Author Melanie Hooyenga is bringing her hometown of Grand Haven to the page in her latest novel, “The Quiet Unraveling of Eve Ellaway,” a psychological suspense story set against the backdrop of Lake Michigan.
“I love my community and have wanted to set a book here,” Hooyenga says. “I’ve been drawn to Lake Michigan for as long as I can remember, so giving the lake the importance of another character was a fun challenge. The reader gets to know the lake’s moods alongside the main character, Eve.”
The novel follows 18-year-old Eve Ellaway, whose twin sister disappeared as a baby. To protect Eve’s mother, who suffered a mental breakdown, her father deceives her by having Eve pretend to also be her sister. Now, as Eve prepares to leave for college, she fears breaking free could shatter her mother’s fragile reality and expose a secret she has worked desperately to keep.
Hooyenga says the book has been years in the making.
“Eve’s story came to me in 2016 while I was still writing ‘The Rules’ series,” she says. “I knew writing this deeply about mental illness would be challenging, and at the time, I didn’t feel like I was a strong enough writer to do her justice. I wrote the book in 2019, then spent several years perfecting the story.”
The novel is already gaining attention. Kirkus Reviews called it “irresistible” and described it as “a twin win: It’s hard to put down and stays with you after you finish.”
Fellow Michigan author Kellie M. Parker adds, “Prepare to lose sleep — Eve’s story will keep you up late into the night as you question both her reliability as a narrator and the people around her.”
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Courtesy Melanie Hooyenga Melanie Hooyenga's new novel “The Quiet Unraveling of Eve Ellaway,” follows a teen trapped in a haunting double life in Grand Haven.
Launch event planned
While darker in tone than Hooyenga’s previous books, the novel includes lighter moments. Eve’s mother watches “Friends” on an endless loop, and both characters can recite lines from the show.
“Every character I’ve written has a piece of me in them, but this is the first time I’ve made a character a writer,” says Hooyenga. “It was exciting to really stretch my legs with her vocabulary and the way she thinks. Eve’s pretentious and thinks she’s smarter than everyone else, and it shows in the way she speaks.”
Told from Eve’s perspective, the novel includes internal “conversations” with her missing sister.
“The Quiet Unraveling of Eve Ellaway” will be available Feb. 25 at online booksellers. A launch event featuring signed books and giveaways will take place at The Book Cellar, 8 7th St. in Grand Haven, on Feb. 22 from 1 to 4 p.m.
A longtime resident of Grand Haven, Hooyenga has been writing young adult fiction since 2010. “The Quiet Unraveling of Eve Ellaway” is her 10th novel. Her previous works include “The Rules” series, a young adult sports romance trilogy, and “The Flicker Effect,” a young adult time-travel series. Her novel “Chasing the Sun” won gold for young adult general fiction in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards and was named one of the Best Indie eBooks of 2020 by Barnes & Noble Press.
The Lakeshore caught up with Hooyenga for a Q&A to learn about her love of Grand Haven and how it inspires her writing.
The Lakeshore: You’ve written multiple books, but this is the first set in Grand Haven, a place you consider home. Why did you set "The Quiet Unraveling of Eve Ellaway" in your hometown, and why now?
Melanie Hooyenga: I’ve published nine books, but none of them have been explicitly set in West Michigan. The Flicker series has hints that locals would recognize, but the two series after that were set in places I’ve either never been to or only visited for a few days. At the time I started writing “The Quiet Unraveling of Eve Ellaway,” I was very involved in the community for my job, including taking photos to use in my organization’s annual report, and the beauty of this area revealed itself to me over and over again.
On a selfish note, setting a book where you live cuts down on the research! I knew tackling Eve’s story would take a lot of research and time, so not having to overthink the world where she lives made that part a little simpler.
TL: Readers who know Grand Haven will recognize familiar locations and experiences throughout the novel. Which specific places or aspects of the town played a role in shaping Eve’s story?
MH: The Grand Haven pier, the lighthouse and fog house, and Lake Michigan are the most important landmarks. I tweaked a few names — the name of the town is Spring Haven and the school paper is called The Sabre — but the main characters eat dinner at Ray’s before prom. Midway through the book, Eve travels to Portage to cover a baseball game, which I chose because I went to middle school there, and a group of students visits Grand Valley State University for a competition. Even when I don’t explicitly describe an area, I was picturing this community.
