‘There were times when I scared myself’

learned about their pasts and their psyches. She used that information to develop her own fictional character.

“I regretted at times having had the idea,” she said. “This book did scare me which is a little odd since I wrote it.”

While the book is a thriller meant to entertain readers, Treggiari knew she couldn’t end it tragically, but instead with a sense of optimism and perseverance.

“There has to be hope always,” she said. “Not just for young adults, but for all people.”

Treggiari raises other questions in her book like the importance of friendship, which is highlighted in the relationship between Ari and Lynn.

“In the middle of all this darkness is this beautiful, shining thing,” said Treggiari. “It is a beautiful friendship at the heart of it all.”

A single mom with two kids ages 11 and 16, Treggiari intimately understands the audience she is largely writing for.

“I love writing characters who are young adults because it is a time in your life when it is all about firsts,” she said, referring to monumental experiences like first love. “There is an urgency.”

“I have endless respect for teenagers. I don’t try to be condescending,” she added.

Born in London, England, Treggiari has been writing for as long as she can remember. At age eight, she started revising classic fairy tales, making the evil characters even worse, and the princesses grittier. She spent 30 years living in the United States, in California and New York, where she trained as a boxer, wrote for a punk magazine, and owned her own gangster rap indie rock record label.

While on vacation in Nova Scotia, she fell in love with the province’s natural beauty and slower pace. In 2011, she and her family moved to the South Shore. That same year her book Ashes, Ashes, a young adult, post-apocalyptic adventure, was published by Scholastic Press. It went on to win awards and become a bestseller.

“Writing is such a passion of mine,” said Treggiari, whose first book was published in 2006. “It is probably the biggest joy in my life outside of my family and friends.”

When she’s not home writing in solitude, you can find her along the shore walking her two dogs, or at Lunenburg’s Lexicon books, where she is one of the co-owners of the independent bookstore. She enjoys sharing her love of books with customers.

“I have stacks of books,” she said. “I will never get to the bottom of my to-read list.”