Author Interview: Amy Carol Reeves

Stopping in today is Ripper author Amy Carol Reeves, to talk about her book, her characters, and trees.


Describe Abbie in 3 words.

Brave. Subversive. Determined.

If you lived in Jack the Ripper's London, what do you think would have been the best part?

In the Bloomsbury district definitely. It’s in the center of London, with a lot of literary roots (Dickens and later the Bloomsbury Group) and that way I could have been very near the museums. I would have spent all my time in the Reading Room. And I would have been a spinster—with a very nice garden and a Labrador retriever named Mavis.

What is the most fascinating part about Jack the Ripper to you?

I think it’s that the mystery is so unsolvable. While researching the murders, I ended up with more questions than answers. I thought I would have a good suspect in mind after all of my reading. But I never did. No one seemed to “fit.”

If you could pair Abbie with any character from any book, what would your pick be for her?

Definitely Victor Frankenstein. Abbie would have discovered his secret laboratory and corpse pieces and convinced him that this creating-a-monster-thing was a really bad idea.

What book has impacted you the most?

My two favorite books are Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. But this is a difficult question, because I’ve had so many books impact me in different ways. But, right now, one book that sticks out in my head is Middlemarch. I love George Eliot’s Middlemarch; I remember reading it in my early twenties, as I was contemplating what I wanted to do with my life. I felt a strong connection to Dorothea Brooke, the main character. She had goals in life and ambitions, but she also experienced disappointments, made some bad choices, and felt the difficulties of clinging to her dreams in spite of the obstacles that came her way. She is an extraordinary and dimensional character, and I remember thinking that Dorothea Brooke is a good example of how a woman should live her life.

Besides Voldemort, which Death Eater would you want to fight?

Bellatrix Lestrange—no wands, just hair pulling.

What kind of plant would you describe yourself as?

A lime tree, definitely. (They’re called lindens in the United States.) It seems like everything interesting in British literature happens around lime trees. Samuel Coleridge pouts under one in “The Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” and then in my favorite Victorian mystery, Lady Audley’s Secret, all sorts of crazy intrigue, blackmail, and flirtations happen around the lime tree walk in the book. If I couldn’t have been Lady Audley herself, I would have been a lime tree, and thus an eyewitness to her scandalous behavior.


Thank you, Amy, for dropping in and congrats on the release! Ripper is out now, so be sure to pick it up, and check out the book trailer below!