Take Five: Yasmin Angoe and NOT WHAT SHE SEEMS

We are thrilled to bring you a sneak peek at the latest psychological thriller from WU contributor Yasmin Angoe, titled NOT WHAT SHE SEEMS. The book was featured in Amazon’s First Reads program in July, and is already drawing loads of pre-release buzz, including this:

“In a dramatic change from Angoe’s trilogy about professional assassin Nina Knight, a disgraced daughter returns to her South Carolina family to find that it’s in even bigger trouble than she thought…Endless skeletons in the family closet, all disclosed by a protagonist who makes one reckless move after another.” – Kirkus Reviews

NOT WHAT SHE SEEMS releases widely on August 1st. Ready to hear more? Keep reading!

Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?

YA: Jacinda “Jac” Brodie returns to her South Carolinian hometown because her grandfather has fallen ill after six years of self-exile because of her guilt (and the town’s accusations) over her father’s death years ago. Once she returns, she meets the newest town member, a businesswoman who’s renovating the infamous Moor Manor and promises to bring more prestige and tourism to the town. The town quickly accepts Faye Arden, but Jac senses something sinister about her. As she digs deeper into who the woman is and what it is about her that rubs Jac the wrong way, Jac begins to wonder if Faye might have had something to do with her grandfather suffering his heart attack, and more.

Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

YA: The story is my modern take on two works I taught my students in the past, the “The Spider and the Fly” by Mary Howitt and “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl. I was/am obsessed with those works and the idea of what we see about people verses who they really are when no one is watching.

Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

YA: For Jac, she has to overcome herself. She can be her own worst enemy because she’s reckless in how she deals with her problems. She also runs away and hides instead of dealing with situations head on. She deals with a lot of guilt which compound her running, hiding, loneliness, and making poor choices. So, she has the challenge of realizes that she must face her issues head on if she’s going to save herself, her family, this town from a potentially deadly force of nature. I think all the characters, the villain included, are challenged with their versions of loneliness. How they solve their loneliness and inability to be really seen and appreciated for who they are what makes up the conflicts between them and other characters.

Q4: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?

YA: The unique challenge for me was shifting from the more action/espionage/grander scale type of thriller I was writing with Her Name Is Knight and the other books in the trilogy and shifting to a domestic suspense psychological kind of story and still make it thrilling, and still give the deep characters I enjoy writing. It was a good challenge to have…I say that now that the book is done, but while writing it I sure did suffer and question myself and wonder if readers would love the book and appreciate its differences from the Nena Knight trilogy. LOL.

Q5: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?

YA: The most rewarding aspect are the messages I’ve been getting from readers that they are enjoying Jac and her story. They’re getting out of it everything I wanted them to get, and more. I look forward to writing more like it and pushing myself.

Congratulations on your new book, Yasmin! Thank you for sharing this exciting preview today.

WU Community, you can learn more about Yasmin’s novel on her website, or by following her on FB or X, or by following the buy-links below. Read on! 

Writer Unboxed

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