(Researching Your Fiction Like a Reporter.)

Zelda led me to Sara and Gerald Murphy (the inspiration for Nicole and Dick Diver in Zelda’s husband’s Tender Is the Night). I absolutely devoured Amanda Vaill’s Everybody Was So Young. It’s a fascinating biography of the couple and the era, but, by far, its most compelling character is Dorothy Parker.

Dorothy Parker began an obsession with the Algonquin Round Table and a need to access The New Yorker archives so that I could read the pieces Harold Ross, the magazine’s founder, solicited from his friends. It was in those archives where I discovered “Lipstick” and Lois Long, whose job description was essentially “go out every night, drink illegally, dance until dawn, then file copy while still wearing your evening gown.”

I eagerly read every word she wrote.

Lois could eviscerate the stuffy in a single sentence and describe a grimy basement speakeasy with such enthusiasm that one was tempted to find it immediately (never mind that it probably reeked of bathtub gin and poor life choices).

How did she manage to be sophisticated without being insufferable? How did she make one feel like her equal while making it perfectly clear that she knew every doorman, bartender, and bootlegger in Manhattan? And her voice? Wry, witty, and pitch perfect.

Then I realized what she was actually doing, and it got even more interesting.

Lois wasn’t reporting on speakeasy culture. She was selling it. Her columns were basically aspirational lifestyle content for illegal activity. “Here’s where to go, darling. Here’s what to drink. Here’s how to be one of us—glamorous, naughty, in-the-know.”

I’d reached the bottom of the rabbit hole, and I was thrilled to be there.

That’s where Freddie Archer was born. A columnist, not an earnest journalist pretending to be objective, but a woman with opinions, a platform, and taste (especially for Gordon’s Gin and couture gowns). Like Lois, she’s not just observing the speakeasies and cabarets. She’s complicit. She’s telling people where to find the best gin rickey and where the real fun happens. She’s both insider and enabler, participant and promoter.

I tried to give Freddie some of Lois’s sparkle—lipstick freshly applied, jazz in her bones, and ready for whatever the night brings. It’s a tall order. Lois set the bar somewhere near the Art Deco ceiling.

But then I had another thought: What if a woman with those wicked observational skills—someone who spent her nights studying people, reading rooms, noticing who was drinking with whom and why—stumbled onto a murder? What if all that sharp-eyed instinct that made her so good at skewering phonies and spotting trends got turned toward something darker? A woman who could dissect a speakeasy’s clientele in three paragraphs could probably dissect a crime scene too. And she’d have access to places and people the police never could. After all, everyone talks to a woman with a column.

And New York in the 1920s? The perfect stage, the perfect moment. The city was building skyward so fast that one could practically watch it grow. Money flowed like bootleg gin that absolutely nobody drank because that would be illegal (wink, wink). Jazz—glorious, vital, born in New Orleans and perfected in Harlem—became the soundtrack for a generation trying to dance away the memory of war. And Prohibition turned the entire city into one big secret, where the right password opened a world of illicit possibility.

The glamor still enchants me. Beaded dresses catching the light. Art Deco everything. Fur stoles, diamonds, lipstick in shades like “Dragon’s Blood” applied as an act of rebellion or seduction (or possibly both). There was a desperate gaiety to the whole era, a sense that everyone was savoring every smile, every dance, and every drink because maybe, just maybe, it might not last.

When I started writing Murder in Manhattan, I wanted to portray that glittering surface with dark undercurrents underneath—champagne cocktails and murder, beaded dresses and bloodstains. But more than that, I wanted Freddie’s voice running through it all. Her confidence that comes from knowing every speakeasy password in Manhattan. Freddie is a woman who’ll pause mid-murder investigation to note that the victim’s shoes are from last season. She treats crime-solving like she treats everything else: with a gin rickey in one hand, perfect makeup, and the absolute certainty that the world is her oyster.

Lois’s sharp wit and obvious delight in the jazz age came through with every word she wrote. Hopefully, Freddie does the same—even as she catches a killer.

I dove down a rabbit hole chasing Zelda, the Murphys, and Dorothy Parker and found Lois. Now I get to ask readers to join me. The gin is cold, the jazz is swinging, and the fashion is killer.

Check out Julie Mulhern’s Murder in Manhattan here:

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In this interview, Hien discusses the teen hijinks and supernatural mystery at the heart of her new speculative YA thriller, Twin Tides, her advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Hien Nguyen
Literary agent: Katelyn Detweiler at Jill Grinberg Literary Management
Book title: Twin Tides
Publisher: Delacorte Press, Random House Children’s Books
Release date: December 9, 2025
Genre/category: Speculative thriller/Young Adult
Elevator pitch: A haunted Vietnamese Parent Trap following two long-lost twins investigating their mother’s murder in a small town haunted by a vengeful ghost.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Back in 2022, I remember reading articles about climate change-fueled drought causing rivers and lakes to dry to historic lows and sometimes revealing long-dead bodies of missing people. This was shortly after I lost my own mother in 2021, and I was struck by the immense grief those communities must have felt, especially grief suspended for years before the bodies of their loved ones were discovered.

