Interview with Chelsea Bobulski for Remember Me

Remember Me

by Chelsea Bobulski
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Release Date: August 6th 2019

Genre: Young Adult, Horror

Synopsis:

In this eerie and suspenseful YA, a teen girl discovers what connects her to the hotel she calls home as horrifying visions lead her to the truth. 

Nell Martin is moving again, this time to the Winslow Grand Hotel, built in 1878. As Nell is settling in, strange things begin to happen. Doors lock of their own accord, writing appears on bathroom walls--and most horrifying of all--visions of a dead boy permeate her waking life. Thinking it was her mind playing tricks on her, she soon finds the past and the present colliding as she learns horrific details of a murder that happened at the hotel in 1905 involving a girl named Lea.

Nell and a mysterious bellboy must relive that day in hopes of finally breaking a curse that imprisons them both. And Nell discovers what truly links her to the history of the Winslow Grand Hotel.

Can you briefly describe REMEMBER ME and the characters? 

Definitely! Remember Me is a young adult novel that can best be described as the horror of The Shining meets the romance of Titanic, told from two different points of view, Lea Sargent in 1907, and Nell Martin in 2019, as both girls arrive at the Winslow Grand Hotel to spend the summer. Lea arrives engaged to a man she doesn’t love in the hopes of securing her family’s financial future. Nell arrives with her father, the new guest relations manager, and quickly finds there’s more to the hotel’s past—and her personal connection to it—than meets the eye. As the past bleeds into the present, Nell finds herself haunted by an evil spirit in the hotel, and the only way out is to right a past wrong. 

Remember Me centers on three of my favorite things to write about—curses, star-crossed lovers, and vengeful ghosts—and I couldn’t love it more. 

Who would you say is your favourite character from the story and why? 

It’s extremely hard to choose, but if I had to, I would say Lea. She is duty-and-honor-bound to follow a specific path that has been laid out for her. Her parents and her brother are counting on her to follow through with a marriage to a man she doesn’t love, but it’s more than that. They’re also asking her to give up any other potential future she might have had, and she’s willing to do it for their sake, no matter the cost to her, until she meets someone who makes her realize her true worth. I think most people can relate to that: fighting the ideas that people have about who you are and who you should be so that you can find out that truth for yourself, and then find the strength to follow through once you do, even if it means going against other people’s ideas for you, or going against the labels and limitations they’ve put on you. 

How did the story occur to you? Did you find inspiration anywhere? 

The idea came to me on a trip to San Diego with my mom in April 2015. At that time, I’d been out of college for 5 years, which also means I’d been pursuing traditional publication for 5 years, with 5 different books. I kept getting very close to landing that extremely elusive debut book deal, but it kept slipping through my fingers, and along the way, I lost my confidence. Not only was I seriously doubting whether or not I would ever be a published author (and trying to figure out what to do with my life now that I’d wasted the first five years of my twenties), but my husband and I had also been trying to get pregnant for over a year to no avail. Receiving rejection letters and negative pregnancy tests one on top of the other, combined with some other difficult circumstances and upheavals that had been simultaneously occurring in my husband’s and my families, sent me into a terrible depression. The two things I’d wanted to be for so long—an author and a mother—seemed like they were never going to happen, which is a very scary and debilitating thing to face when you’ve spent the past five years building your life around those two things. 

And then my mom and I found ourselves at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, which ended up being the inspiration for the Winslow Grand Hotel. For the first time in a long time, I was in a place where I felt the stories of past lives vibrating from its very walls, and I wanted to tell those stories. Then, while standing on the beach, my toes in the sand and the waves crashing around me, I felt God very specifically tell me to hold on just a little longer, to keep the faith that I would see all of my dreams come true. And then He filled me with a peace and a certainty I’d never felt before. 

Six weeks after visiting San Diego, I had my first book deal (The Wood, which released in 2017), and by the time Remember Me was ready to send out to editors, I was pregnant with my daughter (completely naturally after nearly two years of trying to conceive)! Now, Remember Me, my second book, is releasing five days before I’m due with our second child. To say that God answered my prayers is an understatement. I could not be more thankful for all of the ways that He has blessed me. 

