
Poverty, prejudice, her mother’s addiction…in her quest for an education, 15-year-old Thea tries to navigate them all. But will a secret ultimately undermine her efforts?

Thea
by Genevieve Morrissey
Genre: YA Historical Fiction

Oklahoma City, 1925
Fifteen-year-old Thea Carter lives in a small garage apartment—Thea’s seventh “home” in four years—provided by her alcoholic mother’s employer, the morose and enigmatic Dr. Hallam.
School is Thea’s refuge and she’s an excellent student, but the parasitic Mrs. Carter’s instability continually threatens her dream of getting a high school diploma. In an effort to keep her mother employed and the two of them housed, Thea secretly takes on much of her mother’s work while at the same time navigating adolescence, friendships, and first love.
Dr. Hallam, impressed by her drive and intelligence, becomes Thea’s unexpected ally, but in addition to wealth and position, the doctor also has a secret that could ruin him, and shatter his bond with Thea.
“Thea is a coming-of-age tale with a lot of heart and charm. Author Genevieve Morrissey has written a moving story about a young girl’s journey of self-discovery…. Morrissey’s characters truly leap off the pages….. It’s a fantastic coming-of-age story for young adults and even older readers!”


I saw Dr. Hallam at the window of the front room as I passed. He saw me, too, which was too bad. The doctor knew I existed, of course, but it was my policy to make myself as inconspicuous as possible to maintain the illusion that my mother was the one—the only one—who got his house clean and his food cooked.
I couldn’t entirely figure out the doctor. He was youngish, nice looking, and mannerly—things everybody wishes they were, but many aren’t. Since he was a doctor, I guessed he must also be very smart and educated. He owned more books than some libraries, and had a car, nice clothes, and a house, so obviously he had plenty of money. He let my mother buy what she needed for housekeeping and paid the bills without even looking at them. Taken altogether, in fact, Dr. Hallam had everything anybody could possibly want in life—and as far as I could see, he didn’t notice he had them or care. He didn’t seem to care about anything, in fact. He seldom talked, and I never saw him smile.
He didn’t have any sweethearts, though if he made half an effort, his looks and money would bring women around in droves, and though he’d lived in Oklahoma City for more than a year, his house was empty beyond a few sticks of dining room furniture, a bed for him to sleep in, and a desk and chair in the library. Aside from a dozen medical books and some stacks of medical magazines, the library’s two walls of shelves were empty. The books that should have been on them were still packed up in crates lining the hallway. Lamps in the doctor’s bedroom and the front room stood on the floor. The house was always going to be too big for him to live in alone. There was no helping that. It had been built for a large family who ended up not wanting it—there was a story there, but I didn’t know it—but I thought if Dr. Hallam brought in at least enough chairs and tables and sofas that he didn’t rattle around the rooms like a bean in a boxcar, he might be more comfortable.
The doctor didn’t try to be comfortable. He didn’t try to be happy. He just—lived. Worked and lived. That was all.
This annoyed me. Personally, I’d have liked to have seen a law passed that said people who had advantages—especially money—and didn’t appreciate them were obliged to share their advantages—especially money—with the rest of us. Ma and I quarreled about a lot of things, but we were always in perfect agreement about wanting more money.
At the Central High stop, I jumped off the streetcar before it stopped rolling and ran for school’s back door.