After jotting down an idea of these discoveries leading to the survivors unraveling a decades-long mystery, a story about Vietnamese American twins and a vengeful water ghost started to form. I enjoy engaging with Vietnamese mythology when I write, and the ghost stories of Ma Da, or drowned ghosts stuck with me. Ma Da are drowned victims, often experiencing violent deaths that trap them as ghosts. Part of writing Twin Tides was exploring that idea of violence, and what type of violence might cause a soul to become vengeful in the first place.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I drafted the first act of this project shortly after conceiving the idea in 2022, but it was on the back burner as I focused on revising my adult dystopian project for submission that year (this project unfortunately died on submission).

I listed this project on my author website with a short pitch and mood board and did not think much of it until my now-editor, Bria Ragin, reached out to my agent inquiring about the project in late 2023. Originally conceived of as an adult manuscript, I worked with my agent, Katelyn Detweiler, to create a YA proposal. My first act was revamped, and I wrote a detailed synopsis for the submission package. There was some back and forth with my editor before the project sold in early 2024.

I ended up submitting my first draft in May of 2024 with my final draft due that fall. In addition to the manuscript getting aged down to YA, the plot was simplified during my writing process. I’d originally conceived the twins getting separated at birth, which entailed a much more complex plot that was streamlined with them becoming separated as children.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Twin Tides is my debut and was also sold on proposal. This meant the process of writing an entire book on deadline was a brand-new experience for me and it certainly was trial by fire. My editor has such a confident vision, and I really learned to trust both my instincts and her insight. I found myself much less precious about decisions, and I was much more willing during this process to cut or heavily revise versus when I was left to my own devices. There simply wasn’t time for me to obsess or hem and haw about my manuscript, and I do think I’m a better writer for it.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

In Twin Tides, Aria and Caliste discover they are identical twins because their long-missing mother’s dead body is discovered. Inevitably, their grief takes center stage, and I also found myself writing through grief during the writing process. I was initially a little apprehensive about it and thought a lot about the possibility of accidentally opening unhealed wounds.

While the writing process wasn’t easy, it also was less fraught than I anticipated. Writing Aria and Caliste’s story allowed me the space to engage with memories of my own mother in ways that were energizing and restorative. As I wove parts of her memory and quirks into the narrative, it was as if I was rediscovering parts of her the grief had buried.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

As a genre blend writer, speculative, horror, and thriller end up being amazing lenses to magnify what makes us afraid. I do hope readers enjoy the ride of teen hijinks, untangling the supernatural mystery at hand in Twin Tides, and feel as haunted in the small town of Les Eaux as the twins do.

I also hope that as the story progresses through the three POVs (including a ghost POV) and epistolary elements, readers interrogate what we consider to be monstrous in the first place and what legacies we inherit through our families and history.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Write weirdly, write wildly, and write what excites you. Of course, the market and its expectations will always be a consideration, but the writing process is joyful because your creativity is boundless. In the same vein of “don’t self-reject,” please don’t “self-limit.” Everything else is already trying to do that to you.

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Few myths capture the tension between freedom and domination as vividly as the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. At its core, it is not simply a monster tale—it is about how societies build labyrinths of power to contain chaos, and how individuals are forced to navigate them. In my novel A Spy Inside the Castle, I reimagine this myth as a metaphor for the modern world of surveillance, intelligence networks, and geopolitical intrigue.

The labyrinth, as both symbol and structure, becomes a way to explore how nations manage chaos. Every superpower builds corridors of bureaucracy, secrecy, and manipulation in the name of safety. But the deeper you go, the more you realize the Minotaur is not just an enemy—it is a reflection of the system itself.

Theseus as the Reluctant Operative

Theseus enters the labyrinth not by choice but by necessity. He is a stand-in for the citizen or operative drawn into a system larger than himself. In my book, Ethan Briar embodies this role: a reluctant private intelligence consultant pulled into the shadow world where truth is fragmented and loyalties are uncertain. Like Theseus, he does not set out to slay monsters for glory; he enters because not entering means abandoning others to the beast.

What makes Theseus compelling is not his sword but his string—the ability to trace a path back out. In political terms, that string represents memory, accountability, and the possibility of escape from systems that threaten to consume us. Without it, heroism is indistinguishable from futility. Ethan’s version of the string is his pattern clarity, a perception sharpened by his miraculous recovery from a near-fatal illness—a thread of insight he carries into the labyrinth.

