By Lindy Ryan
History, haunts, and horror. Growing up the daughter of a filmmaker in New Orleans’s famous French Quarter, novelist Alexandrea Weis has seen it all—and she’s brought it all in her new novel RIVER OF ASHES, co-written with Lucas Astor. Currently in development for a television series, RIVER OF ASHES is the first in a new series that follows a pair of twin sisters who unintentionally expose the dark, twisted skeletons of their small town’s premier family. RUE MORGUE recently sat down with the author to discuss the genesis of the series and its future.
In many ways, RIVER OF ASHES is a very personal story for you, starting with the book’s setting, which is essentially right in your backyard: set along the Bogue Falaya River, a waterway that runs near the ruins of the abandoned St. Francis Abbey. Both are real locations in Louisiana, though not necessarily as they appear in the book – is that correct?
The Abbey is real, though not abandoned. There is a working seminary college and Saint Joseph Abbey located in Saint Benedict on the outskirts of Covington, Louisiana, very near where I live. And nearly every day I drive over the Bogue Falaya, which roughly translates to “little river” in the Indigenous language of the area.