Ebony Chapman takes readers into the deep waters of psychological suspense

Some monsters are easy to spot. Others have a knee-bending smile.

For October, we’re wading into darker waters with Ebony Chapman’s “Deep Waters: Surviving the Psychopath,” a psychological thriller built around a particularly unsettling premise: What happens when the person everyone else finds irresistible is the one person you know to fear?

College student Shiloh meets charming A-list actor Blake Perry at a lake house party, where an instant connection keeps the two talking through the night. By morning, the flirtation has become something far more sinister: Shiloh witnesses Blake drown someone behind his lake house. Now she knows what lurks beneath his flawless public persona — and Blake knows she knows.

What follows is a psychological game of cat and mouse in which familiar refuges — family, friends, even Shiloh’s university — begin to feel less safe as Blake works his way into every corner of her life. But Chapman’s take on darkness comes with an unexpected source of light. Beneath the obsession, murder and suspense, “Deep Waters” is also a faith-centered story about surviving trauma and finding hope when there seems to be nowhere left to hide.

360WEST: You clearly aren’t afraid to go somewhere dark. What is it about obsession stories that keeps pulling you in?

EBONY CHAPMAN: The intensity and severe attraction gets me emotionally invested every time. But as much as I enjoy the trope, I always thought most of these stories were missing something. What if it wasn’t simply a case of killing off the crazy person so the victim could move on with their life? What if there was more to unpack behind the powerful, relentless man with a dark side?

That’s what I wanted to do with “Deep Waters.” I wanted my obsessed character to be layered and complex, not merely unhinged for the sake of a good story.

360WEST: Every good scary story takes something familiar and makes it feel unsafe. In Deep Waters, even Shiloh’s safe spaces can’t protect her. Was that intentional?

CHAPMAN: Yes. Her family, her best friend and the university she attends are her safe spaces, but Blake quickly embeds himself into every aspect of her life. There’s no person or place Shiloh can retreat to where Blake can’t find her or touch her. Whether or not he’s a true threat to her physical well-being, he’s still affecting her emotional and mental health.

360WEST: And Shiloh has another problem: She knows something about Blake that the rest of the world doesn’t.

CHAPMAN: The world is unaware of Blake’s dark side, and Shiloh understands it would be pointless to say anything without real proof. She feels emotionally isolated because she has seen what lies underneath the flawless, charismatic mask he wears for the public. At the same time, she’s trying her best not to provoke him further as he continues to pursue her.

360WEST: Water does a lot of haunting in this story — literally and metaphorically. When did Deep Waters become the title?

CHAPMAN: My subtitle, “Surviving the Psychopath,” came first because I knew that was what the whole book was about. “Deep Waters” didn’t come to me until I was halfway through the book.

I was writing a scene that quoted the first half of Isaiah 43:2, which Shiloh has engraved on a pendant she often wears: “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.”

I immediately knew I had found my title. The “deep waters” signify both the literal deep water where Blake drowned his victim and the metaphorical and mental deep waters Shiloh is drowning in because of him.

360WEST: What’s scarier to you as a storyteller — what a character knows or what they don’t know?

CHAPMAN: Both offer their own stress factors. As in real life, the unknown often feels a lot scarier than the truth we eventually learn. “Deep Waters” plays in both areas, but it focuses mostly on what Shiloh doesn’t know. She knows Blake is a murderer, but what she doesn’t know is why he did it — or if she’ll be next.

360WEST: There’s something unexpected beneath all that darkness: faith. You’ve described your approach as having “darkness meet the light.” What does that mean for the stories you tell?

CHAPMAN: So many dark romance reads have inspired me to write my own version of dark stories, but I bring a unique vibe to the genre by centering all of them around the presence of Jesus. That’s my creative application of having darkness meet the light.

My intention with every story isn’t just to thrill or frighten readers, but also to offer encouraging messages about hope and where to place it. That’s why “Deep Waters” has a faith-based theme embedded at its core, underneath all the tension and psychological cat-and-mouse games. Keeping that in mind allows me to balance adding intensity with showing that God’s love can reach through any trauma.

360WEST: Since we’re talking to you in October, we have to know: What actually scares someone who spends her time writing psychopaths?

CHAPMAN: My guilty pleasures are definitely psychological thrillers, especially obsession stories. I also enjoy a good escape-room trope and paranormal romances. True crime fascinates me, too, but I mostly stay away from it. The fact that those stories actually happened brings a whole other level of scary that’s no longer fun for me.

360WEST: You started writing fiction through fan fiction. How did that lead to your original work?

CHAPMAN: Before fiction, I had only written poetry. I started writing fan fiction in college because I thought it was the perfect way to get people interested in my stories. I could apply my original concepts to stories where readers already knew the characters.

It worked until it worked too well. Readers wanted only my fan fiction and showed little interest in my original work. I took that as a sign to stop fan fiction completely so readers could see I was fully dedicated to my original work and that it was worth reading. Eventually, I started gaining loyal readers. The process was painfully slow, but very much worth it.

360WEST: What do you hope stays with readers after they finish “Deep Waters?”

CHAPMAN: I hope each character becomes unforgettable one way or another, but ultimately, my biggest goal is to let people know that no matter how severe a trauma you are facing, God sees it and He’s always working.

360WEST: What’s next?

CHAPMAN: I’m currently working on three projects: another dark obsession romance, an abduction psychological thriller and a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romantic suspense. Whichever one I can finish first will be my next release. So far, I’m nearly halfway through the next dark obsession. We’ll see.

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