The Minotaur as Power Unchecked

In the myth, the Minotaur is a hybrid—part human, part beast. In political terms, it represents the hybrid nature of domination: partly rationalized by law, partly driven by raw appetite. Every labyrinth has its Minotaur: the secret police, the predictive algorithm, the charismatic tyrant. Sometimes it cannot even be seen. It is the part of the system that feeds on sacrifice and fear, yet is justified as the price of order.

In my novel, the Minotaur becomes a metaphor for technologies like ARCLIGHT, a quantum supercomputer capable of modeling human behavior and helping the American intelligence community predict crises before they erupt. To its architects, it promises safety and foresight. To its critics, it is a beast that consumes autonomy, demanding citizens offer up their privacy and agency as tribute. Like the Minotaur, it thrives in darkness—untouchable, unaccountable, yet nourished by our compliance.

The Labyrinth as System

The labyrinth is not incidental to the myth; it is the essential stage. A monster in an open field can be confronted. A monster in a maze forces disorientation. The labyrinth represents bureaucracy, secrecy, and the complexity of modern states. Its purpose is less to contain the monster than to confuse those who dare to face it.

For intelligence agencies, labyrinths are built through layers of classification, compartmentalization, and deliberate obfuscation. The citizen who tries to see through the maze is quickly lost. Even those inside—the analysts, case officers, policymakers—often cannot see the whole. The system perpetuates itself by making navigation more important than resolution.

At the core of my novel lies the premise that only a handful of secret societies truly create and control this labyrinth. In the lore, they have operated since the fall of the Church in the 17th century and the birth of the modern world, pulling the threads of power behind the scenes.

Ariadne’s String: The Hope of Agency

The myth would be tragic without Ariadne’s intervention. Her string is the counterbalance to the labyrinth: a simple tool of orientation that restores autonomy. In fiction and in life, Ariadne’s string can take many forms: whistleblowers, constitutional safeguards, free press, or moral conscience. They provide a way back to clarity when the system seems designed only to entrap.

Ethan Briar, like Theseus, must decide whether to trust the thread offered to him—whether from allies, from his own sense of morality, or from something beyond politics. The question becomes not only whether he can defeat the Minotaur, but whether he can find his way out of the labyrinth without becoming part of it. His own Ariadne comes in the unlikely form of the female operative he is sent to expose as a mole, codenamed FOXGLOVE.

World Domination and the Mythic Echo

Why does this ancient myth still resonate in a world of satellites and quantum computers? Because the dream of world domination is not new—it has always worn the mask of order. The Athenians sent their youth as tribute believing it was the price of peace. Modern societies hand over data, liberties, and conscience believing the same.

The Minotaur is never fully slain. Every generation must re-enter the labyrinth, sword in hand, string in pocket. The danger is not just the beast, but the belief that labyrinths are inevitable and that power cannot be escaped. My novel uses the myth to show that the true test of politics is not whether we can build better labyrinths, but whether we can remember the way out.

Bringing It All Together

The Theseus and Minotaur myth offers more than imagery—it is a framework for thinking about politics, power, and personal agency. In the age of surveillance and global rivalry, the labyrinth has grown larger, the Minotaur more complex, but the questions remain the same: Who controls the maze? Who decides the sacrifices? And who holds the string?

Fiction allows us to dramatize these questions. Philosophy helps us wrestle with their meaning. And for writers, myth offers a wellspring of craft: archetypes and symbols that can be reimagined to reflect the anxieties of any age. The Theseus story reminds us that every narrative, like every labyrinth, needs both a monster to face and a thread to find the way through.

Check out M. B. Courtenay’s A Spy Inside the Castle here:

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(How I Handle In-Person Research as a Thriller Writer.)

I’d always viewed romance as a stopgap to what I really wanted to write—crime. And my first historical crime thriller felt like stepping into a completely different country where the weather, the language, and the cultural rules were all new. I became so determined to “fit in” that I left my suitcase of romance skills at the border. I thought thrillers had no place for tenderness, that crime and history demanded grit and shadows and perpetual danger. I was, to put it mildly, wrong.

The book in question was my debut historical thriller, The Thief Taker, and at its center were two characters who, to me, shared a deep undercurrent of attraction. I wanted to weave their chemistry slowly through the danger and mystery of the plot. Unfortunately, what I actually wrote was something far less elegant. Readers were quick to tell me the romantic thread felt… clunky. Forced. Like I’d taken two paper dolls and made them kiss.

At first, I was baffled. How could I get romance wrong? I’d written entire series built on emotional connection, believable conflict, and will-they/won’t-they tension. Romance came so easily to me. But the truth was simple: I’d treated the new book as if it belonged to a completely different universe. One where the rules of attraction didn’t apply. One where my romance instincts were somehow irrelevant.

