[Interview] Rektok Ross for SUMMER RENTAL

In Rektok Ross ‘s SUMMER RENTAL, Riley March and her friends are headed to ritzy, remote Palm Key Island for one last blow-out party weekend before college. It’s the vacation of a lifetime: beautiful beaches, epic nightlife, and hot guys like Riley’s crush—superstar soccer player Sebastian Ramos. There’s just one catch. Everyone on this trip is hiding something. Riley is hiding her past in order to fit in. Sebastian is hiding his feelings for Riley. And someone is hiding what really happened to Jordyn Chang, a classmate who mysteriously died last summer.

Things take a dark turn after one of their friends goes missing, and a hurricane cuts the group off from civilization. Trapped inside their rental house, a killer stalks them one by one. No one is safe. Everyone’s a suspect. As the body count rises, Riley and her friends will have to confront the secrets they’ve been keeping if they want to stay alive…

Recently, Nightmarish Conjurings’ Shannon McGrew chatted with author Rektok Ross about her recent release, SUMMER RENTAL. During the course of their conversation, they discussed the inspiration behind the latest slasher, the transition into full-time writing, and incorporating the natural chaos of a hurricane into the plot.

Can you tell us a little bit about your book, SUMMER RENTAL, and what inspired you to write it?

Rektok Ross: SUMMER RENTAL is a young adult thriller about a group of popular mean girls that head to a remote ritzy island for one last party weekend before college. After one of their friends disappears and a hurricane rolls in trapping them on the island, someone begins killing them one by one. It’s best described as Mean Girls meets Scream.

Two things together inspired me to write SUMMER RENTAL. First, my love of 90s slasher movies like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer (I’m a huge horror fan!), and secondly, my desire to write a book that depicts the true harms of toxic female friendships and bullying. I’ve had some unfortunate personal experiences with the latter and really wanted to thematically explore the emotional impact of these types of “friendships,” and a slasher seemed like a really interesting way to do this.

You went from having a job as a high-profile attorney to now a horror/thriller writer. What drove you to make that change?

Rektok Ross: I’ve always loved storytelling and think I would have been a writer and filmmaker right off the bat if things had been different for me growing up. My parents didn’t think the life of an artist was a safe career choice and instead, they really encouraged me to go to law school. While I really enjoyed practicing law and found it very fulfilling, I always felt like something was missing in my life. Eventually, I started taking writing classes at night as a creative outlet and fell back in love with the craft. I ultimately realized I wanted to write full-time and eventually made the transition to becoming a writer and producer.

I love that this book is not only considered a mashup of Mean Girls and Scream, but it also includes a natural disaster in the form of a hurricane. What was the idea behind incorporating that?

Rektok Ross: There is a scene in SUMMER RENTAL where the characters actually joke about how smart people in a slasher movie would leave their location as soon as the first kill takes place. I think if you want to have a slasher or murder mystery with intelligent characters your readers/viewers will sympathize with, then you have to have a logical reason they might stay put after the murders begin.

Introducing a hurricane was a great way to do that in SUMMER RENTAL. It traps the characters in the house in a way that is realistic and readers can understand. But even aside from that, I also really just love natural disasters in stories because they up the tension. It’s fun to make the setting and/or Mother Nature a secondary antagonist in a story. I did the same thing in my debut thriller Ski Weekend where a blizzard is used as a device to create thrills and tension in the story.

I was given some info that your first book, Ski Weekend, is in development with Twisted Pictures, who did SAW. How did that come about and are you excited to see your story come to life on the big screen?

Rektok Ross: It was a lot of hard work, to be honest. I spent a lot of time shopping Ski Weekend around and really pounding the pavement. I reached out to so many people and really networked the heck out of things. The really funny thing is, I never even expected my producers Oren and Miles Koules to come on board. Oren was a former client of mine when I was practicing law so I have known him for years. I sent him Ski Weekend simply hoping for some mentoring and advice about the industry; I thought he was way too established and successful to want to work with a debut author like me. I was so thrilled when he and Miles told me they loved the book and wanted to work with me to adapt it. And yes, I’m beyond excited to see Ski Weekend on the big screen. It is a real dream come true for me! I can’t wait to start production!

What are you most excited about for fans to experience with SUMMER RENTAL?

Rektok Ross: I love horror and one of my favorite things is to expose others to the genre—especially readers who don’t normally read horror or think genre fiction isn’t something they will enjoy. I love love love slashers, especially those from the 90s, and I really want to introduce new readers to a good fun slasher in hopes they might also fall in love with the genre, too. And then, of course, it’s been amazing for me to see other fans of 90s horror (like me) pick up SUMMER RENTAL and get all the references and tropes and Easter eggs I’ve hidden in the book.

Tell us about your love of Halloween and all things spooky.

Rektok Ross: Halloween is my favorite holiday! I pretty much enjoy everything about it from reading spooky books to watching horror films and TV shows. I always rewatch my favorite episodes of “Buffy,” “The Vampire Diaries,” “AHS,” “Scream Queens,” and “Stranger Things” this time of year. I adore going to haunted houses and decorating my own house and office library with goodies from Spirit Halloween, HomeGoods, and Target. I’m a sucker for the fashion too, and also get some cute new horror merch and costumes each year.

What are some of your favorite horror movies?

Rektok Ross: I’m a huge horror movie junkie so it’s hard to pick favorites because there are just too many I enjoy, but some movies I always talk about and watch each October are: The Craft, Halloween, Halloween H20, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Lost Boys, The Descent, Aliens, Happy Death Day, Nightmare on Elm Street, Ready or Not, Wrong Turn, Happy Death Day, The Fear Street movies, The Faculty, and Saw. Saw X also was amazing!

Can you name some other horror/thriller writers/novels you want to recommend to other people and why?

Rektok Ross: Absolutely! I’d say anything by Christopher Pike is a winner but especially Remember Me. I also love Hidden Pictures, It and The Stand by Stephen King, Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood, The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, The Sundown Motel, R.L. Stine’s books, anything and everything by L.J. Smith, Dark Places (love Gillian Flynn), The Ruins, Twilight if you want something on the lighter side, and V.C. Andrews if you’re looking for gothic horror.

SUMMER RENTAL is now available anywhere you purchase books. You can find Rektok Ross online just about anywhere at @RektokRoss and on her website, www.RektokRoss.com, where she blogs about books and writing.

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Shannon McGrew

Founder/Co-Owner at Nightmarish Conjurings

Shannon is the Founder of Nightmarish Conjurings and a lover of all things horror and haunt related. When she's not obsessively collecting all things "Trick 'R Treat" related, or trying to convince everyone that "Hereditary" is one of the greatest horror films ever made, you can find her designing interiors for commercial restaurants. An avid haunt fan, Shannon spends the entire year visiting haunts and immersive experiences throughout the Southern California area and hopes to one day design her own haunted attraction.

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