Welcome, friend! Today I am chatting with author, C.J. Dotson, about her latest book, The Cut. Enjoy the interview!
The Cut
In this chilling supernatural horror novel set in a mysterious hotel, a woman fleeing her abusive ex finds herself running from more than just her past.
A historic hotel long past its prime and huddled along The Cut, a questionable Lake Erie beach, isn’t Sadie Miles’ ideal place to raise a toddler while also navigating her second pregnancy. After finally fleeing her abusive ex-fiancé, though, Sadie’s new housekeeping position and free room at L’Arpin Hotel are the best she can manage.
On her first night, Sadie runs to help a guest struggling in the hotel’s pool only to find the water calm and empty when she gets there, leaving her with a lingering unease. When a guest then goes missing and her manager insists they simply left without checking out, Sadie suspects he’s covering up darker goings-on in the hotel.
After her ex, Sadie won’t let anyone convince her that what she’s experiencing isn’t real again. So, she keeps digging, quickly uncovering suspicious interactions with the staff, mysteriously vanishing security cameras, more missing guests, and things that go bump in the night…and drip in the walls, slither in the tub, and squirm in the halls. Everything isn’t as it seems within the dim hallways of L’Arpin. Sadie has nowhere to go and nowhere to hide; she’ll need to keep her wits about her to survive and keep her toddler and unborn child safe from whatever lurks nearby.
Get to know the author: C.J. Dotson
Hi C.J.! It is a pleasure to have you on Armed with A Book. Please tell me and my readers a bit about yourself.
Hi, thank you! I’m happy to be here! I’m C.J. Dotson, and I write horror and speculative fiction. I’m originally from Northeast Ohio, but my family and I have been living in upstate New York for the past few years, where we’re totally outnumbered by cats and even more outnumbered by insects. I love reading, and though I’m not great at them I also love painting and baking.
The setting of an isolated hotel next to a secluded beach has a haunting feel to it. What was your inspiration for writing The Cut?
I grew up close to Lake Erie, and the beach overlooked by the power plant in The Cut is based on a real beach where I spent a lot of time in my teens and twenties. Once when I was there, I was certain I saw something bioluminescent beneath the surface (which of course my friends didn’t see), and when I found myself mulling over horror story ideas that popped into my head, and the book grew from there.
L’Arpin Hotel has its own eerie personality. What inspired you to create this particular setting, and why did Sadie choose it as her hiding place despite its unsettling vibes?
I mentioned earlier that the beach and power plant in my book are based on a real location, but when I was planning this book, I didn’t want to set a story in any of the places I was used to seeing on the lake—high end businesses or wealthy homes, mostly, in the areas close to where I grew up—and the idea of a hotel that used to be lovely and had fallen on hard times seemed perfect. From there, L’Arpin Hotel and Sadie Miles grew together. When she arrives at L’Arpin she’s feeling completely out of options and very uncertain about her future, but she never intends for L’Arpin to be a permanent answer to her problems; what it is for her is a place where she can find steady employment as well as a free room, which gives her the time and the financial space to figure out her next steps.
Sadie’s strained relationship with her family adds another layer of isolation. What shaped her family dynamics, and how did that impact her decision to go it alone?
Of course this isn’t universal, but I think that it might be easier for a person to find themselves in an unhealthy or even abusive relationship if the foundation of their view on relationships in general—their family—was in some way unhealthy, or unreliable, or unsafe. And there is a moment in the book when Sadie does finally try to call her mother for help, only to be turned away. Sadie wouldn’t decide to go it alone in this situation if she had any other option available to her that was safe for her and, more importantly in Sadie’s mind, for her daughter.
If you could explore the perspective of any of the other characters, who would it be, and why?
That’s kind of a tough one to answer without giving away any spoilers! But I feel like Gertie Harper, the elderly permanent resident of L’Arpin Hotel, might have some interesting observations and stories.
How does The Cut differ from your previous novels, both in terms of themes and writing process? Did you approach crafting the horror elements differently this time?
The Cut is the third horror manuscript I’ve written, though it’s the first to be published. I wrote this book in 2021, after my family and I had spent the pandemic year as one family among the many, many people navigating the difficulties of raising young kids without any in-person support available. On top of that, when I was actively writing this book, we’d also recently moved out of our home state, which had the unintended side effect of prolonging that feeling of isolation and inability to find in-person support or help, only now in an unfamiliar location, and I was able to channel a lot of how that felt into this book.
Do you have a favourite quote or scene in The Cut that you find yourself going back to? What makes it stand out to you?
Oh a few! They’re mostly in the softer moments in the book—when Sadie is standing at the end of a pier, looking out at Lake Erie; Sadie feeling keenly how beautiful her toddler daughter is in her eyes; a moment when Sadie’s grief for her late husband, who died before she met her abusive ex, catches her by surprise. It’s these moments when Sadie is allowed to just be that I think help to define her outside of the horrors she has escaped and the horrors she faces in the book.
Writing horror often means confronting your own fears. Have there been scenes—whether in The Cut or your previous books—that were too spooky or intense even as you wrote them?
In my next book, coming out in 2026, there’s a lot of business with mirrors. Mirrors have always made me uneasy, and writing horror scenes focused on them was challenging enough that during the first draft I went a bit too tame with it and had to punch it up a bit during later revisions.
What do you hope readers take away from The Cut—whether it’s a feeling, a message, or a lingering sense of unease?
I hope I ruin a nice, hot shower for at least one reader!
In seriousness, though, part of why I wrote The Cut was to offer a quiet challenge to the idea that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I hate that saying. Someone who has suffered was not made stronger by their suffering. Sadie was not made stronger by her abuse, or by anything that she saw or endured within the walls of L’Arpin Hotel. If even one person reads this book and comes away feeling like they can rediscover their own strength—not because of what they have endured but because of who they are and can be—and the self-love to nurture that strength, I’d be so glad.
Can you share anything about your next project?
Yes! My next book is a dual-timeline haunted house novel, and also it’s the first horror manuscript I ever wrote. It’ll be coming out in 2026!
Is there anything else you would like to add?
First I’d love to say thank you for talking with me today! If anybody would like to say hi to me, my bluesky handle is @cj-dotson.bsky.social, and if anybody would like to say hi and also see occasional pictures of my many cats, I’m cj_dots on Instagram. I’ve also got a newsletter for anybody interested in my thoughts on writing in general and horror specifically, horror book and movie and occasionally game recommendations, and upcoming events, and that can all be found at cjdotsonsdreadfuldispatch.com
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and share with my readers.
You’re welcome, and thank you as well!
Thanks for joining us! Connect with C. J. on her website. Add this book on Goodreads.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press for giving me a chance to highlight this book on my blog in exchange for an honest review. 🙂 You can find my review here.
Check out other horror reads on my book review index page!
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