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Tullan Holmqvist, one-half of the writing duo that brought you Lacie’s Secrets and The Woman in the Park, discusses the trials and triumphs of collaborating.
I love questions. And I am usually the one asking them. It’s just my nature. I am curious and have always wanted to figure things out, why people do what they do, what makes them tick, and how things are done. So when I am asked a question, I usually have to take time to really think about it. When people ask about the writing collaboration in creating our thrillers The Woman in the Park and Lacie’s Secrets with Teresa Sorkin, I have to laugh a little.
When I was a kid, I hated having to collaborate. At school, I dreaded the group projects where you had to “find someone to work with.” If I could, I would just do them myself. I’m independent, I like quick solutions, less discussion, and more doing. As a child, my family and I moved every few years, and so I found myself in a new country, not knowing the language, the local ways, or the rules. Born in Sweden to two adventurous parents, I went to nursery school in Nigeria, elementary school in Austria, middle school in Italy, and high school at a French school back in Sweden. As a first grader in a new country and confronted with a language I didn’t speak, I had to find other ways to understand what was going on, picking up on body language, and visual, energetic clues.
When I was ten years old, I got my first sweet taste of the theater when I was cast as the lead in a school play in Rome. I experienced the spell of the stage, the thrill of getting a laugh or a tear from the audience, and, most of all, the warm embrace of the community created in the theater. I discovered that collaborating can be exhilarating and can add up to so much more than each individual. Magic can blossom from a creative coming together with a common purpose. And that’s what I try to keep in mind – the goal of creating a story that can be shared.
Stories often emerge out of curiosity and a wish to understand others. Our psychological thriller The Woman in the Park was born from an interesting character, a woman in a park we both had seen independently, and had piqued our interest. She was elegant and always alone, seemingly talking to herself, lost in her own world. We took aspects of that character, planted the seed of our story, and let it grow. We added more characters, worked through the story and its arcs, and took turns writing and editing.
Together, we discussed scene organization and character development, and then let the writing take over, giving each other space to create.
Our second collaborative thriller, Lacie’s Secrets, grew out of a “What if?” scenario, fantasizing an actual situation – a holiday week at an isolated villa with a group of friends where something goes horribly wrong – and letting our imaginations wander. In the actual creation, the excitement came from seeing where the story and the characters lead us. Lacie’s Secrets has been described as a “riveting thriller” reminiscent of classic suspense novels (by Publishers Weekly), and Big Little Lies meets The Haunting of Hill House at a seaside estate in Maine.
Collaborating takes openness in communication, active listening, and constant compromise. While muddling through the messy forest of details, collaboration requires keeping the goal of the story in mind, finding creative solutions, and abiding by the golden rule of improvisation – “Yes, and…”
Lacie’s Secrets and The Woman in the Park are published by Beaufort Books. www.tullanh.com
Lacie’s Secrets reviewed by Criminal Element.
Big Little Lies meets The Haunting of Hill House in Lacie’s Secrets, the latest psychological thriller from writing duo Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist, authors of the award-winning thriller The Woman in the Park. Read Janet Webb’s review!
Kate hasn’t seen her mother for eighteen years, not since the mysterious and tragic disappearance of her younger sister Lacie. Susan, her mother’s caretaker, phones Kate to tell her that Grace is dead. It seems that Kate’s long self-imposed exile from Villa Magda, the gorgeous, sprawling oceanside estate in Maine where she spent every summer of her girlhood, is coming to an end. Months later, accompanied by family friends, Kate, her husband Charlie and their son Andrew make the trek to Maine: she’s determined to sell Villa Magda and put that part of her life behind her.
Time slips away when Kate sees Villa Magda again: Kate is flooded with memories from the day her sister disappeared. Grace was an inveterate party-giver. Kate recalls, “her mother was hosting one of her magical parties for Lacie—”this year’s theme was Alice in Wonderland—and she was giddy. Kate only saw her mother really happy when she was in the middle of preparing and hosting a party, with Susan always by her side helping with the food, cutting flowers, and checking the guest list.” Unfortunately, the party went terribly wrong.
To read the review on Criminal Element, click here.
To learn more about Lacie’s Secrets, click here.
To learn more about Teresa Sorkin, click here.
