The entry begins:
Before I wrote The Bone Queen, all of my novels were police procedurals. I’d always tried to make them as realistic and gritty as possible, so for this book I deliberately set out to do something different. I wanted to write in a new style, to experiment with a different kind of prose and a looser, more atmospheric form of storytelling. Hopefully the hills of Athelsea Island are a little more evocative than the streets of south London, and the line between reality and fantasy a little more blurred. For that reason, when I think about directors, I’m drawn to perhaps someone like Alfonso Cuarón or Guillermo del Toro - which should give you a sense of the tone I’m aiming for!Follow Will Shindler on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
The story follows Jenna, a recovering alcoholic, as she searches for her runaway teenage daughter, Chloe. The clues she uncovers suggest Chloe may have travelled to the fictional island of Athelsea (with sincere apologies to the Scilly Islands, which I’ve geographically displaced just off the coast of Cornwall). Jenna is accompanied by her glamorous younger sister, Hattie, who is carrying a significant secret of her own.
With my previous books, I’ve never really given much thought to casting. It’s not that I object to the idea, but I find that once you start picturing specific actors, the characters can lose some of their individuality - something I like to preserve while I’m writing. For the purposes of this exercise, though, The Bone Queen has three major female roles which would require some heavyweight casting….
I briefly considered widening the net and casting non-British actors - Sadie Sink as Chloe, for example, was a tempting idea - but in the end I’ve limited myself to a trio of Brits.
For Jenna, I’d want someone who can combine toughness with real vulnerability, so my choice would be the mighty...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: The Bone Queen.
--Marshal Zeringue
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