I fall,
– Traces, Sophie Johannis
past the part of Cole
that knows I’m here,
past the part of him
fighting for me to stop,
the searing cold currents,
the shadows.
Past his shields.
Aiden has always been different, but it’s not until a new student shows up in her podunk Pennsylvania town that she understands why. With his haunting, sleepless eyes, Cole sees through her lies hiding a secret as exhilarating as it is volatile: Aiden can’t help but read minds.
Scalpel-smart and shadow-quiet, Cole takes the lid off her dreams and cracks her family’s veneer of normalcy. But as Aiden begins to forge her future, a prying presence invades her town. Someone is hunting the gifted, and Cole is a target. To save him, Aiden needs to master her newfound talent and reach into the chasms in his past, retracing the forgotten years of his life. If she fails, he’ll die. But his memories come at a harrowing price…
A thrilling blend of modern fantasy, psychological fiction, and YA love story, Traces will resonate with those willing to embrace their own darkness.
Content warnings for Traces
- Violence
- Abuse of children and adolescents
- Parental neglect and abandonment
- Parentification of a young child
- Sibling abuse
- C-PTSD
- Self-hatred and self-harm
- Addiction; substance abuse as self-medication
- Unrecognized neurodivergence; high-masking autism
- Ableism
- Racism and islamophobia
- Kidnapping and abduction
- Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts
• Dying and death - Animal cruelty and animal death
If you have any questions or concerns about the sensitive subjects in Traces, please contact me directly.
Book club questions for Traces
- Why are Aiden and Cole drawn to one another? What’s keeping them apart? Do you think it makes sense for them to fall in love?
- Both Aiden and Cole are survivors of trauma and abuse. Think of ways in which their experiences differ and ways in which they are similar.
- Aiden is an unreliable narrator. Think of different (groups of) people she’s lying to. Try to explain why.
- Traces revolves around memory, identity, and trust. How are these three themes interconnected? How do they influence the stories of Cole, Aiden, Layla, and others?
- The little house is a refuge for Aiden, and Cara and Donovan become her found family. Think of the different shapes that families in Traces take. What ties each family together? What problems does each family face? Which family would you most like to be a part of?
- Chance, the Big Bad, only appears at the end. Who are the antagonists that are more present throughout the story? Whose actions shape the course of Aiden’s and Cole’s lives?
- While Aiden’s and Cole’s stories are at the center of the novel, many of the other characters have their own struggles. Whose story spoke to you the most? Whose story ought to have been told in more detail?
- Standing up for one’s friends is usually considered a good thing, but when Aiden stands up for Layla, Layla is upset. Why? Have you ever been in a similar situation?
- How do Aiden and Cole (but also Donovan, Cara, Layla, Jaleela, and others) defy stereotypes and expectations? Think of gender roles, ethnicity, religion, social status, and mental health. Why are some characters written as more (stereo)typical?
- Why does Aiden stay friends with Mark for so long? Think of the friendships in the novel. Which of them are healthy? Which of them are toxic?
- Aiden’s and Cole’s thoughts are rendered in brackets. Cole’s language is riddled with dashes. What do these elements represent and add to the story? When you write, what punctuation mark, letter, symbol, or word do you use more frequently than other people?
- Aiden uses stories to make sense of her life. Has a story — in a book or movie, or told to you by someone — ever impacted you the same way?
Traces playlist
I usually play the same song on repeat while writing the first draft of a chapter, and I tend to pick a song that corresponds to the mood of the section I’m working on. Since most of the novel is narrated by Aiden, I ended up with a lot of alternative and some grunge. For Cole’s POV chapters, I often went with Zoe Keating’s experimental cello pieces. I also chose a lot of music from the mid-2000s to take myself back to 2007.
Disclaimer: I’m not getting paid to advertise for the artists listed here. I simply like their music!
- Placebo – Speak In Tongues
- Placebo – Battle For The Sun
- Placebo – Protect Me From What I Want
- Zoe Keating – Tetrishead
- Zoe Keating – Escape Artist
- Zoe Keating – Hello Night
- Lifehouse – Sick Cycle Carousel
- Lifehouse – Storm (acoustic)
- Nirvana – Dumb
- Rise Against – Wait For Me (acoustic)
- Matchbox Twenty – Bed of Lies
- The Goo Goo Dolls – Iris
- Kings of Leon – Closer
- Linkin Park – Numb
- Bright Eyes – Middleman
- Damien Rice – 9 Crimes
- AaRON – Angel Dust
- Billie Eilish & Khalid – Lovely
- Tori Amos – Precious Things
- Astronautalis – The River, The Woods
- Counting Crows – Round Here
- The Fray – How To Save A Life
- Incubus – Drive
- Eagle-Eye Cherry – Save Tonight
- Ludovico Einaudi – Monday
- Missy Higgins – Warm Whispers
- Ours – Mercy
- The Piano Guys – O Come, Emmanuel
- Seether – Rise Above This (acoustic)
Random facts about Traces
About the characters:
- The first characters I imagined were Aiden and Gracie. I know it sounds cliché, but they came to me in a dream when I was 16.
- In the very first draft of Traces, Cole was able to transform into a fox. I changed it after the first two chapters (it was pretty cringe).
- In my early drafts, Mark used to have a twin sister named Morgan, but she was basically a molecule of him and Nikki, so she had to go.
- At a high school in rural Pennsylvania, I met a junior who convinced her guidance counselor to let her take three foreign languages. Without her, Aiden would have been limited to two.
- On the same trip, I actually met a real person shooting groundhogs on his neighbors’ properties… recreationally. Hello, Mr. Carter!
- I’m basically a hobbit at 5’3”, but Aiden is another two and a half inches shorter than me.
About the setting:
- Kirkwood is a fictional place, but it’s based on a town in western Pennsylvania that I visited and fell in love with.
- It bothers me when people on TV live in unrealistically upscale houses. In Traces, I tried to add small details like the worn linoleum in Cara’s kitchen to give my characters’ homes a more realistic feel.
About the language:
- While I understand medical terms pretty well (thank you, Latin!), I can’t use them as fluently as Cole does. I managed just fine with a little help from Gray’s Anatomy (the book) and Grey’s Anatomy (the show).
- I’m bilingual (English and German), but my French sucks. That’s why I consulted a friend who’s a native speaker to check whether I’d messed up. She was particularly amused by Estelle’s way of doubting Cole’s sanity because one of her family members keeps using the same exact phrase.
- One of the things I enjoyed the most about writing Traces was the challenge of finding the right tone for Aiden and Cole, respectively. Switching between them is always difficult, but once I’m fully immersed in their heads, their way of thinking (and speaking) feels completely natural to me.
- I used dashes and (nested) bracketing to show that people’s inner monologues or streams of consciousness tend to be everything but tidy and neat. I’m curious how people will interpret the different types of punctuation and their respective functions. I also think it’s hilarious that em-dashes have turned into an AI „tell“ when I actively loathe AI.