If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be? 

“Wildest Dreams” by Taylor Swift. 

If your book was going to be made into a movie, who would play your characters?

I mean, I think every YA author out there right now could see Noah Centineo as their book’s love interest, so it might be a bit cliché at this point but I’m going to say it anyway (Titanic-era Leonardo Dicaprio would also work). Unfortunately I can’t talk too much about my female leads without giving something away, so for now I’ll just let the readers decide who should play them.

Summer is here and we love to go out and enjoy the sun. What drink and place do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date? 

Since many of its scenes are set on the beach, I would definitely say that Remember Me is the perfect beach book (paired with your favorite beachy-drink), but the haunting atmosphere also makes this book perfect for a coffee shop date, especially as the air turns crisp and the leaves begin to change. 

Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish REMEMBER ME? 

As a general rule, I always recommend Victoria/V.E. Schwab, Maggie Stiefvater, Marissa Meyer, and Cassandra Clare to everyone I meet. The Diviners by Libba Bray also meets that perfect historical horror vibe. I would also definitely recommend Stephanie Perkins’ lighter books, particularly Anna and the French Kiss, if you are craving another romance, as well as her horror/thriller, There’s Someone Inside Your House, if you’re leaning more that way. Gretchen McNeil is another great YA author to go to for all of your horror needs. If you’re craving more of the historical aspects of Remember Me, I would definitely check out Anna Godbersen’s The Luxe series. 

And, of course, you can never go wrong with Stephen King.

What’s next for you? 

I have a few projects in the works, although unfortunately none that I can discuss openly at this time. I am also awaiting the birth of our second child, so I am very excited to see what our new normal looks like once our little guy is here!

Chelsea Bobulski was born in Columbus, Ohio, and raised on Disney movies, classic musicals, and Buckeye pride. She’s always had a penchant for the fantastical, the stories that teach us there is more to this world than meets the eye. She has a soft spot for characters with broken pasts, strange talents, and a dash of destiny in their bones. After graduating from The Ohio State University with a degree in history, she promptly married her high school sweetheart and settled down in Northwest Ohio with her notebooks and daydreams and copious amounts of chocolate. THE WOOD is her debut novel.

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FFBC: Welcome to the club, I Remember You by Cathleen Davitt Bell

I Remember You
by Cathleen Davitt Bell
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Release Date: February 10th 2015

Synopsis:

For fans of THE FUTURE OF US comes an engrossing story of two teens, whose love for each other is tested by time and fate.

Lucas and Juliet couldn’t be more different from each other. But from the moment Lucas sees Juliet, he swears he remembers their first kiss. Their first dance. Their first fight. He even knows what’s going to happen between them—not because he can predict the future, but because he claims to have already lived it.

Juliet doesn’t know whether to be afraid for herself or for Lucas. As Lucas’s memories occur more frequently, they also grow more ominous. All Juliet wants is to keep Lucas safe with her. But how do you hold on to someone you love in the present when they’ve begun slipping away from you in the future?

Favorites are tricky! Hard to name just one. But I do go back time and again to Jane Austen. What I appreciate about her writing changes as I get older. But I never stop wanting to read her work.

Oooh, The Americans on FX right now! It’s filmed in my neighborhood, so it’s really fun to pick out seedy warehouses that are actually just around the corner, on the way to the local swimming pool or the grocery store. 

Rushmore. All Tarantino. All Wes Anderson. All John Sayles. The Matrix. Gosford Park. Boyhood. Bringing Up Baby. Some Like It Hot. 

That changes month by month. I go through phases. But recently, and during a big part of the writing of I Remember You, my favorite song was “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie. I made it a bedtime song for my daughter, which some people think is weird, but she loves it too. 

Mushrooms. Chocolate. Croissants. Pecan Pie. Not all together.

Rivendell. Downton Abbey. Hogwarts. 

John Cusack in Say Anything

From Richard Wilbur’s beautiful poem, “The Writer”: 

It is always a matter, my darling,

Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish

What I wished you before, but harder. 

Regina Spektor. On Pandora, every channel I try to start ends up being a Regina Spektor channel. 