The truth, which took me far too long to see, was this: Romance isn’t tied to genre. Romance is tied to character. And when you switch genres, you don’t leave behind your ability to write people wanting things—especially each other. But I was so focused on authenticity—on researching historical details down to the type of linen they wrapped corpses in—that I forgot the one universal element that spans every era: human connection.

Worse, I fell into the classic trap of thinking that because crime and thriller fiction are often described as “gritty,” the emotional parts had to be compressed, minimal, almost shyly tucked into the background. As if having a killer on the loose automatically meant no one could have a crush. I’d convinced myself romance couldn’t be overt, or warm, or messy. It had to be quiet, subtle. A hint of longing in a cold room. I am now thankful to the readers who immediately called out the throttled romance because if it weren’t for them, I don’t think I would have noticed that what should have been a simmer, barely became a spark.

Recovering from that mistake took time, a bit of pride-swallowing, and a return to what I actually knew. Romance isn’t a set of rules, it’s a rhythm. It’s pacing, tension, conflict, release. It’s characters revealing who they are not just through action, but through how they reach for each other, pull away, and try again. I went back to my favorite crime novels and saw that they all had embedded the romance much more deeply than I’d first assumed. It was integral, not an afterthought.

Once I understood that, I stopped trying to write “thriller romance” and simply wrote romance within a thriller.

Which brings me to The Bridesmaid, my newest novel—a dark, twisting thriller about secrets, survival, and the danger lurking beneath loyalty. This time, I wove the emotional threads through the plot with full awareness of what I bring from my romance past. I didn’t hold back on the character connections. I let people be messy, yearning, hopeful. I let them want things they shouldn’t. Because romance shines not in perfection, but in conflict.

I was surprised with how much richer the thriller became when I allowed the emotional stakes to breathe. Suddenly danger felt sharper because characters had so much more to lose. Their choices carried weight. The suspense grew teeth. Crime fiction isn’t separate from emotion; it thrives on it. And romance—done well—makes the danger feel intimate.

Looking back, I’m genuinely grateful for that early misstep. It forced me to re-evaluate what I thought I knew about genre and to stop partitioning parts of my writing self. All writing, whether romance or crime or historical mystery, relies on the same core skill: making the reader care. About the outcome, yes—but most importantly, about the people.

So now, I’m no longer hiding my romance background when I write thrillers. I’ve realized it’s a strength, not a secret. And if my earlier attempt involved a little clunkiness, well… clunkiness is survivable. It’s also fixable. And—if you’re lucky—it becomes a good story for other writers to think about one day.

Check out Cate Quinn’s The Bridesmaid here:

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(Historical Fiction as a Heist of Its Own.)

Psychologists tell us that cracking codes, solving riddles, resolving conundrums, and uncovering the truth behind history’s most puzzling questions releases dopamine, the “feel good” neurotransmitter. And while we wait for the answers to these real-life enigmas, we indulge our captivation with history’s mysteries by reading historical crime fiction—excellent news for those of us who write it.

The mystery novel was born in the 19th century and grew up during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, usually described as the period between the two world wars. Conventions of the genre include a puzzle to be solved (usually a murder); a secluded setting, such as a village, a country house, an island; a sleuth (often amateur); a limited cast of suspects; and plenty of clues and red herrings.

Today, hundreds of mysteries are written each year in the tradition and style of the Golden Age. Historical mysteries encompass four related sub-genres:

• Mysteries written in the past
• Mysteries written today but set in the past
• Mysteries set in the present with a historical crime or puzzle to solve
• Mysteries with dual timelines (past and present)

My own series, the Kate Hamilton Mysteries, falls into the third category. Kate is an American antiques dealer and appraiser who lives and plies her trade in the fictional Suffolk village of Long Barston. The antiques and antiquities Kate handles provide me with a natural way to delve into the past since these precious objects are literal time travelers.

What accounts for the enduring popularity of mysteries steeped in the past? Here are four reasons we continue to read them, to write them, and to love them.

Time Travel Without Antibiotics

Carl Sagan once said, “What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years…. Books break the shackles of time.”  

Most of us have considered the possibility of time travel. If it were possible, would you do it? My answer is usually “only if I could pop home periodically for a hot shower and a dose of antibiotics.” Nevertheless, the thought of experiencing the past in real time holds endless fascination for many of us, and until science bridges the seemingly impenetrable time barrier, the next best thing is immersing oneself in a book.

A well-researched and well-written historical mystery immerses readers in the fictional world, and the experience begins with the author. In a recent podcast, Anthony Horowitz advised authors: “Don’t stand on the edge of the book, looking as it were over the edge of the chasm. Live inside the book, looking around you. So what my characters see—what they smell, what they feel, the wind, the sunshine—if I am, as I have said, inside the book, I’m not thinking about these things. Not writing what they’re saying, I’m listening to what they’re saying.”