Thea is the new historical novel by Genevieve Morrissey, author of the award-winning Marriage & Hanging and the popular Antlands science fiction series. She is an avid student of British and American social history who, through one of those strange little quirks of fate, spends most of her days talking with scientists. In addition to writing, Genevieve enjoys reading obscure books, travel, and solitude.
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Stuff About Me:
First—I’m not young. Luckily for me, writing isn’t something that requires youth, quick wits, or agility.
I always wanted to be a writer, and I always wrote, but for many years I wrote only for myself. I was sure any criticism of my work would absolutely crush me. I hardened up a little in my middle years and started letting a few people close to me read my books, but even then, I wasn’t brave enough to submit any work to the judgment of the public until the pandemic came along. Then, quarantined and bored out of my mind, I finally took the leap with Antlands and discovered the public I’d been afraid of was actually almost universally kind.
Beyond that, I was born in the usual way, raised in a conventional nineteen-sixties household in southern California, and educated in public schools. I majored in Classical Studies at the University of California, San Diego, but afterwards forgot all the Latin and Greek I’d learned so quickly I was forced to conclude I’d never really learned them at all. After graduation my interest turned from ancient to more recent history, and particularly to American and (to a lesser extent) British social history. I’ve been immersed in that subject for more than forty years now, which has resulted in my accumulating hundreds and hundreds of books with faded bindings and a strong odor of mildew. At this point I’m pretty mildewed myself, not to mention something of a museum-piece for having been married to the same man for more than half a century. He’s a biochemist, which means you may trust that any science in my books has been thoroughly vetted.
Are Your Characters Based on Real People…?
All my characters are real people I know, or composites of several real people. I don’t have a good enough imagination to create a totally original personality.
In the case of THEA, for example, Thea’s mother, Grace, is based largely on my own mother, except that my mother suffered from mental illness rather than alcohol addiction. Like Thea, my mother was a high school student during the 1920s, graduating on the eve of the Depression, and I based Thea’s high school experiences on Mom’s.
Unlike Thea Carter, my mother’s life unfortunately had no Dr. Hallam in it. I was luckier, and THEA was partly written as a tribute to him. Thea herself was based on a contemporary of mine who I admired, and as with all my books (THEA is the sixth I’ve published) minor characters are all amalgams of friends and acquaintances, some of whom recognize themselves and some of whom don’t. My books’ villains are always old enemies of mine, and in the first five drafts, at least, I make them suffer.
What Did You Edit Out…?
As a child, I read all of Charles Dickens’ works.
What I mean by that is that my mother had a lavishly illustrated boxed set of the works of Charles Dickens and in childhood I pored over the pictures, devoured the dialogue, read most paragraphs of six lines or less—and shamelessly skipped all the rest. Later in school, when I was forced to read every word of David Copperfield, I concluded that my earlier choice had been the correct one.
Bad examples can be as useful as good ones. Based on this early research, I try to edit out anything in my books that doesn’t keep the plot marching smartly along, avoid long descriptive passages, and cap the number of characters at fewer than twenty. Deaths and scenes of death-beds are usually limited to one per book (and I try not to make them pathetic).
In early drafts of THEA, Grace Carter had a backstory; Dr. Hallam had a backstory (a long one); Thea herself had more backstory; and in general, all the characters got up to a whole lot more stuff than made it into the final version of the book. In fact, I probably excised an amount equivalent to double what ultimately remained. This is about usual with me, and I believe every cut made the final story better.
Who designed your book covers?
All of my covers except one are the work of Mark Thomas of Coverness. I love them all, and I think the cover of Thea is his best yet.
The cover of The Complete Raffles, Annotated and Illustrated is the work of Sarah Morrissey, and features an image of Raffles painted by J.C. Leyendecker.
Advice I would give new authors?
I find that people are very free about giving advice to writers. The only piece I ever got that I consciously took is this:
First—write a book (or play, or story, or poem, or whatever your thing is).
Second—revise what you wrote. Revise it again. Revise it again. Revise it until you’re sick of looking at it. Revise it some more. Keep revising it until every sentence is as perfect as you can make it.
Third—open the bottom drawer of your desk and drop your manuscript into it.
Fourth—close the drawer. If you feel like slamming it, go ahead.
Fifth—repeat steps one through four until one day when you open the bottom drawer to drop in your manuscript, you find the drawer full. At this point—and not before—you may proceed to step six, which is to attempt to get your latest work published.
I got this advice (I don’t remember from whom) in a time when people still had desk drawers and manuscripts on paper that could be dropped into them, but as that’s usually no longer the case, a contemporary version of this advice might go:
Step one—measure and calculate the volume of an old-fashioned bottom desk drawer. Measure and calculate the volume of a manuscript printed on 81/2 by 11-inch paper. Calculate how many manuscripts of the calculated volume would be required to reach the maximum capacity of said drawer.
Proceed with old steps one through four until the number of virtual manuscripts you have completed is enough to fill the virtual drawer.
Then continue to step five.
If you are math-avoidant, it may serve as a rough estimate for you to know that my desk drawer—actual, not virtual—was filled by Attempted Book Number Eight. Book Number Nine was Antlands, which sold very well, so I think the drawer-filling technique worked very well in my case.
Do you believe in writer’s block?
Yep. With as much conviction as I believe in gravity. Just keep writing.
Pen, typewriter or computer?
I’m so old I’ve written books with all three. I like my computer best because it makes revisions so easy I have no possible excuse to stint on revising.
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
At first, five years. Then three. Then two. To write THEA took only one. As with any skill, practice is everything.

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Kickoff at Silver Dagger Book Tours
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Sounds like a nice read, the cover is great.
I really like the cover art. Looks fantastic. I would enjoy reading this story.
I just love the cover art
What are some of your favorite books to read?
I love a good historical fiction novel and this one looks wonderful! I adore the cover art so much too!
The book sounds like a wonderful read. My granddaughter would love it. The cover art is beautiful. Love the retro-vibe.
Nice cover
This sounds like a real page turner and one I would love to read this spring season.
I liked the excerpt.
Great cover!
Interesting book details.
very nice cover, this sounds like a great read
Looks like a good read.
Very plausible plot, I used to know someone in the same situation, only she had a little sister as well.
Thanks for all the interest in my novel. I hope you like it! (And I agree, the cover is great. I have a wonderful designer!)
- Genevieve
Congratulations on your book!
Do you have any advice for new writers?
nice cover
This looks like an interesting book for Young Adults! I like the cover!
Sounds like a great book for the younger generation to read.
Thanks for the feedback. I've actually written THEA for adults, but the novel should also be accessible for older teenagers.
I like the idea of presenting a coming of age story in a period in which the process would be quite different than it is today (because of the opportunities and social norms of the day). But I also agree that it sounds more like a book for older teens and adults.
Yes, it was indeed interesting to explore this time period. (It's when my mother grew up, by the way.) I hope you and others will enjoy reading the novel.
This looks like a great read. Thank you
Looks like a good read
Sounds good. I love the cover. Thank you for the excerpt and the Q&A! :)
I like it because it is an adult book and the cover is fine
I enjoyed the excerpt for Thea. Thanks for the giveaway!
Hope the book does great!
I like the book details.
This book involves survival which I enjoy reading!
Thank you for sharing this.
The excerpt is interesting. Thank you for sharing it.
This sounds like an interesting book and I also like the cover.
Thanks for all the kind feedback. I hope that anyone who reads Thea enjoys it.
looks like a fun one.