Television producer and writer Stefani Deoul credits her Westbury roots as the inspiration for her second novel, which combines live action role-play with mystery and lets young adult readers know that it’s cool to be smart.
Deoul grew up in Westbury and graduated from Westbury High School, going on to the University of Maryland. After college, Deoul went off to Los Angeles to work in movies and television, becoming the executive in charge of production for the Canadian series Dresden Files and 1-800-Missing and the supervising producer of the SyFy Network television series, Haven.
“I wound up on the producing side of the business, but I loved to write and I always had ideas,” said Deoul. “Everyone always sort of assumed that if I wrote, I would write a script. I had this belief that I wanted to write, but I wanted to write as a novelist. Producing and writing are vastly different. I read a term ‘ambivert,’ which is someone who is an introvert and extrovert, so I love writing and producing because they both feed a part that I am and I am fortunate to have them both.”
Deoul published The Carousel, a novel following an emotionally drained woman as she attempts to restore an old carousel in a Northeast town, in 2010. The novel won the 2011 Book of the Year from the Delaware Press Association and the Regional Award in Fiction from the Independent Publishers Association.
“Carousel is a women’s fiction book and a darker story and I wanted to write something a little lighter,” said Deoul. “I give Westbury the credit. It was a very diverse place and when we were kids, we just went to school and we just were who we were. The people in the book are based on my experience. I’m a product of public schools in Westbury and had great teachers and friends. In some ways, my writing of this book is a tribute to this experience.”
Deoul began writing her second novel, On A LARP, inspired in part by her love for the mystery found in Nancy Drew books and Scooby Doo while she was filming Haven. The first 50 pages of the 200 page book took her about six months to write and the rest of the book came together in a few short weeks.
The 24-chapter novel follows high schooler Sid Rubin and her diverse group of intelligent friends as they embark on solving a murder. During an AP class field trip to the local police station, Sid recognizes a picture of a murder victim, whom she believes was a recent participant in a live action role playing (LARP) game. Sid and her friends are approached by the detectives assigned to the case in an attempt to understand LARP and find out which LARP event the murder victim attended.
After finding out that the group of friends know how to utilize the dark web, the detectives enlist the gang to find out more information about the murder victim. Once the detectives obtain promising information from the kids, they send them home, but little do they know, the kids begin to take things into their own hands.
“I think it’s a fun read and Sid is a great heroine,” said Deoul. “Sid Rubin is who I would aspire to be. She is the character most like me, but more tech savvy than I am and smarter than I am. I want readers to know that smart is sexy and smart is cool.”
On A LARP is published by Bywater Books and the first book in A Sid Rubin Silicon Alley Adventure series, with the second book currently being written.
“It’s going to follow the same group of friends in this book,” said Deoul. “They will be back again for another mystery in the vain of an old-fashion who-done-it but in the modern tech world that we live in. Kind of a high-tech mystery.”
On A LARP is available for presale on www.amazon.com and will be available for sale on April 11, on www.barnesandnoble.com and www.bywaterbooks.com in paperback and eBook formats. For more information, visit www.stefanideoul.com.
