5 Random Questions with Ann Dávila Cardinal, author of You’ve Awoken Her

This month in my newsletter (catch up HERE if you’ve missed any of them) I interviewed Ann Dávila Cardinal about her latest creepy YA, You’ve Awoken Her, which I absolutely loved. In it, Gabriel reluctantly goes to spend the summer with his friend in the Hamptons, only to find a terrifying creature lurking in the water there.

You’ve Awoken Her just came out this week, and is the perfect beachy horror to add to your TBR this summer. I naturally needed to know more about the author whose mind spawned such terrors…

Enter the 5 Random Questions!

1. What will you be reading this summer?

There’s so many great books coming out this summer! I’m particularly excited about If We Survive This by Racquel Marie, and A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer.

2. Have you ever had a supernatural encounter?

I worked in a haunted building at Vermont College of Fine Arts for over twenty years. Anna was a woman who was shot on the property by another woman over a man in the 1800s. She didn’t like it when we worked late, and I’ve had all my pictures fall off the wall, furniture moved in front of the door so I couldn’t get in, the clocks all on the floor, batteries nowhere to be found. It was a trip. I ended up writing a short story about her haunting our zoom meetings during the pandemic because I wondered who a ghost haunted when there was no one there.

3. Did your hometown have any creepy local legends?

Not my hometown, per se, but there are SO many fabulous ones in Puerto Rico where I spent most summers as a child. I was fascinated by Los Desmembrados, or The Dismembered. It started in Lajas, a town on the west coast of the island, and is about partial bodies that walk or crawl down PR-116, a road where many people have had accident and died. It’s said that when the dogs start barking, you can go out and see headless torsos pulling themselves along the asphalt. I wrote a short story about it for Our Shadows Have Claws. Lajas also has one of the few UFO landing strips in the world. 

4. What’s one talent you have that not many people know about?

I can fake a sneeze, perfectly. I used to think I should book commercials with that bit, but it served me well in high school when I wanted out of class to go lie down in the nurses cool office. (Sorry, Sister Elizabeth.) . . .(Not sorry.)

5. What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?

Other than my son? A Crissy doll. She was tall, auburn-haired, and fashionesque wearing groovy clothes, and you pulled her hair out of her head to lengthen it (and press a button to suck it back in.) It’s actually pretty terrifying when you think about it. I preferred the older dolls because when I was very young my mother told me she’d always hated baby dolls because she thought they were dead babies dipped in plastic. Yes, that’s how I ended up the way I am.

(And this is just part 1 of 2! Part 2 coming next week.)

About Ann Dávila Cardinal

Ann is a Nuyorican, Vermont-based author with an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA). Ann’s first book was a young adult horror novel titled Five Midnights, which won the 2020 International Latino Book Award in the category of Best Young Adult Fantasy & Adventure, an AudioFile’s Earphones Award for the audiobook, and was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. The story continues in Category Five, released in 2020, and her young adult horror rom-com, Breakup From Hell, was released in 2023. Her next YA novel, a horror comedy titled You’ve Awoken Her, will be coming on June 17. Her adult magical realist novels include The Storyteller’s Death and We Need No Wings.

Ann lives in Vermont with her husband in a lovely little house with a massively creepy basement. 

You can find out more about Ann and her books on her website, and follow her on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. 

If you missed my newsletter interview with Ann about You’ve Awoken Her, check it out here, and don’t forget to look out for part 2 of this interview coming next week. Also remember to sign up for my newsletter which I send out every month – the next one will be hitting inboxes on Friday 4th July and will feature an interview with Josie Jaffrey about her latest release, Kill Me Quick, and a giveaway where you can win signed a signed copy of both Kill Me Quick AND The Devouring Light! Subscribe so you don’t miss it.