Disappearing billionaires, an unsolvable mystery and a hidden secret, Teymour Shahabi talks about writing a YA thriller | AD

Thriller books have become my new obsession. If there’s some grabbing mystery to solve you can count me in. The Surway Fortune series has the twists and turns you need from a YA thriller series and I have the author Teymour Shahabi interviewing on my blog.

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Hi Teymour, thanks for being featured on my blog to promote your book series including The Secret Billionaire and Someone in the Walls. To kick-off, can you tell us a little bit about the series and what readers can expect?

Thank you for featuring me! I’m very excited to join you and your community in your wonderful, book-loving home. The Surway Fortune is a series of books (two so far) that begins with the disappearance of one of the wealthiest men in the world, Lyndon Surway, when he takes off on his private plane one day and never comes back. His will leaves the entirety of his almost infinite fortune to his “dear friend Lucian Baker.” Only there is no trace of anyone by that name. Decades later, a boarding school student named Andrew Day sets off, with his two best friends Cameron and Olivia, to discover who is the secret billionaire—and who is hiding inside the enormous Surway House.

This book is a Young Adult mystery, what was your writing process like planning the mystery? Did you intend to write more than one book from the beginning?

The Secret Billionaire, which came out in September 2016, is the first book I ever published. Before this, I had written a number of novels—I suppose “manuscripts” is the appropriate word since none of them ever saw the light of day, unless you count the sad, pale twilight of endless rejections by agents and editors. Therefore, I knew better than to count on a sequel from the start; my only plan was to watch (through my fingers) the fate of the first book. Still, the story naturally presented itself as a series from the beginning. Before I’d written the first chapter, I already had ideas for the next book and the next, and the final chapter loudly refused to be completely final. The story was so anxious to keep going that I even planted a few clues that I’m sneakily saving for upcoming twists. But I was far from certain that a second book would ever follow. The sequel, Someone in the Walls, exists only because of the amazing reception to the first book, for which I’m infinitely grateful. This sequel, which came out in late 2020, was somehow much more difficult to write, but (or maybe therefore) I think I’m even prouder of it. Because I struggled for years to find any readers at all, I don’t take a single one of my readers for granted. They made my dream come true, and I can never thank them enough. What I can do is keep writing for them, which I consider not a task but an enormous privilege. And I’m extremely excited to someday share with them what I’m working on now, which I’ve only described, at this point, to a few close friends and family members.

What books would you say inspired your writing process?

Much of the inspiration for this series comes from stories that I discovered as a child and that I’ve never stopped loving. For me, the concept of a hidden fortune goes back to the fairy tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, in which the Cave of Wonders is unlocked by the magic words “Open Sesame.” The illustrated copy that I read hundreds of times as a little boy is still on my bookshelf today (with a slightly torn-up spine), not far from my computer. Similarly, the idea of buried treasure (and of a tycoon’s secret identity) is central to The Count of Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, one of the authors who made me fall in love with books. Finally, the world-building and mythology of classic comic books—especially Batman, from Gotham City and Wayne Manor to the Rogues’ Gallery—have been a major influence on the universe of The Surway Fortune.

Writing a mystery always seems like you have to have a Sherlock level brain to make all the dots connect. What struggles did you experience when writing this series?

My biggest struggle likely came from my lack of planning (not to mention the lack of a Sherlock-level brain). For the second book in particular, which has considerably more story threads than the first, I thought that a general view of the plot—and in particular of the whodunnit reveal at the end—was enough for me to get started. I didn’t anticipate that these threads would all ravel in their own unexpected, occasionally incompatible, directions, or that the characters would impose their own conflicts, priorities, and mishaps along the way regardless of my own wishes, much like real people. As a result, over the course of the book’s several drafts, I had to edit or rewrite chapters over and over to plant missing clues, prune obsolete details, fill up plot holes, and iron out inconsistencies. In the end, I hope this lack of planning gives readers the sense of a naturally flowing story, as opposed to an overcalculated, contrived sequence of events, since so many of the twists and turns occurred spontaneously during the act of writing. This said, by outlining the second book more carefully upfront, I might have saved myself some of the bloody splatter from the editing process, which took about a year longer than expected. My aunt always said that children’s problems grow with them—maybe the same is true of book series!

What gave you the initial idea to write this book series? The concept is a really fun one but also full of so many twists and turns!

While I’m consciously grateful to the sources of inspiration I mentioned earlier, I couldn’t point to a specific moment when the concept formed in my head. I suspect it simmered and bubbled into being over long years of fantasizing about adventure and lost treasure. My primary goal, as an author, is to compel the reader, as urgently as possible, to read the next chapter, whether to witness unfolding events, to solve a mystery, or simply to spend more time in a beloved world.

“Page-turner” might be the greatest compliment anyone could ever pay one of my books, aside from the comparisons to JK Rowling that make me high-five tree leaves whenever they come up.

What is one thing that surprised you about the writing process for this book?

Earlier, I described the difficulty of uncovering and untangling a manuscript’s own surprises during the writing process. Being caught off guard by the story’s own revelations has been one of the strangest, most challenging, and most exciting experiences I’ve known as an author. This said, to me, the greatest surprise comes after a book has been written, when it finally reaches readers’ hands. Their reactions, across ages and continents, relentlessly amaze me. Whenever a reader reaches out, whether from New York City where I live or from halfway across the globe, I’m always astonished by the intimacy and immediacy of the rapport that we’ve developed by traveling over the same paragraphs and traversing the same (completely made-up!) situations. It always astounds me to realize that we’ve lived the same adventures, followed the same characters, and breathed the same sentences inside of our minds, however different our lives may be otherwise. In their emails and their reviews, readers write about the subway cars and beaches from which they’ve dived into my books; they tell me about sharing these books with their friends, their spouses, and their children; and they ask me about what I’m writing next. These messages, which always feel like a combination of hot chocolate and hugs, make it evident just how similar we all are and how close we should all be. Even now, as the coronavirus grips the world and fear and tragedy stalk our lives, even as it becomes painfully obvious that there are so many responsibilities far more urgent and heroic than writing fiction, I’m compelled to continue spinning up sentences and stories that might help others, for a few hours at least, find comfort, joy, and escape.

What advice would you give to other authors trying to finish their own mystery/thriller novels?

I’ll offer two. Firstly, treat your writing as a job and just show up at your seat—do not wait for the Muse to come knocking on your door. And secondly, congratulate and celebrate yourself for doing something difficult and wonderful that the world needs and doesn’t ask for.

And lastly, to end on a fun question, the first book in your series is about a fortune left to a man who doesn’t seem to exist. Aside from the mystery here, I love indulging myself what I would spend a fortune on. If you were left a millionaire’s fortune, what would be the first thing you’d splash out on?

Easy: I would make my New York City kitchen about three times larger. I love my current apartment in the West Village, but I wish I didn’t have to step over dishes and watch my elbows every time I cook a big meal for family and friends (specialties include brunch, Persian food, and Thanksgiving; nobody who’s read my books can doubt my love of food). Even better: I’d have room for company in the kitchen!

Thank you to Teymour for stopping by on my blog and answering these questions. If his book series has interested you, you can buy the first one on Amazon.