Words and Images by Jenny Lynn Davis
Readers gathered at the Jasper Public Library last week for an evening with bestselling Alabama author Gin Phillips, who visited Jasper to discuss her newest novel, Ruby Falls.
Phillips spoke about the inspiration behind the new book, her ties to the Walker County area, and the research that shaped her stories.
Phillips said many of her novels are set in places that matter to her personally. Her first novel, The Well and the Mine, was set in Carbon Hill and inspired by her family’s history in the Kansas community.
Her latest release, Ruby Falls, is a historical mystery set largely underground in the caves surrounding the famed Chattanooga waterfall of the same name. Set in 1928 at the onset of the Great Depression, the novel follows Ada Smith, a woman drawn to the freedom and wonder she finds beneath the mountain. When a publicity stunt involving a famed mind reader goes horribly wrong and leaves one person dead, Ada must help lead a group back to the surface while confronting the reality that one of them is a killer.
During her talk, Phillips explained that the novel is inspired in part by the real-life discovery of Ruby Falls by Leo Lambert, who named the underground waterfall after his wife. She said the book also grew from her fascination with caves, hidden landscapes, and the kind of person willing to crawl into the unknown in search of something no one else has seen.
Phillips also spoke candidly about the more personal themes behind the story, including grief, reinvention, and the lives of women whose identities were often shaped by marriage, motherhood, and caregiving. She shared that the loss of several women in her own family in recent years influenced the emotional core of the novel and helped shape Ada’s character.
While the novel is grounded in real history, Phillips said she also drew from her own creativity to shape the suspenseful plot. Much of the book takes place underground over the course of about 24 hours.
To prepare for writing the novel, Phillips went caving several times in the Chattanooga area, gaining firsthand experience with the darkness, physical demands, and the unexpected stillness of being underground. She shared humorous and vivid details about crawling through narrow rock passages, navigating complete darkness, and discovering that caving was less frightening and more meditative than she expected.
During a question-and-answer session, Phillips also spoke about her path to becoming an author. A journalism graduate, she said she always wrote fiction while working jobs that paid the bills, often writing late at night. She candidly described her first novel as “terrible,” but said the experience of writing it helped her learn how to write the books that followed.
Now on her seventh novel, Phillips told the audience that publishing remains unpredictable, but writing continues to be deeply rewarding.
“People pay you to make stuff up,” she laughed. “There’s no better job than that!”
Copies of Ruby Falls, along with some of Phillips’s other novels, Fierce Kingdom, Family Law, and The Well and the Mine, were available for purchase and signing following the program. WL
