“If I’m not writing, I don’t feel human,” said Renate Wildermuth, the author of the new young adult novel “Gone Before You Knew Me” that came out on Feb. 26. This marks her seventh novel published, including three others under different pen names.

“Gone Before You Knew Me” is about a young teenage girl named Talya who is going through high school after losing her parents and her memory. A new student named Axel enters the school, and Talya is convinced he is a spy.

The name of the high school remains redacted to read as a classified document – or confession. 

“The name of the high school is never mentioned also because high schools are almost all the same. Like, this could be your high school,” said Wildermuth. 

Her intention was to add a layer within the story that the appearance of schools can also be prisonlike. 

“I’ve had colleagues who have taught for 20 years in a room with no windows, and it just doesn’t seem right,” said Wildermuth. 

Over the years of situational observing as a teacher and to her students, Wildermuth picked up on various details that she included in the novel.

Wildermuth was inspired to write this book after an active shooter training that she went through as a teacher. She recalls the initial idea came from a multitude of built-up scenarios she observed, but one moment was when she had to stuff a dummy with rags to learn how to keep someone from bleeding out. 

“In that moment I felt a little ridiculous, a little scared, a little overwhelmed…I think I was looking for a place to put all of that,” said Wildermuth. “And I think I found it in this book and this character.”

Here and there, when Wildermuth is not writing she is teaching students how to speak German. Her mother was born in Germany and her father in America, but she did not grow up speaking German. She learned the language through school and when she studied abroad in Europe. She lived in Austria and Germany for a total of 5 years periodically.

After the post-publication phase is over, Wildermuth has considered revisiting these characters in another installment or resuming one of the many other projects she has ideas for.

“Gone Before You Knew Me” made Amazon’s list of 100 Bestsellers in the Outcast/Loner category. To stay up to date on Wildermuth’s newest releases, go to her website here.

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