Keith Pyeatt is a retired mechanical engineer who writes “horror with heart”—a combination of psychological thriller, paranormal horror, and dark fantasy. His newest novel, The Sirens of Sayhurn (December 2025), brings readers relatable characters and a fresh take on mythical sirens. Look for Keith on KeithPyeatt.com, Bluesky, Facebook, and Goodreads, as well as his Amazon book store. To learn about his previous novels, go to his 2015 interview for SouthWest Writers.
What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in The Sirens of Sayhurn?
The Sirens of Sayhurn is my fifth published novel. It’s an urban fantasy that reimagines the mystical role of sirens in a dark tale of passion, addiction, and sacrifice. A subtle love story with a long arc runs through the novel, giving it some overlap into the romantasy genre. The novel’s setting is right here in Albuquerque with frequent trips to an alternate world in peril.
Who are your main characters, and why will readers connect to them?
Clayton’s an easygoing handyman and maintenance worker who is too closed off to experience passion. Three events initiate change. First, he hears a duet of feminine voices singing a haunting melody that tugs at his heart and lingers in his mind. Next, he meets Brent, a troubled boy who reaches out to Clayton for help. Finally, he develops feelings for Erin, a woman with troubles of her own. These flawed, sympathetic characters are all on the cusp of a life change, and they give readers people to identify with and pull for.
And then there’s Ayanna, one of three sirens in the parallel world of Sayhurn. She’s different than the other sirens, with needs the others don’t feel. When Ayanna satisfies a forbidden passion, she inadvertently exposes her idyllic world to an outside force that corrupts and endangers Sayhurn. Ayanna suffers through a tough time, but she never feels wrong about being who she is or what she feels, and she does everything in her power to repair her world. I love Ayanna’s strength, independence, and heart, and I hope readers will too.
What themes do you explore in the book?
I play with several themes, most notably how introducing greed and addiction into an idealized world can quickly corrupt and endanger it. Passion is another dominant theme—the need for it, the power it holds, and the trouble it can cause. Compassion gets plenty of play as well. A lack of it creates a fiendish villain, and an abundance shapes heroes.
What was the most difficult aspect of world building for The Sirens of Sayhurn?
Defining the culture took effort. Even after I decided to make Sayhurn an idyllic world, I needed to establish the siren’s surprising role in the society, define how this world interacts with Earth, and come up with the details of day-to-day life on Sayhurn. I ended up planting a past crisis in Sayhurn’s history that shaped how they function today, and that helped link all the variables together. Then I faced the familiar task of working backstory into the narrative without stopping the story for a history lesson, always a challenge.
How did the book come together?
Many years ago, when I lived in the rural woods of Vermont, I had a very noisy propane water heater in the basement of my little cabin. If I was in the basement when the heater kicked on, somewhere behind its echoing racket, I’d swear I could hear feminine voices singing to me. The singers didn’t consistently harmonize, but their voices weaved together a strange melody, and I’d stand still and listen to them until the water heater shut off and their song evaporated. That experience inspired this novel. It’s also the first scene.
The Sirens of Sayhurn took either sixteen years or eight months to write, depending on how you look at it. I began writing it the first time we lived in Albuquerque. When we moved away, I stopped writing. Fifteen years later, we returned to Albuquerque, and lo and behold I soon began writing again. I salvaged about 15,000 words of my original effort and hammered out a first draft in four months. Another four months of editing, and I had a novel that made me proud.
I made my own cover. AI doesn’t touch my writing, but I turned to it for the cover image I wanted. Then I modified that image to suit me using paint.net, just as I used to do when I bought the rights to photos to use in my other cover designs.
Tell us about the challenges this work posed for you.
World building was a challenge I didn’t see coming. I’m comfortable writing dark fantasy thrillers and creating alternate worlds like the mind-world in Dark Knowledge and the first stage of the afterlife in Above Haldis Notch, so I thought creating Sayhurn would come naturally. It didn’t. My previous alternate worlds were as abstract as I wanted them to be. I made all the rules there. But Sayhurn functions in a way that’s similar to Earth, so the world needed an established, somewhat recognizable infrastructure and society. The weird mix of freedom and boundaries caused a lot of head scratching.
What was your favorite part of putting the project together?
I always enjoy the editing process, taking the raw material, cutting the excess, and sharpening the rest into a compelling story. In this novel, I stumbled into a hybrid writing style that made writing the first draft a favorite part of the project too. I went full “pantser” to begin with—no outline, no restraints, and only a glimmer of an ending in mind. The unfolding story led me, and if walk-through characters tried to stick around and expand their roles, I let them.
Being a pantser stimulates my creativity, but it often creates problems down the road. Sure enough, I stalled halfway through the first draft. Once I saw that the storylines, character arcs, and timelines didn’t mesh, I couldn’t move forward. I did a 180 with my writing style and went full “plotter” by creating a detailed timeline and flowchart. Those tools helped untangle my mess, but they also left me with some major rearranging to do, moving blocks of text around and then building bridges to tie it all together again. It was a chore but a surprisingly pleasant one, like a writer’s version of a jigsaw puzzle, except if the pieces didn’t fit, I could alter them. The experience taught me something important about the pantser vs. plotter debate: The best writing process for me might not lie in one camp or the other, but in a space where they overlap.
Do you have writing rituals or something you absolutely need in order to write? What does a typical writing session look like for you?
I don’t have rituals, but I’m intense when actively writing. I like to write every day, preferably for long stretches of time.
What usually comes first for you, a character, a scene, a story idea? How do you proceed from there?
I start with a story idea and overall theme. Then I define main characters (subject to change as needed). If scenes pop into my head as I ponder, I make notes and often incorporate those scenes in the novel. When an opening scene shows itself, it’s usually time to start writing. As I mentioned earlier, I vary between using outlines and writing without boundaries, whatever it takes to get me typing words. You’ve got to write to be a writer.
What writing projects are you working on now?
I’m planning a sequel to The Sirens of Sayhurn. I left myself many directions I could take with it. I have a long list, in fact. I keep poking at my ideas, mixing, matching, and expanding on them. So far, that opening scene I need to begin writing still eludes me, but I’m closing in. Maybe if I think back on my days in Vermont, I’ll find my focus. It worked before!
KL Wagoner loves creating worlds of fantasy and science fiction. Her current work in progress is The Last Bonekeeper fantasy trilogy and short stories in the same universe. A member of SouthWest Writers since 2006, Kat has worked as the organization’s secretary, newsletter editor, website manager, and author interview coordinator. Kat is also a veteran, a martial art student, and a grandmother. Visit her at klwagoner.com.
