As someone who really loved All This & More (check out my review) I am so excited to be hosting this interview! If you love CYOA stories and the ultimate FOMO, then you have to read not only the book, but also this interview! Keep reading this author interview with Peng Shepherd to find out all the questions I had after reading!
About All This & More
One woman. Endless options. Every choice has consequences.
Meek, play-it-safe Marsh has just turned forty-five, and her life is in shambles. Her career is stagnant, her marriage has imploded, and her teenage daughter grows more distant by the day. Marsh is convinced she’s missed her chance at everything—romance, professional fulfillment, and adventure—and is desperate for a do-over.
She can’t believe her luck when she’s selected to be the star of the global sensation All This and More, a show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants the chance to revise their pasts and change their present lives. It’s Marsh’s only shot to seize her dreams, and she’s determined to get it right this time.
But even as she rises to become a famous lawyer, gets back together with her high school sweetheart, and travels the world, she begins to worry that All This and More’s promises might be too good to be true. Because while the technology is amazing, something seems a bit off.…
Can Marsh really make her life everything she wants it to be? And is it worth it?
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Author Interview
Can we first start off by chatting about the CYOA format of the book? How did that come along?
ALL THIS AND MORE is a novel about the allure and danger of choice. A woman named Marsh is sent back in time to fix her past mistakes so she can create the perfect life she’s always dreamed of… except there might be someone else trying to manipulate her fate at the same time.
In our own lives, all of us have had to face difficult choices or grapple with regret over things we wish had gone differently, and I really wanted readers to not just read a novel about this very human struggle, but also get the chance to experience firsthand the miraculous situation Marsh finds herself in.At certain points in the text, ALL THIS AND MORE will give you the chance to help Marsh choose what she alters about her life, and you can decide whether to keep reading her story as it’s laid out—or to change her path.
Speaking of the format, since we are watching a reality TV show and choosing Marsh’s choices, it feels very much like we are totally immersed in the novel. Can you talk about the idea of writing about this reality tv show?
When I’m deep in a novel, I love when I feel like I’m not just reading the book, but that I’m fully immersed in the world, living and breathing in the story. With ALL THIS AND MORE, I wanted to invite readers into Marsh’s world in the same way. By setting the book within a mysterious game show which will allow her to try to alter her past, you’re not just a reader of the story, but also a viewer of that TV show, you know? It’s a little bit closer, and a little bit more active. You’re watching Marsh make her decisions in real time and reading other viewer comments from around the world as they agree and disagree with her priorities—as well as slowly start to worry that with each successive episode, more and more things are starting to go wrong…
Did you write additional fates or choices for Marsh’s life that didn’t make it into the book? What central pieces of her character did you know would be the same no matter what decisions she made?
So many! Part of the fun of writing a book like this is that I was really able to indulge my writerly urgeto explore every possible angle of Marsh’s story. But even though we couldn’t put every single strand into the book, you’re right that in all of them, no matter what, there were certain things about Marsh that stayed constant. At her core, she’s a woman who wants the truth, even when hearing it might be hard, and that drives her to seek out the answer to the mystery at the center of the show—who, or what, might be lurking behind the scenes, trying to take control of her season?—despite the danger. And she’s also fiercely protective of her daughter, Harper, and will do anything to make sure that she’s happy, even if it means sacrificing some of her own success.
Part of ALL THIS AND MORE which is so captivating is this sort of universal feeling of regret of our past, of always wondering what could have been. What do you think it is that makes this theme so universal?
You know, one of the best things about life is that you get to make choices about what’s important, because it makes your life uniquely yours—and one of the hardest things about life is that you have to make choices about what’s important, because you might get it wrong. It’s a double-edged sword, and a very sharp one.
Even if we don’t have the miraculous chance at a do-over of our biggest decisions like Marsh does, all of us have had to face difficult choices or grapple with regret over things we wish had gone differently, and that’s really the timeless question at the heart of this book. When there’s more than one path ahead, how do you decide which is the right one? And more importantly, how you learn to live with those choices?
Do you have any literary decisions you wish you could re-do?
Hah, I challenge you to find me any author, living or dead, who doesn’t have literary regrets! Actually, I can name a literary decision that I almost regretted, but was saved by my editor: my second novel, THE CARTOGRAPHERS, was really difficult to write because of all of the research required and the complicated mystery at the heart of it. I was so anxious not to be “that author” who blows her deadlines, and I was already a year late delivering the manuscript to my editor, so finally, I turned in a draft that wasn’t ready. But instead of publishing it right then, my editor held it back, and assured me that even if the novel was delayed another whole year, it didn’t matter—it was more important for it to be good than for it to be not late. And she was so right. The book did end up delayed one more year, but when it finally was released and we saw how passionately readers embraced it, I was really glad for her advice.
In some ways, ALL THIS AND MORE felt a little Black Mirror-esque. Are there any other pieces of media that you were inspired by or which you think would pair well with this book?
I love the Black Mirror comparison! Speculative stories are really having a moment now, and I’m here for it. ALL THIS AND MORE isn’t exactly a time travel or parallel universe story, but I think it fits in really well with those cousins because it’s a story about the hard choices we all have to make in our lives, and the big, timeless “what if?” question.
Book-wise, The Midnight Library is a superb examination of these ideas, as is the recent sci-fi TV show Dark Matter (as well as the original novel it’s adapted from). And I recently was recommended a TV show called The Big Door Prize, based on a novel of the same name, which isn’t about time travel or alternate universes, but grapples with similar themes of happiness and regret (and hilariously, whose characters are also haunted by a creepy, possibly sinister butterfly symbol).
ALL THIS AND MORE has a definite different vibes than both THE CARTOGRAPHERS and THE BOOK OF M. Were there any things you learned about yourself as a writer in this book than was different or new from the writing of the last two?
It does! I love playing with genre and experimenting with new forms, so I hope that my future novels continue feel distinct from each other, too. In fact, the next book I’m working on is also in a slightly different genre than these first three! It’s much darker, and more of a psychological suspense.
But no matter how unique each book is, the lesson is always the same—have courage and stick with it through the rough parts. When you’re in the first draft, everything is a mess and the story is muddled, but it can be difficult to remember that’s a completely normal part of the process, and as long as you don’t give up, you will get there. As impatient as I can be sometimes, I have to remember that there’s a process to art that can’t be rushed or forced.
Which of your characters in this book would do the best in the world of THE BOOK OF M or THE CARTOGRAPHERS?
Talia, the charming host of ALL THIS AND MORE’s show, would have the best chance of surviving in the strange world of THE BOOK OF M because she’s much savvier than she initially lets on. And I think Dylan would love to help Nell and Felix figure out what the heck is going on with the dangerous map in their possession in THE CARTOGRAPHERS.
About the Author
Peng Shepherd is the nationally bestselling author of The Cartographers, The Book of M, and the forthcoming All This and More.
Her second novel, The Cartographers, was a USA Today, LA Times, and a national Independent Bookstores bestseller, as well as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. It was also named a Best Book of 2022 by The Washington Post, and has been optioned for film.
Her first novel, The Book of M, won the 2019 Neukom Institute for Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction, and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, Elle, Refinery29, and The Verge, as well as a Best Book of the Summer by the Today Show and NPR On Point.
A graduate of New York University’s MFA program, Peng is the recipient of a 2020 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, Mexico City, and New York. When not writing, she can be found planning her next trip or haunting local bookstores.