Today we are chatting with Ryan La Sala, author of THE HONEYS

Read on for more about him, the book, and a giveaway!

Meet Ryan La Sala

Ryan La Sala writes about surreal things happening to queer people. He is the author of Reverie and Be Dazzled and lives in New York City. Visit him online at ryanlasala.com.

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About the Book: THE HONEYS

From Ryan La Sala, the wildly popular author of Reverie, comes a twisted and tantalizing horror novel set amidst the bucolic splendor of a secluded summer retreat.

Mars has always been the lesser twin, the shadow to his sister Caroline’s radiance. But when Caroline dies under horrific circumstances, Mars is propelled to learn all he can about his once-inseparable sister who’d grown tragically distant.

Mars’s genderfluidity means he’s often excluded from the traditions — and expectations — of his politically-connected family. This includes attendance at the prestigious Aspen Conservancy Summer Academy where his sister poured so much of her time. But with his grief still fresh, he insists on attending in her place.

What Mars finds is a bucolic fairytale not meant for him. Folksy charm and sun-drenched festivities camouflage old-fashioned gender roles and a toxic preparatory rigor. Mars seeks out his sister’s old friends: a group of girls dubbed the Honeys, named for the beehives they maintain behind their cabin. They are beautiful and terrifying — and Mars is certain they’re connected to Caroline’s death.

But the longer he stays at Aspen, the more the sweet mountain breezes give way to hints of decay. Mars’s memories begin to falter, bleached beneath the relentless summer sun. Something is hunting him in broad daylight, toying with his mind. If Mars can’t find it soon, it will eat him alive.

~Author Chat~

What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

Fundamentally, this is a book about my own fears. It’s a horror about what horrifies me. My goal in writing The Honeys was to unsettle the classic sense of safety we feel around the familiar, the bright, the beautiful, and the delightful. Nostalgia, too. I was inspired by my own childhood spent at summer camps, where you can (and often must) recreate yourself every summer as someone strong and brave. Survival—what it costs to survive—shapes us all differently, I think.

And bees! A book titled The Honeys must have something, or a lot, to do with bees, right? I’m often inspired by the miniature dramas of nature, unknown to us huge and self-centered humans. If ever there was a moment in this book that stumped me, I would go outside and find flowers, and watch the bees scuttle over them. Bees rarely question their purpose, and it helped me hold to mine: to terrify readers, and unsettle all we know about what’s good and safe.

Who is your favorite character in the book?

The bees!!!!!!!! I’m kidding, though I do love bees. My favorite character is probably Caroline, who dies almost immediately within the first chapter of the book. Her death, and the guilt/grief surrounding it, is what propels Mars to attend Aspen Summer Academy in her place. As a writer, Caroline represents an interesting challenge. How do you make a character proactive when they are dead? How do you make them seem realized, and dimensional, and human? I don’t have a specific trick for this, but I know whatever you do, you must do it lovingly. I’m very familiar with grief like Mars’s grief. It’s perhaps why Caroline, of all the book’s characters, is who I care about the most. She is on the page too briefly, and it’s the ‘too’ that makes her time so precious to me.

Which came first, the title or the novel?

The title gave me everything. I’m very prone to hearing or seeing something and imagining an entire story in an instant. For this, I heard a some gross older men refer to a group of younger girls as “honeys” and I wished that these girls had some secret recourse against the grasping, hungry paws of society—specifically predatorial patriarchy—and that they could deploy their revenge with sweetness befitting the name Honeys. I wished with such vehemence that I imagined this entire book in a minute, and even tweeted about it. I predicted I’d write it and it would be published, but I was off a year. It’s coming out a year earlier than my prediction.

Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

The beginning for me was in high school when I drew Ursula from REVERIE for the first time and thought, hmmmm, why don’t we have more plus-sized princesses in chiffon skirts wielding battle axes? The lesson here: trust yourself. Now I don’t deploy this on other writers often because, quite frankly, many of us could use a bit more incredulity with our own whimsicality (which is why we love editors!). But in my experience, it has always been helpful to remind myself that I am my first audience, and I am writing as a way to crystallize my own interests. I’m lucky that people seem to like these interests, strange as they are, and it’s helped me feel confident in proposing increasingly bizarre book ideas to my agent/editors.

What do you like most about the cover of the book?

I’ve never seen a cover like the one Scholastic designed for The Honeys. Maeve Norton, you’re doing incredible sweetie! I was breathless the first time I saw it because immediately it felt very aligned with the book’s sense of luminous deterioration. And I find that to be an apt way to describe grief, too. Pain has a way of firming things up, making them clear, and as that fades and light leaks in, we lose that clarity. To capture that in a cover design is amazing, and while I don’t know if people see what I see, I’m confident this cover is going to catch many eyes.

What’s up next for you?

The response to The Honeys has been overwhelming, in a good way, and it’s resonated with my own interest in writing more horror featuring queer characters/themes. I can’t share specifics about what follows the events of The Honeys, but I will hint that there’s much more to that world, and that I’m excited to delve into it through some new characters in very different situations. Inspiration wise, I can’t say much, but I have grown suddenly interested in wallpaper design.

Which was the most difficult or emotional scene to narrate?

The emotional scenes in The Honeys were actually easiest, as Mars and I have the unfortunate commonality of dealing with the very abrupt, sudden death of a sibling. In fact, it felt good to write a lot of the harder, emotional scenes, and to show the brutal clarity of a mind steeped in grief. I remember every single thing that was said to me in those first few days that separated before from after, and much of what you’ll read is inspired by people that really helped me. And people that didn’t.

The most difficult scene to write in The Honeys was, oddly enough, one delving into physics. Mars enjoys physics. I do not. Or did not. Now I kinda do, but in a pseudo-scientific sort of way, where theoretical math becomes a sort of magic. Translating this into dialogue, especially between teens on a picnic blanket, was a challenge.

Which character gave you the most trouble when writing your latest book?

The bees! And I’m not kidding this time. Early in my research process, I spoke with a scientist who studies the behaviors of super-organisms, like honeybee colonies. It was important for me to get as much of these behaviors right, even though the bees in The Honeys aren’t…normal. I find a lot of gratification in knowing that much of the book’s horror is an extension of ecological realities, and even though I’ve taken liberties, I did attempt to honor what we know about bees, their behaviors, and the fascinating psychology of an organism that is made up of thousands of individual minds.

Which part of the writing process do you enjoy more: Drafting or revising?

Because I’m a total sicko, I love it all. I know! Disgusting. Vile. But it’s true. I love drafting at the beginning and hate it by the end. I hate revising at the beginning and love it by the end. If I had to choose though, I’d say revising wins. There’s something very gratifying about seeing your book reflected in the eyes of another, usually a critique partner or an editor, and finding the ways in which it’s warped into something you never intended. Then you get to choose if you meant any of that, and revise towards the goal of realizing something that’s often a bit departed from your original intention. It’s a cool form of evolution that I get really excited by!

Book’s Title: The Honeys

Author: Ryan La Sala

Release Date: August 16, 2022

Publisher: PUSH

ISBN-10: 133874531X

ISBN-13: 9781338745313

Genre: Young Adult Fiction / Horror

Age Range: Ages 14 And Up, Grades 9 And Up