Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Rachel: With us this week to tell us about her latest novel, The Chorus Beneath Our Feet, is Melanie Schnell! Melanie, can you tell us a little about the book?

Melanie: The Chorus Beneath our Feet is my second novel.  Jes is a a grief-stricken soldier who accompanies his best friend’s body home after eight years away, only to find his non-speaking sister, Mary, missing and wanted for questioning by the police in the murder of an infant in the city’s central park. As Mary’s life hangs in the balance, Jes must follow the obscure clues she’s left behind, the only means to find her and absolve her of wrongdoing. In his labyrinthine search, the mystery of the park’s infamous Harron tree and its connection to his sister, and their community, is slowly revealed. 

Rachel: As an artist myself, I’m immediately struck by the visuals here! Was that the inspiration for the book?

Melanie: Fifteen years ago, when my son was a year old, I joined several other writers for a weekend retreat at an ancient farmhouse in the country in the middle of a cold prairie winter. It was just the five of us women, no wifi, our burgeoning stories, and my baby. I was working on my first novel, which was in its final stages, but during this weekend it was interrupted by a vivid image of two women standing barefoot and hands-free on a tree branch, impossibly, in the midst of a violent storm. I sketched the image in my notebook and promised to return to it later. This image became my second novel, The Chorus Beneath our Feet. 

That tree in the picture grew into a central character, and what I became immediately interested in was what lay beneath her: roots, soil, fungi, long-lost treasures, scattered bones of skeletons, and all the memories representing what has lived over millions of years before us. The question the tree was asking me as I wrote was, What is our connection to what came before us? How are we impacted by these previous lives? The answers slowly unfurled into my literary mystery, The Chorus Beneath Our Feet, which follows Jes, a soldier returned home from Afghanistan after eight years away. 

Rachel: Sounds like a powerful moment. If you weren’t a writer, what do you think you’d do instead?

Melanie: I would still need to be some kind of storyteller, so probably a documentary filmmaker. (Which requires lots of writing. Is that cheating?)

Rachel: I won’t tell if you don’t. Tell us where the Night Beats community can find you and find your work!

Melanie: Instagram: @melanie_schnell (7) Instagram

Facebook: @ Melanie Schnell Facebook

Amazon link: The Chorus Beneath Our Feet : Schnell, Melanie: Amazon.ca: Books

Publisher Link: The Chorus Beneath Our Feet by Melanie Schnell — Radiant Press