I have a deep connection with the water, and especially Lake Michigan, so once I decided to set the novel here, I knew my character would also love the lake. She runs almost daily, and I imagined her running on the stretch from either Rosy Mound or Brucker toward the pier. At the time I wrote this, the water levels were historically high, and that’s shown by how narrow the beach is in some places.
While I was writing “The Quiet Unraveling,” the route we walked our dog took us past a sign that said OLD FISHERMAN CROSSING. Except the F-I and A-N were worn out so it said OLD SHERM CROSSING. I passed that sign and that yard multiple times per week for almost six years. At some point I started thinking of the homeowner (who I never saw or met) as Old Sherm. I would imagine what the person’s life was like.
Then, when writing the first draft, the idea of a man with an overgrown lawn who rarely leaves the house seemed like the perfect neighbor for my main characters. He’s introduced in the first chapter, and while he dies (this is not a spoiler), his death is the catalyst for a new person to move in next door to the Ellaways, an event that pushes a large part of the book’s plot.
Another aspect that I touch on is the racial diversity, or lack thereof, in my town. When Eve visits the school in Portage, she acknowledges that the school is much more diverse than her own, something I also experienced when my family moved there.
TL: Your deep connection to Grand Haven is evident in your writing, but it’s also a place that has shaped you as an author. In what ways has living in this community influenced your storytelling and creative process?
MH: It’s hard to say if my love of the outdoors came from growing up here, or if I am just lucky that I live in such a beautiful place
because I love the outdoors. I didn’t set out to do this, but all of my main characters have had a strong connection with nature, whether it’s through sports, hiking and camping, or time traveling from the sun.
While I grew up in this area, I moved to D.C. when I was 15 and didn’t return for 20 years. Growing up in a predominantly white, Christian, conservative community shaped my early years, but living in D.C., Chicago, and Mexico opened my eyes to the rest of the world. I’ve always been grateful for my experiences in other places, and when I write, I’m often writing for that girl I used to be.
We Need Diverse Books is a movement in young adult literature that emphasizes publishing books from BIPOC individuals, as well as including diverse characters, which includes race, gender, religion, and physical abilities, among other things. It’s more than simply making a character Black or Latino or differently abled — it’s shining a light on the culture and families and viewpoint on the world.
In the novel I’m currently writing, two of the characters are from Palestine, something I based on a good friend from Chicago long before the war began, and another has lupus. Adding those details creates depth in the characters while introducing new viewpoints to young readers.
TL: You’ve described Lake Michigan as almost another character in the novel, reflecting moods alongside Eve’s own struggles. How did you craft the lake’s presence in the story, and what does it symbolize for your main character?
MH: I’ve always been drawn to the water. The rhythm of the waves, the sound of the water crashing on the shore, the way it can erase whatever was on the sand moments earlier. This is the first time I’ve channeled those feelings into a character, and I hope readers get a sense of how important Lake Michigan is to Eve, and to me.
Eve runs on the beach, but she also visits the shore when she feels like her world is falling apart. The lake becomes her shoulder to cry on, the one who keeps her secrets and lets her scream until she can no longer speak. Oftentimes Eve’s mood matches the water’s conditions, but there are times when the lake is calm when she’s upset and she almost feels betrayed that the lake doesn’t match her pain.
TL: Eve’s story first came to you in 2016, but you waited until 2019 to write it, allowing yourself time to grow as a writer. What changed that made you feel ready to tackle this complex and emotional narrative?
MH: I’m not sure if I ever would have felt fully ready to tackle Eve’s story, but I told myself that I would start once I finished “The Edge Rules,” so that’s what I did. By that point, I’d been writing novels for nearly a decade and had a good understanding of my process and capabilities, but a lot of that changed for Eve. My daily word count dropped from 1,000 words to 500 and my rule to not edit what I’d written the previous day went out the window.
Eve challenged me in ways I didn’t expect and showed me that I’m capable of writing complex, unreliable narrators. Writing a character who the reader isn’t supposed to like is a challenge in itself, because if the reader doesn’t like the character, they still need a reason to keep reading. My hope is that the turmoil under which Eve is raised and what kind of person she becomes because of it will draw readers in, and that they’ll root for her despite her flaws.
I’ve often said that one of the reasons I choose to write young adult novels is because the stories end with hope. Not necessarily a happily ever after, but hope that things will turn out okay, even if they don’t by the end of the book. I knew from the beginning how Eve’s story would end, and I hope readers see that hope and are satisfied with the result.