To learn more about Tullan Holmqvist, click here.
Publishers Weekly released their review for Lacie’s Secrets
Kate Williams, the protagonist of this riveting thriller from Sorkin and Holmqvist (The Woman in the Park), travels from her Connecticut home to Villa Magda, her family’s Maine home where she spent summers until her sister, Lacie, disappeared there almost 20 years earlier. Accompanying Kate are her husband and their teenage son. Kate’s visit brings back vivid memories of how the media coverage at the time painted Kate as the jealous older sister. Then strange things start to happen, including a former gardener breaking into her room to warn her away from the house. To complicate matters, her son discovers a blog accusing Kate of being complicit in Lacie’s disappearance. When Kate discovers a body in the pool after an alcohol-fueled night, she fears Villa Magda’s tragic history is repeating itself. The stakes rise as Kate becomes convinced that the same person responsible for Lacie’s disappearance had something to do with the recent death. The authors keep the suspense high as they slowly dole out the mansion’s sinister secrets. Fans of gothic novels will be pleased. Agent: Jane Wesman, Jane Wesman Public Relations. (Apr.)
To read the review on Publishers Weekly, click here.
To learn more about Lacie’s Secrets, click here.
To learn more about Teresa Sorkin, click here.
To learn more about Tullan Holmqvist, click here.
Reminiscent of classic suspense novels, Lacie’s Secrets is the latest psychological thriller from writing duo Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist, authors of the award-winning thriller The Woman in the Park.
For the past 18 years, Kate Williams has tried to forget that fateful summer, the summer that ripped her family apart. But when her estranged mother unexpectedly dies and Kate inherits Villa Magda, the family’s summer home on the Maine coast, Kate decides that enough time has passed. With the help of her husband, her son, and their close group of friends, Kate decides to face the past and go back to Villa Magda for one last trip.
But the sprawling, ocean-side house isn’t as picturesque as it seems, and as the week goes on, inexplicable incidents and suspicious visitors begin to torment Kate, threatening to expose her deepest secrets. The closer Kate gets to learning the truth about what happened that summer, the faster she realizes the house might be holding more secrets than she can handle.
As tensions run high and friendships unravel, Kate starts to question her decision to return to Villa Magda. But when tragedy strikes and a body is found floating in the pool, questions arise that demand answers: What really happened at Villa Magda 18 years ago? How much did Kate know? And how can the house be stopped from claiming its next victim?
Set on a remote and gorgeous Maine estate, Lacie’s Secrets is an exciting and cinematic psychological thriller with surprising twists that will keep the reader guessing until the very last page.
About: Teresa Sorkin, Tullan Holmqvist
Hardcover: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825309793)
E-book: $9.95 (ISBN: 9780825308581)
Fiction/Thrillers/Psychological
320 pages
Order Here:
The most wonderful time of the year is here once more! It’s around this time that we all begin rushing around town, shelling out too much money for gifts that will inevitably end up re-gifted. With all the decorating, shopping, and parties, the magic of the holidays gets lost behind sky-high price tags and busy schedules. This year, Beaufort wants to make your holidays a little more magical by recommending gifts for everyone on your list! Here you’ll find books that will satisfy even the most obscure tastes and interests. Not to mention, they’ll look stellar wrapped up under the tree or displayed on the shelf. Now order these finds online and get to sippin’ that eggnog by the fire!
The Lord is My Strength by Eric Kampmann
In his introduction to The Lord Is My Strength, Eric Kampmann places the Psalms at the epicenter of the biblical narrative. Implicitly, the psalms weave all the way back to the creation story, forward to the advent of Jesus, and beyond to the end of times. And within this epic scope, the psalms tell the story of each one of us, our hopes, our dreams, our fears and conflicts in a way that ignites our imagination, providing a full and deep picture of who we are as we live day to day in our own time and place. The Lord Is My Strength was originally envisioned as a book of morning prayers posted on social media sites. But it quickly became more than that when Kampmann began posting a photograph and a short commentary along with the passage from the psalms. The result is a new book that will speak through words and pictures of the beauty, harmony and mystery that has been gifted to everyone who has the desire to see where they stand in God’s story.
