Shadow Dance

In 2009, freshly liberated from a bad marriage, I flew from Toronto to Banff, Alberta, to begin a program at the Centre for the Arts. I needed a restart, a way to focus on my writing, which had taken a back seat to children for ten years. The Rockies made for an oppressive backdrop. Wildlife warnings loomed everywhere; it was impossible to write without the feeling of danger. I started a number of stories in Banff, some of which made it into my debut collection, How to Get Along with Women. But one idea sat in a file on my laptop, unfinished.

That story, where a talented principal dancer, Maeve Martin, struggles to free herself from an abusive relationship with her artistic director, gradually evolved from a series of intimate letters into a full-blown thriller. In the book, Maeve arrives at a mountain retreat to reinvigorate her career only to find herself trapped when a...