Around the World in One Debut: The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

You’ve done a lot of traveling. Did your own travel experiences make it into this book?
Absolutely. Tons. I feel like I have to have a good feeling of a place to write it, and then I can come back to the details at the end. I’ve been lucky to travel a lot over the years, and I used those experiences heavily, and I was able to get a lot of details from research I did when I traveled recently while editing the book.
Like, I can’t say too much without spoilers, but my husband and I may have been standing at the top of Notre Dame cathedral at some point, peering over the edge and trying to figure out how one might get down. We may have stood under the Eiffel Tower and whispered about things that would probably have gotten us arrested if anyone had heard.
And then, Istanbul. When I visited Istanbul, I was a girl traveling alone, so that was helpful for getting into Avery’s head. That was also my first time out of the Western world—even though Turkey is in the EU now, it’s not the Western world in the same way Europe is. I remember being so struck by the differences, not only in how the city looked and how the people looked, but in how they lived day to day, and how it was so normal for them but so different to me. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a girl my age in a full burka with just her eyes showing, walking with a boy in a baseball cap and jeans, dressed just like the boys I knew at home. And around them, girls in everything from Western dress to headscarves and everything in between. I remember the smells of food carts, everywhere. I remember going into a huge market and thinking you could get lost in there. And then proceeding to get lost.
These are all things Avery notices, because, as much as all these crazy things are going on around her in the story, this is also her first time out of the country. She’s seeing the world through the eyes of a brand-new traveler, and she’s as in awe as I was when I first traveled abroad. So she would look around and see the Eiffel Tower on the horizon and laugh, because yes, seriously, that’s the Eiffel Tower. A little Vespa would zoom by, nearly taking her out if she stepped off the sidewalk too soon. There would be swarms of tourists, and the very fashionable locals who ignore them. So it was fun to travel and look at the world through those eyes, which I hadn’t done for a long time.
Did the international settings come from the story, or did the story come from the settings?
Both. By the nature of the story, about twelve families who live all over the globe, it made sense that the trilogy would be set abroad. But at the same time, I went in very much wanting it to be international. Being somewhere new automatically makes for more of an adventure. Plus, it’s almost like having another really intriguing character. I love places that have a sense of self like that, like Paris and Istanbul, where Conspiracy takes place. I chose those cities partially because of the richness of them. If you’re in Paris or Istanbul, you’re not going to think you’re anywhere else. You can go outside and take one look up and down the street and breathe in the air and know exactly where you are. And that’s what I wanted to capture.
Where else have you been that’s made you think “I need to set a book here someday”?

I would love to set a book in India. There’s so much going on in India all the time, it’s the weirdest place in the world. You’ll be sitting on this postcard-perfect beach, and on one side of you there’s a completely sketchy kite-surfing operation some guy is running out of his fishing boat. Out in the water there will be ladies swimming in their jewel-colored saris. Look the other way and somebody is giving his cow a bath at the edge of the water.
Or I spent some time at a Buddhist monastery in the jungle in northern Thailand, and while I was there I couldn’t help but picture a chase scene through the fog and the vines. Or at the top of one of the sacred Taoist mountains in China, after a four-hour hike straight uphill, you’re looking out over mountains falling away to the horizon, and it feels like you can see to the ends of the world.
And then there’s Venice. There are no cars—you get around only by boat and on foot. Most of the “streets” are these tiny alleyways between tall buildings, and you never have any idea where you’re going. I swear, the only way to get anywhere in that city is to have a vague idea which way you’re headed and at every turn take the one that seems to lead the right direction. You might just see Venice in future books in the Conspiracy trilogy.
What books do you feel do an especially good job with international settings?
So many, and especially adventurous ones. Laini Taylor does wonderful justice to Prague in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone books. London is the perfect setting for Name of the Star and the rest of Maureen Johnson’s Shades of London series. And then there are all the adult thrillers I love, which take you all over the world, like James Rollins. (One of my favorites of his is The Judas Strain, which takes the characters to Angkor Wat in Cambodia—another amazing site I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, and which lives up to its reputation as being beautiful and strange.)
The world is a huge place. I wish I could see it all, and I’m working on it, but books set abroad are one way I can feel like I’ve been somewhere even if I haven’t, and I hope I can give readers that feeling in Conspiracy. And I hope some readers will come away from the book with the desire to travel. If this book makes somebody want to see the world, I’ll be happy.