Authors who deliver a multi-layered sensory and emotional experience of the past allow readers to travel with them in a virtual time machine to worlds populated by characters so incredibly real we mourn their loss on the final page. Through mysteries steeped in history, we can travel to the 12th century with Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael or plunge into the swirling pea-soup fog of Victorian London with Sherlock Holmes and still be home in time for supper.

The Lost Art of Deductive (and Inductive) Reasoning

Solving crimes today is primarily a matter of science and technology. The recent theft at The Louvre in Paris is an example. Within eight minutes, start to finish, the thieves entered the museum and escaped with an estimated $102 million in priceless historical jewels. And yet they left their DNA behind on a helmet, a glove, and a stolen truck with a mechanical cherry picker. That DNA was quickly matched to suspects in the police databases and using additional forensic tools such as cell phone records and video surveillance, the police were able to snag the four suspects and three possible accomplices within days.

By itself, the investigation wouldn’t make much of a plot. It was too easy. Readers want conflict, misdirection, false leads, and reversals. We want to figure it out.

Those of us who write crime fiction must take modern methods of policing into account, of course, but what happened to good old-fashioned sleuthing? If everything comes down to science, is there room for the uniquely human art of ratiocination?

One of the appeals of historical crime fiction is the challenge of following clues and exercising our powers of deductive and inductive reasoning along with the sleuth. When the author plays fair with readers, every clue needed to solve the case is laid out for us—cleverly disguised, of course, amongst red herrings designed to point us in the wrong direction. Authors love to keep readers guessing, and we love it most of all when readers say at the end, “I never saw it coming—but I should have.”

Learning History the Painless Way

If I learned anything in my high school or college history classes about the Regency Era in England, I’ve forgotten it; but I’ve never forgotten the experience of being there through the novels of Jane Austen. “The historian will tell you what happened,” said E. L. Doctorow, the American writer of historical fiction. “The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”

Novels steeped in history bridge the gap between documented history and imaginative storytelling. Memorizing dates and facts may get you through your exam, but it won’t give you an understanding of what life was actually like in the past. That’s where the characters in our stories come in—presenting history through the power of personal narrative.

I remember helping my son, John, prepare for a high-school exam covering the history-changing sea battle in 1588 between the English navy and the Spanish Armada. John had zero interest in 16th-century European politics, ship construction, battle strategies, and the superiority of long-range canons and “hell-fire ships” over heavy siege canons and greater numbers. I soon gave up on the textbook and began to dramatize the scene, playing up the “near-miraculous” storm that kicked up in the English Channel, generating strong winds that pushed the heavy Spanish ships toward the North Sea. I knew I’d won when he started asking questions: What would have happened if the Spanish had won?

To be retained, history must fire our imaginations. Nina Wachsman, art expert and fellow writer of historical fiction, said, “The Mona Lisa didn’t become the most famous picture in the world until it was stolen in 1911.” Now we want to know who she was and what was behind that enigmatic smile.

In A Collection of Lies (2024), along with the unfolding plot and through the eyes and mouths of my characters, I layer in the history of the English Romanis, the lives of Victorian lacemakers, mid-19th century fashion, the art of historical textile conservation, the mires and bogs of Devon’s Dartmoor National Park, the Dartmoor ponies, and the vicissitudes of local British politics. Medicine, Mary Poppins reminded us, goes down better with a bit of sugar. History nerds (like me) would never call Hilaire Belloc’s “great panoply of history” medicine, but even we must admit that history goes down better when experienced through the eyes, minds, and hearts of characters we care about.

A Spot of Nostalgia

A final and major reason we love mysteries steeped in history is the human emotion of nostalgia, once described by novelist and screenwriter Michael Chabon as “the ache that arises from the consciousness of lost connection.” But a connection with what? The interesting truth is we often feel nostalgic for a past that never existed. Even our own lived pasts are commonly shaped and polished in our minds over time until they resemble the past we prefer.

Nostalgia is a coping mechanism. The anxiety produced by the uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change of modern life can be soothed by a few hours spent in an idealized historical period that delivers the simplicity, moral clarity, and predictability we crave. And because the human brain has the ability to hold two opposing truths simultaneously, we can enjoy our virtual visit to the past while knowing full well it is pure fiction.

In a talk given in 2016 at the St. Hilda’s Crime and Mystery Weekend, Martin Edwards, British crime novelist and leading authority on the crime fiction genre, said about the Golden Age mysteries: “[These books] take us back to a time that is perceived as gentler and more appealing. The reality of life in the Twenties and Thirties was very different, of course, but the past can often seem appealing. If you’re a commuter suffering on Southern Rail, for instance, it must be very tempting to escape into the world of Freeman Wills Crofts and Miles Burton, where murderers could craft their alibis safe in the knowledge that the trains would always run as per timetable.”

