DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE by Robin Roe

I featured Robin Roe’s debut, A LIST OF CAGES, back in 2018. Her newest book, DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE is set to come out on October 11, 2022, and I seriously can’t wait for it:

SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD SAYERS WAYTE HAS EVERYTHING.

Popularity, good looks, perfect grades—there’s nothing Sayers’ family money can’t buy. Until he’s kidnapped by a man who tells him the privileged life he’s been living is based on a lie.

Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he’s been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him.

But as time passes, the line between fact and fiction starts to blur, and Sayers begins to wonder if he can escape . . . before he loses himself.

In our last interview, you said, “What draws me into a book is the main character.” What are some examples of main characters you’ve enjoyed reading lately?

One of my favorite characters in recent years is Eden from the novel The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith. Eden’s journey after a trauma is heartbreaking and beautiful, and I think this is a book everyone should read.

Sounds like Eden’s journey is a fascinating one, and relatable for a lot of us. In DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE, Sayers, the main character, has to walk a liminal path between fact and fiction. How did you know this was a story you needed to write?

I always know it’s something I have to write when the ideas wake me up in the middle of the night and interrupt everything else I’m doing, and that was definitely the case with DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE. Pieces of this book kept coming to me—a riches-to-rags thriller about a boy who has everything and loses it all when he’s abducted.

A fascinating journey as well. I love the fanart gallery you’ve included on your website. What has been the most rewarding part of discovering fanart of your books?

Thank you! I love it too. It truly does bring me a lot of joy when someone takes the time to draw characters or scenes from my books. It’s amazing when someone visualizes the characters exactly as I see them in my mind, but it’s also fascinating when someone visualizes them in an entirely different way.

I’ll bet! If you could tell your younger writer self one thing, what would it be and why?

I never shared my work with anyone when I was growing up, and to be able to write knowing it wouldn’t be judged, gave me a sense of freedom. I could explore and mess up and get better without inhibition. But I think my younger self would have found comfort in knowing that all of that writing mattered and would eventually lead to a career.

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