The Adventures of Bubba Jones Series by Jeff Alt
The Adventures of Bubba Jones: Time Traveling Through the Great Smoky Mountains is the first book in the series.
Tommy “Bubba Jones” and his sister Jenny “Hug-a-Bug” learn more about the Great Smoky Mountain National Park than they ever thought they would when Papa Lewis lets them in on a family secret: The family has legendary time traveling skills! With these abilities, Bubba Jones and Hug-a-Bug travel back in time and meet the park’s founders, its earliest settlers, native Cherokee Indians, wild animals, extinct creatures, and what the park was like millions of years ago.
With this time traveling ability also comes a family mystery, but the only person who can help solve the mystery is a long lost relative who lives somewhere in the park. Explore the Smokies with Bubba Jones and family in a whole new way.
The Woman in the Park by Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist
When Manhattanite Sarah Rock meets a mysterious and handsome stranger in the park, she is drawn to him. Sarah wants to get away from her daily routine, her cheating husband and his crazy mistress, her frequent sessions with her heartless therapist, and her moody children.
But nothing is as it seems. Her life begins to unravel when a woman from the park goes missing and Sarah becomes the prime suspect in the woman’s disappearance. Her lover is nowhere to be found, her husband is suspicious of her, and her therapist is talking to the police.
With no one to trust, Sarah must face her inner demons and uncover the truth to prove her innocence.
A thriller that questions what is real-with its shocking twists, secrets, and lies—The Woman in the Park will leave readers breathless.
The North of the Tension Line Series by J.F. Riordan
North of the Tension Line is the first book in the series
Fiona Campbell is a newcomer to tiny Ephraim, Wisconsin. Populated with artists and summer tourists, Ephraim has just enough going on to satisfy her city tastes. But she is fascinated and repelled by the furthest tip of Door County peninsula, Washington Island, utterly removed from the hubbub of modern life. Fiona’s visits there leave her refreshed in spirit, but convinced that only lunatics and hermits could survive a winter in its frigid isolation.
In a moment of weakness, Fiona is goaded into accepting a dare that she cannot survive the winter on the island in a decrepit, old house. Armed with some very fine single malt scotch and a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Fiona sets out to win the dare, and discovers that small town life is not nearly as dull as she had foreseen. Abandoning the things she has always thought important, she encounters the vicious politics of small town life, a ruthless neighbor, persistent animals, a haunted ferry captain, and the peculiar spiritual renewal of life “north of the tension line.”
The Jack Patterson Series by Webb Hubbell
When Men Betray is the first book in the series.
Why would Woody Cole, a peaceful, caring man, shoot a US Senator in cold blood on live television? That’s the mystery facing attorney Jack Patterson as he returns to Little Rock, Arkansas, a town he swore he would never step foot in again.
When Men Betray is the first book of fiction from author, lecturer, and political insider Webb Hubbell. A departure from his previous book, Friends in High Places, an account of his rise and fall in Little Rock, Hubbell crafts a deft narrative of mystery and political intrigue. Set in a fictionalized version of his home town of Little Rock, Arkansas, readers will be immersed into the steamy world behind the southern BBQ and antebellum facade—a seedy underbelly of secrets and betrayals. Clever readers may recognize the colorful personalities and locales of the Arkansas political scene.
Jack is supported by a motley but able crew; loyal assistant Maggie, college-aged daughter Beth, feisty lawyer Micki, and his bodyguard Clovis. Together, Jack and his rag-tag team are in a race against time to discover Woody’s hidden motive. All he has is a series of strange clues, hired thugs gunning for him, and the one man who knows everything isn’t talking. Alliances are tested, buried tensions surface, and painful memories are relived as he tries to clear the name of his old college friend. Jack Patterson will find that even the oldest friendships can be quickly destroyed when men betray.
School Choice: A Legacy to Keep by Virginia Walden Ford
On a cold winter night in February of 1967, a large rock shattered a bedroom window in Virginia Walden Ford’s home in Little Rock, Arkansas, landing in her baby sister’s crib. Outside, members of the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on her family’s lawn. Faceless bigots were terrorizing Virginia, her parents, and her sisters–all because her father, Harry Fowler, dared to take a job as the assistant superintendent of personnel for the Little Rock School District. He was more than qualified, but he was black.
