Erica Ferencik

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Erica Ferencik

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November 2007



Oprah chose Erica Ferencik’s debut novel, The River at Night as a #1 Pick, calling the book “the page-turning novel you’ve been waiting for, a heart-pounding debut.” Entertainment Weekly named it a “Must Read,” and calls the novel “harrowing…a visceral, white knuckle rush.” Miramax has recently optioned the novel for a film.
Her new novel, Into the Jungle, one woman's terrifying journey of survival in the Bolivian Amazon, will be released on May 28, 2019. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, calling it: “[A] ferocious fever dream of a thriller…Ferencik delivers an alternately terrifying and exhilarating tale.” Her work has appeared in Salon and The Boston Globe, as well as on National Public Radio.



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Erica Ferencik Hi Carrie:
Well, thank you!!! You absolutely made my day. I am writing another thriller: this one takes place in the Peruvian rainforest, and will be r…more
Hi Carrie:
Well, thank you!!! You absolutely made my day. I am writing another thriller: this one takes place in the Peruvian rainforest, and will be released in late 2018. More on that soon...:)
Happy reading!
Erica(less)
Erica Ferencik Hi Kat:

Thanks so much for your kind note!
There were two inspirations for the book:
One:
I read and fell in love with James Dickey’s 1970 novel Deliveran…more
Hi Kat:

Thanks so much for your kind note!
There were two inspirations for the book:
One:
I read and fell in love with James Dickey’s 1970 novel Deliverance. Most people have seen the movie – cue the banjos! – but I’m not sure the book has gotten the love it deserves.
Dickey was a poet, but he also wrote this fabulous, propulsive, first person novel about four male friends who go white-water rafting in the Georgia wilderness. The story was utterly terrifying to me; I was struck by this series of bad decisions that led to disaster.
Two:
The summer before I started the book I was hiking in the White Mountains with a few friends and we got lost. We had all depended Lucy to map out the day; she was the one who had the most experience, the one we were convinced knew what she was doing. Turned out, Lucy had done some did pretty shabby planning.
The idea was to get to the hut – maybe it was Carter Notch or Zealand – by around five to get cleaned up and grab a bunk before they serve dinner at 5:30. But we were still hiking at 7:30; thank God it was summer so it was still light, but we had some older people with us, specifically a very tall, teetery gentleman in his seventies lugging this ginormous pack, and I thought we are going to have to carry this guy…we ran out of water and food, and one of the women had such bad cramps in her legs we had to stop and massage her muscles just so she could unbend her legs. The wind had picked up and the temperature dropped like a stone, and we were up past the tree line scrambling over huge boulders, completely exhausted and scared…anyway we made it to the hut with just this shred of light left, barely able to see our hands in front of us to find that they had been organizing a search party there. They were all suited up. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces when we stumbled in the door…talk about food tasting good, talk about a cot feeling like the Four Seasons…we had been so close to spending the night on the mountain, alone.
These two experiences really planted the idea for The River at Night in my head, until I felt I just had to write it!:)
(less)
Average rating: 3.58 · 27,109 ratings · 4,615 reviews · 8 distinct worksSimilar authors
The River at Night

3.50 avg rating — 16,497 ratings — published 2017 — 22 editions
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Girl in Ice

3.67 avg rating — 6,486 ratings — published 2022 — 16 editions
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Into the Jungle

3.73 avg rating — 3,955 ratings — published 2019 — 13 editions
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Repeaters

3.87 avg rating — 119 ratings — published 2011 — 4 editions
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Hot, Naked and Awake

4.14 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 2014
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Cracks in the Foundation

3.74 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2008 — 2 editions
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Q & A: Into the Jungle

Q&A with Erica Ferencik about her new novel, INTO THE JUNGLE

1) What is the book about?
Into the Jungle is a thriller about a young woman who falls in love with a Bolivian man and follows him to his remote jungle village in the Amazon rain forest where she must call on all her wits and resilience to survive. It’s also about the decimation of the rainforest by poachers and land-hungry corporations, a Read more of this blog post »
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Published on April 25, 2019 07:39 Tags: bookclub, foster-care, jungle, rainforest, thriller
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Not for everyone. But who cares about everyone? If you like great horror, come on along on this one for a primal, terrifying ride. Freakin' bravo, Sophie White. ...more
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Brilliant, timely, yet timeless advice for writers. Thrilled to add this to my shelf and tell the world about it.
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“What did the mountains care about our plan to climb them, rafting the waters that divided them? They had eternity before us, and eternity after us. We were nothing to them.”
Erica Ferencik, The River at Night

“The fact is, I’m a middle-aged woman who should have middle-aged concerns, but I don’t. Fear feels quaint somehow. I just don’t have any these days. Now when I swim, I feel powerful and sleek and swift. I delight in my mass, in all that water I displace. I am this joyous creature plunging into my element: water. What difference does it make how old I am or what jeans I can fit into or how fast my roots come in? My aging body, my dull job. I mean, really, who cares? I’m”
Erica Ferencik, The River at Night

“The world we know is dwarfed by the worlds we don't. Why not explore them all? Being out there in the wilderness, you have no idea what'll happen, really. It could be just you and this gorgeous night sky, or maybe you are surfing and some big ass wave comes at you, and if you don't ride that sucker, it'll put you under and have you for lunch, or you might turn a corner on a hike and there's some beautiful deer and her little fawn-- now that has meaning, all of those things, and I need more of that and less of trying to make money so I can pay bills to live in a way I just don't care about anymore.”
Erica Ferencik, The River at Night

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“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”
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“I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”
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“Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth. We walk through it, yell into it, rake leaves, wash the dog, and drive cars in it. We breathe it deep within us. With every breath, we inhale millions of molecules of sky, heat them briefly, and then exhale them back into the world.”
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“Time doth flit; oh shit.”
Dorothy Parker

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
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message 3: by Donna

Donna Thank you so much Erica for friending me on Goodreads.
Blessings to you.


message 2: by Erica

Erica Ferencik It sounds kind of sweet, actually, esp in the context you describe. Perhaps better than "Locust." The reason I used it for my character is that, as you may remember, Ginger was trying to name her baby, was eating a p&b sandwich and read "Harvest Bread" on the loaf and thought it sounded good...I think (forgeting my book for the moment) that it could be a boy's or a girl's name, and could always default to Harvey which is an endearing sort of name to me.


Fredsky Hey, Ebgf! I think my cousin in Kansas might name her 4th kid Harvest. She asked me if it was a girl's name or a boy's name. They live where the world's longest grain elevators are and the whole town goes through maybe 4 harvests per year. All the husbands are working day and night for weeks. So: do you think a boy could get by with a name like Harvest?


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