The pace of change today is overwhelming. No wonder we crave the comforting predictability of trains that run on time. The mysteries of the past and those written today in that tradition provide an escape from an increasingly chaotic and polarized world into the calm civility of an imagined past, satisfying our yearning for a world where logic prevails, puzzles are solved, evil is punished, and justice is restored.

Long may they live.

Check out Connie Berry’s A Grave Deception here:

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In this interview, Julie discusses how women’s history helped inspire her new historical mystery, Murder in Manhattan, which real-life person her heroine is based on, and more.

Name: Julie Mulhern
Literary agent: Gordon Warnock, Fuse Literary
Book title: Murder in Manhattan
Publisher: Forever
Release date: December 9, 2025
Genre/category: Historical Mystery
Previous titles: The Country Club Murders series and The Poppy Fields Adventures
Elevator pitch: An entertainment columnist with a wry wit and exceptional observational skills involves herself in the murder of a bootlegger in 1925 New York.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Decades that see enormous changes for women fascinate me. I already had a series set in the 1970s. The 1920s seemed the obvious choice for a new series. Watching an independent woman navigate casual misogyny (of course she’ll quit working when she lands a husband) as she drinks her way through Manhattan’s speakeasies (and writes about them) appealed to me.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

The idea for Murder in Manhattan was one of several that I pitched to my agent. It sort of went meh, meh, meh. That one! It took me about a year to write the novel. And then came a year of being out on submission. After I signed the contract, things moved very quickly.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

My heroine, Freddie Archer, is based on a real-life writer. Lois Long was an early hire at The New Yorker. She wrote several columns–my favorite being Lipstick, in which she regaled her readers with stories of New York nightlife. What a blessing to be able to access The New Yorker’s archives and read her columns. They were invaluable when it came to honing Freddie’s voice and sensibilities.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Freddie’s adventures take her from rooftop gardens to dilapidated buildings on the Lower East Side. Being separated by half a country and 100 years from 1920s New York meant lots of time spent on research. There were many rabbit holes (and I cannot resist a rabbit hole)—the Tenement Museums website claimed at least a day. I learned more about New York history than I ever dreamed I’d know. And, since I have a brain like a sieve, I am relearning it as I write the second book in the series.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I desperately wish I could have met Lois Long. I like to think we might have been friends (although Lois, who never turned down a martini, probably would have found me dreadfully dull). I hope readers will want to be friends with Freddie as she gets herself in and out of hot water and solves a murder.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

It’s all about voice. I’ve read technically perfect mysteries that felt flat, and deeply flawed mysteries with voice for days. It’s the voice that keeps me reading long into the series.

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(What Writing Mysteries Taught Me About Fiction Writing.)

Some of the timeliest psychological thrillers, to me at least, are those with characters who struggle with trauma (like so many of us seem to be struggling with right now) and denial beneath their glossy exteriors (where many of us try to hide). Sometimes these thrillers are about a crime victim’s struggle, while other characters confront the truth of their own wrongdoing. Will these characters break apart into something better or new? What is the novel saying about who we are? What can we as readers learn?

The human mind is endlessly fascinating. It’s a challenge to write the sorts of books that climb into a character’s twisty brain. My sophomore novel, Watch Us Fall, was much harder to write than my debut for the simple reason that these sophomore characters were twistier-brained than those in my debut. I had to figure them out before I could figure the story out. Unfortunately I wasted a lot of time and several drafts before I understood this.

Friends, let me save you some time. Here’s what I learned.

Before you begin writing the novel’s first draft, figure out your character’s psychological need…

…what the Greeks called the fatal flaw. This is something in your protagonist’s psychology that’s missing, broken, dark but yearning for light, something that holds the character back from change that will make their life better. In a book I’m writing now, a character can’t forgive past wrongs and avoids the person who wronged her. That’s the character’s psychological set up that the story’s conflict will challenge. My job as a novelist is to make this character come into direct conflict with the person who’s wronged her. The story will challenge her inability to forgive.

Identify the character’s mistaken belief.

This can be the character’s view of their dramatic situation or the world of the story or the characters in it. In psychological thrillers or suspense, this is often a mistaken belief in themselves and their idea about their status quo. Again, this belief gets challenged in the crucible of the story, and with that challenge, the character re-evaluates and only changes as the story forces them to change (by reacting and pivoting and fighting and suffering) until the they can finally “see” what their mistaken belief made them blind to. The character learns, so the readers can.

Consider plotting out the reveals for the character in a revelation list.

