My Fascination With Memory

Sandra Boyle Author Interview

Thief of Echoes follows a woman who works inside a system built to extract and alter memories, who uncovers a buried part of her own past. Where did the idea behind this novel come from?

The idea came from my fascination with memory—how much of who we are depends on what we remember, what we forget, and who gets to decide which parts of a life remain intact. I wanted to explore a world where memory could be treated as data, but where the emotional cost could never truly be measured.

How much of the worldbuilding did you develop before writing, and how much emerged during the drafting process?

I began with the central system and the moral question behind it, but much of the world expanded as the characters moved through it. The rules, history, and consequences became clearer during the drafting process, especially as the story revealed how personal and dangerous memory control could become.

Which relationship in the novel surprised you the most as you were writing?

The relationship that surprised me most was the one built on uncertainty—where trust had to grow in a world where even memory could not be fully trusted. I expected the external conflict to drive the story, but the emotional tension between characters became just as important.

Can you give us a glimpse inside Book 2 of the Echoes of the Forgotten series? Where will it take readers?

Book 2 expands the world beyond the first discovery. Readers will see that the memory system is larger, older, and more deeply embedded than anyone realized. The next book raises the stakes, forcing the characters to question not only what was taken from them, but what truths may have been hidden for a reason.

Author Links: Goodreads | sboyle4.com | Website

Blurb (for Amazon, back cover, and website use)
In a world where memories are archived, edited, and controlled, Elara Vale makes a quiet living helping others recover fragments of their forgotten pasts—until one illegal restoration changes everything.
When a grieving client brings her a corrupted neural file tied to a girl who never officially existed, Elara is drawn into a mystery the system was designed to erase. The deeper she searches the memory net, the more she sees traces of someone familiar. Someone who feels like… her.
But Elara’s own past is a patchwork. Years ago, she willingly purged part of her identity to escape grief. Now, she must confront the possibility that the system didn’t just take her memories—it rewrote them. And she wasn’t the only one.
As the echoes she unearths grow louder, Elara faces a devastating question:
What if the life she remembers isn’t her own?
Blending introspective sci-fi with psychological tension and emotional depth, Thief of Echoes launches The Echo Cycle, a haunting exploration of identity, memory, and what it means to be real when your past has been engineered.
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Posted on June 13, 2026, in Interviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.

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