana, a hardworking single mom, has more important things to
worry about.
But when Ed and Kelly’s wedding is announced, Teddy and Martin kick into
hyperdrive and persuade Alana to fly to their father’s West Coast island
retreat to perform one simple task in their plan to make the gold digger
go away. Kelly, however, proves a lot more wily than expected, and Alana
becomes entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of secrets and
surprises. Just how far will her siblings go to retain control?
Smart, entertaining and brimming with shocking twists and turns, The
Opportunist is both a thrill ride of a story and a razor-sharp view of who
wields power in the world.
Q&A with Elyse Friedman
Why do you choose to
write thrillers vs. other genres?
The Opportunist is my first thriller and my most murder-y
book. My previous novels were all literary fiction. I guess I wanted to try my
hand at a thriller, because I love reading them, and I thought it would be fun
to write one. I was right. I had a blast dreaming up all the twists and turns.
It was like putting together an intricate puzzle. And Kelly, the feistiest
character I’ve ever come up with, was a joy to write.
How did you come up
with the idea for your novel?
The idea for The Opportunist started with a story I’d heard
when I was a teenager, about a girl who lived in my neighborhood. I can’t go
into detail because I don’t want to give away any of the plot points in the
book, but the story shocked me and stuck with me. It was the seed from which
the plot grew.
Have you ever
actually scared yourself by what you've written?
There were certain passages in The Opportunist that made my stomach flip as I was writing them. And there is one scene at the end of the book when the main character, Alana, is alone in a sauna, that had me on edge.
What's the scariest
experience you've ever had? ...and/or written about?
When I was thirteen, I was hanging out with some friends at
Ontario Place’s Children’s Village. This was basically a two-and-a-half-acre
playground that looked like something out of that reality show Wipeout—there
were all kinds of obstacles to run through, or things to climb on or dangle
from. I was moving through an area of hanging foam bags that swung this way and
that, when I was grabbed from behind by a young man. He wrapped his arms around
me, pinning my arms to my torso, and wouldn’t let go. I screamed at him, my
friends screamed at him, and soon a bunch of strangers were screaming at him to
let me go. But he wouldn’t. People tried to pull him off me, but he was giant
and strong and refused to release his grip. In retrospect, I think he was on
meth. It was pretty frightening. It lasted for several minutes and took three
men to peel him off of me.
About the Author:
Elyse Friedman is a critically acclaimed author, screenwriter, poet and
playwright. Her work has been short-listed for the Trillium Book Award, Toronto
Book Award, ReLit Award and Tom Hendry Award. She has also won a Foreword Book
of the Year Award, as well as the 2019 TIFF-CBC Films Screenwriter Jury
Prize and the 2020 TIFF-CBC Screenwriter Award. Elyse lives in Toronto.
Keep in touch on
social media:
Website: http://elysefriedman.com/
Twitter: @elysefriedman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elysefriedman/?hl=en
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/213344.Elyse_Friedman
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