Cool fall author: Jason Mott
The Wonder of All Things
By Jason Mott
Harlequin Mira, fiction
The book:
What it's about: A small Southern town is turned upside down after Ava, a 13-year-old black girl, heals the wounds of her best friend, Wash, a white boy severely injured when a stunt plane crashes into a crowd. Her "miracle" goes viral when it's captured on a cellphone video.
Why it's cool: Lionsgate has acquired film rights for producer David Heyman (Harry Potter); Mott's debut novel, The Returned, about the dead returning, is the basis for the ABC series Resurrection. It returns for a second season Sept. 28.
A taste: "So the skeptics have come and so have the people who think Ava's the second coming."
On sale: Sept. 30
The author:
Quick bio: Mott, 36, was born and raised in the small town of Bolton, N.C. (pop. 700), where he still lives. He has a BA and MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and has written two poetry collections. He's single.
Fun fact: After grad school, Mott worked for four years at Verizon's wireless call center in Wilmington and was the guy who "got yelled at" by customers routed from the New York metro area. "It was fun fodder for writing, though. I found that if people don't have to talk to you again, they will tell you anything."
Life in a small town: "Small towns are always exciting to me because of the history. In my small town, people have literally been here for generations. There's a certain comfort and dependence on one another. In small towns, you're a big family, for better or worse."
Differences between his novel The Returned and ABC's 'Resurrection': "I'm totally for it, actually. I'm a huge fan of book-to-film translations. It's a mistake to just copy and paste. They're doing a great job."
Ava's ability to heal: "The idea of miraculous healing has always been very interesting to me. In the South there's always a bit of magic, through the stories you hear. Everything here has a back story to it. And in the South there's the phenomenon of churches where the healing goes on." (Mott was raised Southern Baptist.)
The supernatural in pop culture: "You can Google anything nowadays. But I think there's part of humanity that loves mystery and is attracted to the unknown."
His next book: "I have started a new novel. My editor won't let me talk about it yet because it's very, very early."
Fall reading: "I'm still waiting to see what all is coming down the pike. I've read some advance galleys for blurbs. I just finished a novel by an author in the U.K., The Casualties by Nick Holdstock (due out in the U.S. in 2015). It's very, very interesting."