I’m talking here about the “twists” readers say they love. To me, a twist is simply a revelation, what the character or the reader discovers that fundamentally changes the character’s (and often the reader’s) view of what’s happening. In a psychological thriller, these revelations should probably gather in intensity and speed as the story progresses—so that the last quarter of the novel will have one right after the other—until the climax when the big one hits. I like to jot out a revelation list with plot outline, nothing too fancy, because your plot will obviously change as you discover more about your characters during the actual writing (and as you refine in subsequent drafts). Remember, nobody likes to change, not really. It’s the revelations that force the character to shift and adjust until the final change.  

If your character has a mental health condition, do a bit of research.

Not so much that it overwhelms you or constrains your imagination, but enough so that you don’t rely on stereotypes. It’s important to have sympathy for characters, too, even if—or maybe especially if—they’re bad guys. Every bad guy thinks they’re the hero of the story, after all. Also, so many people suffer from mental health issues in our world. Don’t we as writers want to be a force for good? Isn’t it better to show mental health issues in its truest, most helpful light? We don’t want to add to a stigma, do we?

Just when you think you’re done, dig even deeper into the character.

In my second book, I went into a draft thinking that delusion (a character’s psychological problem) was caused by childhood trauma. I’d read about it, done my research, talked to people about it, but in the subsequent drafts it felt a bit off. I was missing something. I dug deeper, past the trauma to the grief, and once I got there, the character came alive. So I guess the biggest advice is: If a characterization feels off or forced, it may not be that you have your characters wrong. It may be that you must go deeper. Be curious, brave; push yourself a bit harder. Then, after you’ve done all the research and thoughtful planning and deep dives, let go! Have fun! Let your characters surprise you. I bet your readers will be surprised, too. 

Check out Christina Kovac’s Watch Us Fall here:

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In this interview, Maxie discusses how mental health and anxiety helped inspire her new cozy mystery, A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Cheating Death, her hope for readers, and more.

Name: Maxie Dara
Literary agent: Melissa Edwards, Stonesong
Book title: A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Cheating Death
Publisher: Berkley
Release date: December 2, 2025
Genre/category: Cozy mystery
Previous titles: A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer
Elevator pitch: When risk-averse corporate grim reaper Nora Bird comes across her twin brother’s file at work, she cautiously throws caution to the wind in an effort to save his life. But his would-be killer, and Death itself, won’t give up without a fight.

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What prompted you to write this book?

I knew I wanted to take a step back from the characters of my first book in order to dive into different facets within the world of S.C.Y.T.H.E. This gave me the freedom to play around with the kinds of people who might end up working as modern grim reapers and why. When I wrote Catching a Killer (the first book in the series) I was inspired in part by my childhood phobia of death, using the book as an outlet to explore that fear through the safety of humour and the supernatural. This time, I really wanted to give more of a voice not only to the fairly universal fear of mortality, but to anxiety in general. Mental health, and the struggles therein, is a subject very close to my heart, and I feel very lucky that I was given the opportunity to represent it in what I hope is a relatable and even positive light.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I was fortunate enough that this book came off the back of my first, so the turnaround was a little over a year or so. When I first pitched the concept, the vibe was very “zany sibling road trip full of quirky characters, and a bird for some reason,” but the longer I sat with Nora and her twin brother Charlie, the more I realized that this was, at its core, a book about family and what it means to live. There’s still a road trip element, and the characters definitely have their quirks, but it grew to be much more than I thought it would be when I first came up with the concept.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Because this is my second publishing rodeo, I feel much more in the know than I did the first time around, which is such a surreal yet lovely thing to be able to say. But I think a perpetual learning for me is that I need to stop letting myself read ARC reviews, dang it! Cliche author that I am, even if there are 10 positive reviews, the one negative—or even lukewarm—one is what will stick with me the longest, which makes reading them a very bad life choice.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Because I’m a chronic pantser (my autocorrect wants to change this to “panther,” which would be way cooler), there are always so many surprises along the way! My favorite surprises come in the form of getting to know my characters, though. In particular, in this book, understanding what made Charlie tick was a learning moment for me because I really went in thinking he was just a carefree, golden retriever type of guy. Turns out, there’s lots of fun trauma kicking around in there, too.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

As much as I write for laughs and escapism first and foremost, I hope readers with anxiety will feel seen. We’re in this together, pals!

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Get yourself a writing group! It could be online, in person, through your local library, with writer friends, however you’re comfortable doing it. Having a group of people in the trenches with you is an amazing way to stay on track, finish projects, and spitball ideas. I truly cannot recommend it enough!

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In this interview, Croydon discusses the inspiration for his debut novel, how research enhanced his story, and more.

Name: Nick Croydon
Literary agent: Shane Salerno The Story Factory
Book title: The Turing Protocol
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release date: December 1, 2025
Genre/category: Fiction, Thriller
Elevator pitch for the book: Alan Turing, codebreaker, invents a machine that can send a Morse code message back in time, 8 weeks. We follow Turing and his descendants through 80 years of history in this fast-paced action thriller. What would you do?