In her searing new memoir, legendary school choice advocate Virginia Walden Ford recounts the lessons she learned as a child in the segregated south. She drew on those experiences—and the legacies handed to her by her parents and ancestors—thirty years later, when she built an army of parents to fight for school choice in our nation’s capital. School Choice: A Legacy to Keep, tells the dramatic true story of how poor D.C. parents, with the support of unlikely allies, faced off against some of America’s most prominent politicians—and won a better future for children.
Success Freak by Bruno Gralpois
Are you ready to get INSANELY MORE out of life? Success is acquired, not inherited. Take control of your destiny and join the “Success Freak 7-Day Challenge”: master 7 essential skills and transform your life in only one week. Combining helpful exercises and set-by-steps activities,Success Freak is a self-help book by French-American Entrepreneur Bruno Gralpois, that will show you how to unleash the amazing potential that, yes, already lies within you. You are about to become an unstoppable force of resolve and determination. Nothing short of the Success (Freak) you were always meant to be.
Occam’s Razor by T.R. Ryden
When ancient artifacts discovered in the Great Pyramid of Giza shed new light on a DNA pattern identified by a world-renowned molecular biologist, venture capitalist, James Anderson, is thrust into an action-packed road of scientific exploration and discovery. An unlikely participant in the events that begin to unfold, Anderson and his team, pursued by those who don’t want this new information out, realize they have stumbled upon the greatest and most terrifying cover-up in the history of the human race.
Occam’s Razor is a chilling speculative fiction thriller which ties together several well-known, and some not so famous controversial theories concerning alien visitation, human evolution, ancient legends, and the cosmos. The novel explains how it could be very plausible to imagine that the powers that be may already know about an impending disaster and caught between all this are the novel’s unfortunate characters as they struggle to figure out what to do in the face of unstoppable catastrophe.
Happy Holidays! May all your shopping be done early!
-Captain Beaumerica
Authors Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist join Chris Cuomo on SiriumXM
Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist sat down with Chris Cuomo on Monday, November 18th to discuss their debut book, The Woman in the Park.
To listen to the interview, click here.
To learn more about the authors, click here for Teresa Sorkin and click here for Tullan Holmqvist.
To learn more about The Woman in the Park, click here.
THE WOMAN IN THE PARK IS “A DEFTLY CRAFTED SUSPENSE THRILLER,” SAYS MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
Synopsis: When Manhattanite Sarah Rock meets a mysterious and handsome stranger in the park, she is drawn to him. Sarah wants to get away from her daily routine, her cheating husband and his crazy mistress, her frequent sessions with her heartless therapist, and her moody children.
But nothing is as it seems. Her life begins to unravel when a woman from the park goes missing and Sarah becomes the prime suspect in the woman’s disappearance. Her lover is nowhere to be found, her husband is suspicious of her, and her therapist is talking to the police.
With no one to trust, Sarah must face her inner demons and uncover the truth to prove her innocence.
Critique: The collaborative work of Teresa Sorkin (who is a Television Producer with a passion for creating, writing, telling, sharing and producing great stories and the founder of Roman Way Productions, a production company with 32 projects in development) and Tullan Holmqvist (who is an investigator, writer and actor), “The Woman in the Park” is a deftly crafted suspense thriller of a novel with more unexpected plot twists and turns than a Coney Island roller coaster.
To read the rest of the article, click here.
To learn more about The Woman in the Park, click here.
FEATURE: THE ROSE CITY READER BOOK BLOG, TEASER TUESDAY: THE WOMAN IN THE PARK BY TERESA SORKIN AND TULLAN HOLMQVIST
It was amazing how much of a difference seeing Lawrence made, and not simply in the ways she would have expected. . . . She founded a wonderful new thrill to keep so vast a secret from her friend; Laura’s natural inquisitiveness only made it that much more of a challenge, as though getting through an interview with her might somehow prepare Sarah for the more daunting task of concealing the affair from her husband and her therapist.
– The Woman in the Park by Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist. This psychological thriller finds a Manhattan wife and mother at the center of a woman’s disappearance from the park, but nothing is as it seems.
To read the full post, click here.
To learn more about The Woman in the Park, click here.
