Desmond Hall’s second novel, Better Must Come, is a gritty, action-packed, YA thriller that reveals the darker side of sunny Jamaica and how a tragedy and missing drug money entangle the lives of two teens who desperately want to change their fates—and their futures.

Deja is a “barrel girl”—one of the Jamaican kids who gets actual barrels of clothes, food, and treats shipped to them from parents who have left to work in the United States or Canada, where they can make more money. Gabriel is caught up in a violent gang, desperate for a way out. Their lives intersect when Deja happens upon a speedboat boat grounded on the rocks, inhabited by a bloody man who begs her to deliver a knapsack for him—and not say a word.

Better Must Come is out today! You can order your copy at Bookshop.org.

 Tracey Palmer: Two great novels under your belt…congratulations! Can you talk a bit about how writing Better Must Come was different from your debut? What was the most important thing you learned from writing your first book that you took with you to the second?

Desmond Hall: Thanks for the shout out! So, Your Corner Dark, my first book, was a family story so to speak. I wrote it from a deeply personal place where my uncle’s execution left a gash. Better Must Come is a loose retelling of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey—which was something I didn’t know until getting into the rewrites. So, I had to learn to use different craft techniques to create a setting that had a different feel than the first book, even though the story takes place on the same island, Jamaica, and under similar circumstances.

I learned a lot from writing Better Must Come, but the most important thing was how to handle the expectations that come with a second book. After Your Corner Dark, there was this belief that I’m on the inside now and everything would be smooth sailing. And I think I also felt things would be easier, but in reality it was back to square one. This created a sort of emotional-uphill-battle that wasn’t there with the first book. The first one was a sort of “quest” against all odds because who knew if I’d ever get published. The second one felt more like a “job”—where you had expectations, deliverables, coffee breaks, but no 401K.

Your Corner Dark featured a young male protagonist. Better Must Come’s lead character is Deja, a strong, ambitious young woman. I know you’re the proud father of two strong, amazing young women, so how much did that effect your decision to focus on Deja’s story, which, by the way, is a page-turning, action adventure.

One of my daughter’s loved Geronimo Stilton books back in the day. In fact, we almost went broke buying them. And even now, she will dismiss a book quickly if she finds it BORING. So, writing a thriller with a young girl as the lead was huge. And probably because I used to be a high school teacher, I find that when I write page turners I can work in important themes like the cost of abandonment, and the link between economics, crime, and poverty—all without being preachy.

This new novel, like your first, is set in your birthplace, Jamaica. What do you hope young people will take away from your work about your home country and the local people?

There are a few things, but one of the most important is the issue of abandonment. So many children in Jamaica and all over the Caribbean are left with relatives, friends of the family, or by themselves if old enough—while their parents venture to the “first world” to find work. The parents leave because they can oftentimes make more in two years of work in “foreign” than they can in ten years back home.

These parents often send home a barrel—usually a 55-gallon round container—filled with everything from cooking oil to blue jeans to cell phone cases and more. And here’s the catch—the kids who get these barrels filled with stuff are sometimes shamed if they complain about missing their parents. Why? Because they received a barrel filled with stuff others don’t have. But, of course, those kids would gladly trade ten barrels to have their parents come back home.

The other thing I’d like people to take away would be an understanding of the link between money and limited opportunities that I mentioned earlier. So many times, people see images of people either doing desperate things or living in desperate situations. However, in reading , I hope they’ll see how a nation whose dollar once had more buying power than the American dollar could slip into tough circumstances—and how those circumstances can lead to the aforementioned desperation.

I heard your writing group friends call you the “story whisperer.” And I know you’re a disciple of the brilliant Robert McKee and his “Story Seminar.” So, would you share with our readers two or three things writers get wrong when approaching story?

I think writers come at stories from different directions and none are wrong if they work. But I would say there is one thing that can stunt a writer’s development, and that’s having a closed mind to using different tools. For example, when it comes to story structure, some avoid it like we did each other during the pandemic. But writing from character/character’s perspective can, and I think should, link up with a focus on story structure. With this acceptance, a world of “tools” becomes available to the writer. And those tools can be used to create an arc, flesh out a character, organize B or C stories within the plot, or even to break through the so-called writer’s block or whatever.

In keeping with our blog name, what were your most precious Dead Darlings from this novel that you murdered and left on the floor?

I wrote a fictional Jamaican DJ into the story. His name was SkruplZ. And he wrote “conscious” lyrics focused on the soul and meaning of life (Think Chronixx or Protege). SkruplZ didn’t deal in “slackness” (lyrics that promoted misogyny or violence – think most modern-day dancehall artists). And when my editor read the first draft, she said ‘We can’t use a professional artist’s lyrics’. It was such a great feeling to have her think that what I’d written came from a real musician. It fulfilled the wannabe poet in me. But alas, SkruplZ died for the sake of the narrative.

Can you spill a little about your next project?

I’m working on a middle grade, historical fiction/fantasy, where a brother and sister go back in time to the Tulsa Race Massacre, hoping to use their powers to help a young girl secure her legacy.

I also just finished a new draft of a YA historical fiction novel set in World War II, about a group of teenage school kids in occupied Denmark rise up to fight the Nazis because the grownups aren’t.

Desmond Hall was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and moved to Jamaica, Queens. He was a high school biology and English teacher in East New York, Brooklyn; counseled teenage ex-cons after their release from Rikers Island; and served as Spike Lee’s creative director at Spike DDB, where he created two Superbowl commercials and won multiple awards. He was named one of Varietymagazine’s Top 50 Creatives to Watch, and has served on the board of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and the Advertising Council, and judged the One Show, the American Advertising Awards, and the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival. Desmond is also a graduate of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator, where he workshopped his first novel, Your Corner Dark, inspired by the murder of his uncle back in Jamaica. Better Must Come is his second novel. These days, Desmond lives outside Boston with his wife and two daughters.