Years of writing pay off with Arkansan’s fantasy ‘Eventide’
It’s 1907 and Verity Pruitt and her younger sister, Lilah, have been sent from their New York orphanage to the small Arkansas town of Wheeler.
Right off the train, the sisters are separated as Lilah is adopted by a beloved local schoolteacher and Verity ends up living with and working for a couple on their farm.
At first, all Verity wants is to stay close to her sister and eventually return to New York, but there is more to Wheeler than meets the eye and what ensues is a story of family secrets, betrayal, ghosts, madness and magic in “Eventide,” the debut young adult, historical fantasy novel by Arkansas native Sarah Goodman that will be released Oct. 6 and is available now for pre-order.
Published by Tor Teen, a division of Macmillan Publishing, the novel follows the smart, strong-willed Verity’s attempts at adapting to farm life and taking care of her sister. Along the way she meets a cute fella, makes a few friends, endures side-eyes from suspicious locals and in the nearby woods stumbles upon a mysterious well and the wraith of a child.
The novel’s final third is a thrilling, suspenseful rush as Verity uncovers layer after layer of deceit and surprises and … well, we don’t want to spoil the ending.
Goodman, 38, is a former features reporter for The Sheridan Headlight. She grew up in Prattsville and still lives there with her husband, Jeff, and their three children — two boys ages 18 and 15 and a 10-year-old daughter who was adopted from Ukraine.
The idea for “Eventide” was inspired from Goodman’s reading of Ukrainian and Celtic folklore during the adoption process in 2012.
A few months after adopting her daughter, Goodman was looking for a creative outlet and the novel began to take shape.
“When I was driving her to speech therapy, or in the waiting room for doctor’s appointments or when she was taking a nap, I would work on this story. I also did a lot of writing at night.”
It was not an easy or quick process, she says.
“It took me years and years to write this book. It took five years of writing and revising.”
By the time her daughter started school, Goodman, who has a degree in theology from Ouachita Baptist University, really buckled down.
“I said that I was going to finish this book and try to find an agent.”
She went about the latter task the old-fashioned way, sending countless query letters and crossing her fingers.
“They wound up in a bunch of people’s slush piles,” she says. “But I got lucky.”
Her agent, Hannah Mann, was starting out on her own after being an assistant to a successful agent and Goodman was the first novelist she signed.
“Eventide,” which has gained comparisons to writers like Jennifer Donnelly and Libba Bray, has also been called a Southern Gothic “Anne of Green Gables.”
“That’s one of my favorite books and one of the greatest compliments anyone could give,” Goodman says.
The novel, which was chosen as a Buzz Pick at the annual trade fair BookExpo America, was always intended to be a young adult book because that’s what Goodman likes to read.
“I love so many writers in the genre. It’s my favorite thing to read and I decided that this was what I was going to write. I wanted to write a book that I would like to read.”
She deftly mixes young-adult themes with history and the supernatural.
“I love historical novels, but only if there is some magic. In my favorite things to read, there is always going to be some speculative aspect because I think reality is so boring,” she says with a laugh.
Arkansas readers might note a couple of familiar town names — Wheeler and Argenta — in the novel. There is an unincorporated community called Wheeler in Washington County and Argenta was the original name of North Little Rock and what the city's downtown is still called, but Goodman says her settings are purely fictional.
“I liked the name Argenta because it’s pretty,” she says. “And I moved Wheeler from the northern part of the
state. I picture it in my head as something like Sheridan.”
The story is told in first person through the eyes of 17-yearold Verity.
Though strong and capable, she is “outwardly a little bit prickly, and I like that,” Goodman says. “She’s a little tightly wound, but it’s because she has such deep feelings and she cares so much about the people in her life. She comes across as a little bossy.”
The book starts slowly, with Goodman dropping little hints along the way before Verity and the novel’s (surprise) villain face off in the last part, which has elements of horror and lots of suspense.
The pacing, she says, was deliberate, although for some editors and agents it was a deal breaker.
“I like books with a slow build. Fast-paced young adult is easier to sell … a lot of editors would say that the pace wasn’t fast enough.”
Instead of gutting her novel in a rewrite, though, she stuck with her story and the book found a home at Macmillan.
The pandemic has prevented her from doing a book tour or appearing in person at festivals, so she’s busy with a new novel for Macmillan.
It will also be a young adult, historical fiction work, she says.
“My head is spinning around with new characters and the new plots that I’m working on,” Goodman says.
She has also been reading a lot during the pandemic, and knowing that “Eventide” could be one of the books someone uses to escape reality for a while is a comforting thought.
“Reading has always been such an escape for me and has offered such solace when things are hard in my life. I think that’s why I like fantasy books so much. I’m glad to be able to contribute to that world of books. Hopefully what I’ve written will give readers a few hours away from the problems they have in the real world. They can go along with Verity and see what she is dealing with.”