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What prompted you to write this book?

A deep appreciation for what Alan Turing achieved and the regret at how he was treated culminating in the loss of his life and his potential.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

2 1/2 years. The main idea did not change, but the more research I did allowed me to shape the fiction to the history.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Because of my day job, I had to be very disciplined in the output. I followed a chapter plan and set myself weekly targets which of course I did not meet.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

As a debut author, I had no concept of the editing process. Thankfully this is what my agent and the publishers understand. Seeing the cuts and deletions, the structural notes were at first painful to see, but ultimately made the book so much better.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope they get entertained and I hope it sparks their interest in history and a realization of how fragile peace can be.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Trust in your agent, they have done it before.

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In this interview, Kit discusses the eight-year process of writing her new mystery novel, Friends and Liars, that changes in the story that took place in those eight years, and more.

Name: Kit Frick
Literary agent: Erin Harris
Book title: Friends and Liars
Publisher: Emily Bestler Books / Atria (Simon & Schuster)
Release date: December 2, 2025
Genre/category: Mystery/Suspense
Previous titles: The Split, Before We Were Sorry (originally published as See All the Stars), All Eyes on Us, I Killed Zoe Spanos, Very Bad People, The Reunion, and the poetry collection A Small Rising Up in the Lungs
Elevator pitch: Friends and Liars is an insidious thriller about four estranged friends trapped in a powerful family’s deadly games at a luxe estate in the Italian countryside. Nothing is as it seems at the palazzo on the lake, and it soon becomes clear that their secrets—and their lives—are in danger.

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What prompted you to write this book?

The initial spark for Friends and Liars came during a fall getaway to the Hudson Valley. My husband and I were hiking up to a breathtaking mountain house built on a lake in New York State, and I had the idea for getting a group of characters together there, former college friends reuniting following the mysterious death of a classmate. I’d recently attended a college reunion, so that was also on my mind—how you can be so terribly close with certain people during a period of your life, especially one as intense as college, then fall steeply out of touch. The idea transformed quite a bit—the mountain house became a palazzo, the Hudson Valley lakeside setting became Lake Como, Italy, but the estranged college friends remained, as did the death of their classmate, heiress Clare Monroe, which still haunts them five years later.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I think it took around eight years for this particular book. I took some furious notes following my return home from that trip to the Hudson Valley, then set the idea aside. I was in the process of publishing my first novel, a YA suspense called Before We Were Sorry (originally titled See All the Stars) and the mountain house idea, much as I loved it, took a back seat. Ideas for other stories crept in, and I forgot about my estranged college friends for a while. Then in 2022, I pulled my notes out and began to reimagine the setting and jot down some ideas for the mystery surrounding Clare’s death. That’s when Friends and Liars began to truly take shape.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

The publishing process was very smooth, thank goodness. Friends and Liars is the second book in a two-book contract with my publisher, Emily Bestler Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Having already gone through the editorial and production process with the team there for my first adult novel, The Split, and for five previous young adult novels at one of S&S’s children’s imprints, I knew what to expect. While I wouldn’t say there were any surprises, there are always learning moments. With Friends and Liars, I’m learning for the first time about putting out a book as a trade paperback original. I thought there would be quite a few differences, and perhaps fewer opportunities when it came to review outlets or store placement, but that hasn’t been true at all. I love a paperback, and I love offering that lower price point to readers right out the gate, so I’m excited we’re going this route with Friends and Liars.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Friends and Liars will be my eighth published book (seven prior novels and one poetry collection), but it’s my first written as a parent. In perhaps very unsurprising ways, that monumental life change changed things quite a bit when it came to my writing process. I had revised two books following the birth of my daughter, but Friends and Liars was the first I’d tackled from scratch. My schedule was upended, my thoughts were scattered in weird and wonderful and difficult ways, my body was unfamiliar, and I had a book due in how many months?! It was a writing challenge unlike any I’d faced before—because the story didn’t care about any of that. It refused to be easy, refused to hand me any free passes. I had to muddle through it and solve the knotty plot problems and character dilemmas just as I’d always had to do, pre-parenthood. Finishing the first draft felt like winning a gold medal. Revising was easier. Once the story existed, flawed but complete, I began to feel the old confidence return.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

Friends and Liars is so soapy and fun! Most of all, I hope readers will be swept away in the delightful work of attempting to solve a mystery and the fabulous palazzo-on-Lake-Como setting. It’s Italy in the summertime, among the unspeakably wealthy, and some very dark secrets are about to be revealed.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Develop a thick skin and stay flexible. If your goal is a long career as an author, those two qualities will serve you well. It’s hard to get by without them.

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