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| photo: Jessica Mealey | |
Mindy Mejia is a CPA, president of the Midwestern chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and a graduate of the Hamline University MFA program. She lives in the Twin Cities with her family, and is the author of Strike Me Down, Everything You Want Me to Be, and Leave No Trace. Kicking off her new series, To Catch a Storm (Atlantic Monthly Press) features a physicist who studies storms and a psychic detective who dreams of the lost.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
A physicist and a psychic reluctantly team up to solve two missing persons cases during an ice storm in Iowa.
On your nightstand now:
Lay Your Body Down by Amy Suiter Clarke.
This suspense novel set in Minnesota, my home state, dives into feminism, identity, and religious trauma. I'm having a hard time actually putting it on the nightstand so I can sleep.
Favorite book when you were a child:
When I was really young, my favorite book was Cinderella. I made my mom read it every night while I tried my shoes on my mom's and sister's feet (aka the ugly stepsisters). Then I put the shoe on my own foot and danced around the living room. In middle school, I inhaled Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike. My favorite Pike was Remember Me. No outstanding shoe moments, though.
Your top five authors:
Neil Gaiman, Kelly Barnhill, Megan Abbott, V.E. Schwab, Audrey Niffenegger.
Book you've faked reading:
I couldn't make it through F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in high school. Why was Nick even in that story? Could Gatsby and Daisy have any less chemistry? I pretended I read it for class and never went back to finish it.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Prophet by Sin Blaché and Helen Macdonald.
All my favorite genres wrapped into one completely original, wildly entertaining story. This speculative, romantic noir doesn't come out until August, and I'm already recommending it far and wide.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I couldn't resist the over-it bunny on the cover of Samantha Irby's Wow, No Thank You. The essay collection, like all of her books, is every bit as honest and hilarious as the cover promises.
Book you hid from your parents:
I stole all my mom's Sandra Brown and LaVyrle Spencer novels when I was way too young for them. I read them with a flashlight under my covers, getting a highly inaccurate introduction to sex ed.
Book that changed your life:
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck was the first book that made me sob. I was 12 at the time, and it was the first time I realized how much power books could have over people.
Favorite line from a book:
"We believe in light because of shadow; we believe in good because of evil, the balance that is the balance of all life." --Benjamin Percy, Thrill Me
Five books you'll never part with:
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
November Road by Lou Berney
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Devotions by Mary Oliver
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The first time I read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, I was in my 20s. I wish I could read it for the first time now in my 40s, because it's a book that requires a reader's experience, regret, and the perspective of age to truly appreciate it.