Hazelthorn: A Guest Post by CG Drews

A haunted estate, a perilous garden — this is a bone-chilling Gothic thriller that will grip you until the very end. Read on for an exclusive essay and bonus Q&A with author CG Drews on writing Hazelthorn.

When I started writing Hazelthorn, I wanted nothing more than for it to be a darkly twisted botanical horror of toxic plants and gothic mansions and secrets locked behind doors and monsters made out of twigs and bone. I built the story out of that classic gothic aesthetic of decay and isolation, and filled it with wild, rotten eldritch gardens, claustrophobic relationships, and that unsettling feeling that something is watching you from the dark. This book is meant for those of us who read The Secret Garden and wished there was something horrifying behind that locked garden door. It is also very deeply a story of fighting for autonomy and defining what really makes a monster, which has to be one of my favourite things to write about.

Evander has spent the last seven years locked in his room in the mouldering Hazelthorn Estate after his childhood best friend tried to kill him. Since then, his guardian has given him three rules to live by: (1) Do not leave the Estate, (2) Do not go into the gardens, and (3) Never be alone with Laurie Lennox-Hall. But somehow, despite being sickly and scarred after the attack, Evander is still obsessed with Laurie. So when Evander finds his door unlocked one night, he cautiously slips free only to find his guardian dead from poisoning and Evander now the sole inheritor of the Hazelthorn Estate. He is thrust into a terrifying spiral of trying to solve the murder mystery with the reluctant help of Laurie—who is insufferably beautiful and arrogant and also hiding secrets of his own—while greedy Lennox-Hall relatives swarm the Estate in an attempt to claim some of the fortune. Even though Laurie turns out to be a surprising ally, Evander can’t quite trust his own obsessive infatuation with this boy. He has to find out what broke their friendship apart…and if it can ever be mended.

But he can’t afford to be distracted by Laurie when the viciously, vibrantly alive garden is trying to claw inside the house with vines and roots and toothy hunger. Evander’s life is constantly being threatened. Someone is lying about the Hazelthorn Estate and the monsters it hides and Evander is determined to find out the truth of what he has just inherited—before the garden demands to be fed.

1. When did you know you wanted to write this book?

After I wrote Don’t Let The Forest In, I knew I wanted to follow it up with another botanical horror, something with thorns for teeth and hungry plants and teens digging secrets out of the soil. I’d written an early concept of a haunted estate and bloodthirsty garden years ago, so I pulled that idea out of the dust and reworked it into Hazelthorn.

2. What draws you toward writing for young adults?

When I started writing I was a teen myself so I was naturally drawn to writing Young Adult. I wrote the books I longed to see—preferably full of monsters and angst and bloody collisions of desperation and danger. These days I still love writing for teens because there’s such fresh, raw emotion to be found in those difficult years of growing up and I want to write books that teen-me would eat right up. My books are filled with teenage rage and hunger and curiosity, intensity always turned up to max, and I hope they can provided a safe space to look into the dark and see what stares back.

3. Evander is such a compelling character — how did you flesh him out and find his voice?

Evander has always been a deeply special character to me, because despite being locked in his room in that mouldering gothic mansion, he is still so brilliantly curious. I think curiosity is such an important trait. He has been fed only lies and this insidious message that he is other, that his differences make him monstrous unless he can hide them and be “normal”. It takes him a while to unpack the toxicity behind that, to be proud of his autistic self, and to reclaim his autonomy (though, well, it is a horror story so we’re not going to say he always went about this the right way!!) Once I knew who the core of Evander was, his voice came easily to me as I drafted and I had a blast writing Hazelthorn.

4. What did you enjoy about writing Evander and Laurie’s relationship?

I adored writing these two boys and their fractious (and often toxic) relationship. Their lives are so deeply and intrinsically entwined (even though Evander doesn’t understand why at first) and their mouthy, knife-sharp banter was so much fun to put on the page. They are also both suffering under a lot of internalised ableism, but I loved writing that moment when they slowly begin to understand they are not the problem. Laurie makes degrading quips about his “failings” and there is this moment when Evander, who does the same to himself, suddenly realises how toxic it is. If Evander doesn’t see Laurie as broken then he shouldn’t see himself as broken either. But these two are also not without their darkness and their need for each other often unravels in vicious ways. I do love writing a morally grey relationship, that’s for sure.

5. What books made you want to become an author?

Oh I grew up devouring so many books, I think they all contributed to my longing to become an author. I used to spend so many afternoons in our local public library, just reading anything off the shelf that caught my eye, and that majorly influenced my journey into writing—just having that open, free access to so many types of books. As a young author, I was also really inspired by authors like Suzanne Collins and Holly Black!