Working at an amusement park isn’t all fun and games.
In author Veronica Bane’s debut YA novel, “Difficult Girls,” Greta Riley Green finds out there’s something sinister going on at her seemingly innocent summer gig at Hyper Kid Magic Land.
Bane, who hails from San Diego and now lives in Los Angeles, spent her formative years employed at a Southern California theme park. She loosely based the book and its cast of characters on her own real-life experiences and interactions.
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Bane said working in the entertainment department of a theme park, which she doesn’t name, felt glamorous. “It was basically Hollywood,” she says.
“I got to watch these incredible performers, and they were all so talented,” she recalled. “As an usher, I got to watch them, and then I became a face character, so I got to be part of it.”
But much like Greta encounters, there’s more than the bright lights, flashy live performances, spinning cotton candy and the wide-eyed wonderment of children and adults alike. Thrust into the hordes of theme park goers, Bane said she experienced unwanted advances and lewd commentary.
“I’d just have to smile because there was no one there to help me,” she said. “That sense of powerlessness, especially how men could take those positions of power and punish you with them, I wanted Greta and the other girls in the story to have the opportunity to push back on that.”
And push back she does.
In an effort to shake a reputation-altering mistake she made in high school, Greta in the novel takes the job at Hyper Kid Magic Land to rebrand herself and make new friends. She finally finds herself fitting in, even seemingly befriending Mercy Goodwin, one of the beloved stars of the theme park’s live productions.
Suddenly, it all goes south, and the mystery surrounding a decades-old death inside the park comes roaring back to life.
“Greta is a lot like me at 16,” Bane said. “I was eager to start a job. I was like ‘You know what, it’s time for a new path. I’m going to get a cardigan and it’s going to be a whole new me.’ Greta is escaping some trauma as well, but that energy is definitely me.”
Though “Difficult Girls” is billed as Bane’s debut novel, she’s written 11 books – including celebrity biographies and New York Times bestsellers – as a ghostwriter. She can’t discuss her ghost-writing efforts, but she says she’s thrilled to finally see her own name on a book cover.
“It’s surreal because I had gotten used to going into a Barnes & Noble or an indie bookstore and seeing my books that I’ve written in window displays or on tables and even some of those books being recommended to me by the kind salespeople, who had no idea I had written it,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m always excited to see my writing, even if it’s not my book.”
Bane, a Chapman University graduate, is also an LA-area high school English teacher, and her students, past and present, have reached out to her about seeing “Difficult Girls” now in stores and available online.
“I’ve had a lot of students messaging me from all over the country saying, ‘Look! I found it,” she said. “It’s been cool to feel like the dream has been … not fulfilled because hopefully there’s more to come, but I’ve reached a point that I can say, ‘Yes! I wrote that and can talk about it!’”
Interested in a wide range of books, Bane says she’ll read just about anything. She’s into adult contemporary, literary fiction, rom-coms and fantasy. She has a soft spot for YA books, and not only because she’s now written one.
“That’s a special time when someone’s figuring out who they are,” she said. “That’s always spoken to me.”
She’s a champion of Annabelle’s Book Club in Studio City, the YA-focused shop founded by 18-year-old Anabelle Chang. She also frequents Black Cat Fables in Monrovia to sink into one of their cozy chairs with a book. And she still stops by Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego when she visits her hometown.
“What I love about a bookstore is that you can go there and immediately feel safe,” she said. “You are going there to find something that makes you feel better or that takes you to somewhere new. When you walk into Mysterious Galaxy, you really do feel that. They also have excellent stickers. There’s one that says ‘Persist Out of Spite’ with a little tiger on it, which is my motto of this year.”
Following the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires in Southern California earlier this year, Bane partnered with bookstores such as Black Cat Fables, Diesel and DYM to host book drives open to those affected by the fires. They collected nearly 15,000 new and like-new books to distribute to kids, teens, parents and teachers who lost books in the fires. Bane credits her husband, actor and director Brendan Mitchell, for helping her organize during that time.
“He’s someone who’s always cheering me on, and when I’m in the fetal position during a deadline, he’s the one being like ‘You can do this,’” she said. “He’s always surprising me and going to book stops with me. For the book drive, he drove around with me and was carrying all of the boxes of books all over. He’s such a thoughtful, quiet and strong presence and I couldn’t do all of this without him.”
However, she did leave his name out of the printed bio on the “Difficult Girls” book jacket.
“He did say, ‘Why’d my dog get named in the bio and I did not,’” she said with a laugh. “Our dog’s name is really cool (Bodhi). We also have two cats that didn’t make the bio! But honestly, he’s one of the reasons why I can write at all because balancing being an author and a teacher is a lot.
“People ask, ‘How do you do it?’ Some days it is really hard. I wake up at 5 a.m. and get to work an hour early so I can write and do tasks in my car before I teach and when I walk in, I’m a teacher until I get home at night, when there’s still writing to be done. We do get out and go for walks with our dog every day because I do need that break and that connection.”
In whatever spare time she has, Bane explores all that Los Angeles has to offer, including taking in obscure films in old theaters, trying out new restaurants and going to other author events at bookstores.
“I’m all about finding good food, and I’m constantly in search of a good cookie,” she said. “My favorite small bakery closed, and they had the best cookies I’ve ever had in my life, so I remain on the hunt for a good cookie. I’m open to suggestions.”