Dodie Smith, who wrote The One Hundred and One Dalmatians and also wrote I Capture the Castle, one of the best coming of age stories I’ve read. If you’ve never heard of it, go get yourself a copy right now. 

There’s nothing better to be addicted to than stories. They’re how we learn, process, and change the world. Keep reading! And writing.

Hello Cathleen! We are super excited to have you in our FFBC tours.

I thought up the idea for I Remember You while I was standing in my kitchen, washing dishes on a Sunday night. I’d just spent the weekend with my high school friends, away from my beloved husband and children. Even though I’d only been with my old friends for a weekend, it was a culture shock coming home. It was almost like I’d been visiting my actual high school self, traveling through time across a distance of many years. It got me thinking, What would happen if an adult traveled back in time to high school? How would they act? What would they do? And then I started to wonder what would make you want to go back and there was only ever one answer…love.

I Remember You came straight out of a song—Antje Dukekot’s “Lighthouse.” It’s about love that lasts even after what you love is long gone. The idea made me think about how people wait for love. How they wait without even thinking of it. The feelings lie dormant but they’re not dead. All it takes is a little trigger, and there they are, full blown and real again in your mind. 

A feeling of sweetness came over me. Over us, I believe; I am certain Lucas felt it too. “Lucas,” I said, so sure of the way he loved me that I could be sure about everything else too. I could step off a cliff and know that he would keep me from falling. He held my hand. 

“Lucas,” I said. “I will never let go of you.” 

“You will.”

There are a few key scenes in I Remember You that I wrote almost as fast as you can read them. The hospital scene. The ending. I was really feeling my characters’ feelings and just trying to keep things slow enough to give them a chance to be as real on the page as they were in my mind. I’d been waiting and waiting to get them there, and the words simply poured themselves out of my fingers onto the page. 

I Remember You came straight out of a song—Antje Dukekot’s “Lighthouse.” I included it as the epigraph of the book. The song’s about love that lasts even after what you love is long gone. The idea made me think about how people wait for love. How they wait without even thinking of it. The feelings lie dormant but they’re not dead. All it takes is a little trigger, and there they are, full blown and real again in your mind. 

That’s a tricky one. If you’re like me, and get a sushi craving the minute you so much as see the word sushi, you should make sure to have some on hand. Juliet and her mom share a sushi meal early on in the novel. Otherwise, I don’t think this is a book that makes you hungry. It might make you feel like calling up old boyfriends. So probably better not to have your phone nearby. And a few readers have told me the story makes them cry, so maybe tissues? (I don’t want to jinx it though :)

Time travel: Jack Finney’s Time and Again made me fall in love with time travel, New York City, New York history…this book has it all—also a very compelling love story. I was thinking a bit about Time Traveler’s Wife when I came up with the idea for I Remember You also. Time travel movies? I loved Terminator and of course Back to the Future—for very different reasons. 

Romance: I simply adored the big love story in Twilight. But I also think love stories don’t get much better than Wuthering Heights. In movies, I love it when romance takes a character by surprise—I’m thinking of Clueless, which isn’t just one of my favorite romance movies, but one of my favorite movies of all time. But sometimes romance movies are the best when they’re sad, like Celeste and Jesse Forever. 

I just want to keep writing. I have a long list of stories in my mind that I want to write, and I keep thinking of more.

Thank you so much for everything, Cathleen!

Thanks you, guys. This has been a real pleasure!

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I was born in Princeton, NJ in 1971 and lived there until I was twelve, when we moved with my mom moved to West Hartford, CT.

My dad and mom had been divorced when I was two, and my dad lived in Williamstown, MA. I spent summers and school vacations with him.

I went to college in New York, at Barnard, and stayed in New York after I graduated. I worked as a newspaper reporter for three months, as a salesperson for a multimedia publisher for three years, and as a market researcher, and finally a copywriter.

I’m married and have two awesome kids ages two and five. I lived in Manhattan for sixteen years, but now am in Brooklyn, living downstairs from my sister and her family. I have two dogs named Oscar and Oprah. My favorite food is pizza and, strangely, in my thirties, I’ve developed a great love for playing catch. Slipping is my first book.

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