Bookwild - Motherhood, Memory, and Murder: The Water Lies by Amy Meyerson

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

This week, I talk with Amy Meyerson about her new mystery thriller The Water Lies. We dive into her inspiration for the book, how audiobooks changed her approach to pacing, and how she grappled with intuition, pregnancy and motherhood.*This was supposed to be released on January 1, but I put it in my release calendar for February 1, so some of our conversation may seem dated!*The Water Lies SynopsisHeavily pregnant with her second child, Tessa Irons has enough on her mind without her toddler throwing tantrums at the local coffee shop. The boy is inconsolable, shouting “Gigi!” to a woman Tessa’s never seen before—and never will again. The next morning, the woman’s body is dredged up from the canal outside the Ironses’ posh Venice Beach home, and Tessa’s gut tells her it’s no coincidence.Barb Geller refuses to believe that her daughter’s death was just some drunken accident. She heads to California for answers, where she crosses paths with Tessa. Together they hunt for the truth, certain they’ll find a connection between their children.But the police don’t believe them. Tessa’s husband dismisses her worries as pregnancy jitters, and even though people are always watching along the canals, no one saw a thing. Tessa and Barb only have each other, their intuition, and the creeping sense of danger that grows with every shocking revelation. Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba 

This week I got to talk with Amy Meyerson about her new thriller The Water Lies, which is a very fun and twisty, kind of mystery, kind of thriller. It really does both. But this is what it's about. Heavily pregnant with her second child, Tessa Irons, has enough on her mind without her toddler throwing tantrums at the local coffee shop. The boy is inconsolable, shouting Gigi to a woman Tessa's never seen before and never will again. The next morning, the woman's body is dredged up from the canal outside the Irons' is

posh Venice Beach home, and Tessa's gut tells her it's no coincidence. Barb Geller refuses to believe that her daughter's death was just some drunken accident. She heads to California for answers where she crosses paths with Tessa. Together they hunt for the truth, certain they'll find a connection between their children. But the police don't believe them. Tessa's husband dismisses her worries as pregnancy jitters, and even though people are always watching along the canals, no one saw a thing. Tessa and Barb only have each other, their intuition, and the creeping sense of danger that grows with every shocking revelation.

This one is such a ride. There are multiple really fun reveals and also a really good meditation on how we treat pregnant women and view pregnant women in society. And you know, I love some social commentary with my thrillers. So that being said, let's hear from Amy. I am super excited. I'm with Amy Meyerson to talk about her thriller, The Water Lies. I'm super excited to get into that, but I do always want to get to know you a little bit at the beginning. So I typically start off with like what brought you to writing? Like what was your journey to writing? You know, some of my earliest memories were of sitting on my, uh, parents floor in their bedroom and typing little stories on their typewriter. And I just, yeah, I've just always, I think honestly, even before I became a really avid reader,

I just really loved creating stories and really wanted to be a writer. And that kind of grew over time, but it was always, it was always the goal. And then so, you know, when I was in college, I studied English and creative writing. I went to graduate school for creative writing after that. I mean, there were some years in between where I had some life experience. But that was always the goal. And I don't really think I understood the difference between like writing a book or just like publishing a book and being a writer until the process of publishing my first book.

And, you know, it is there's a lot more to think about like in a career as a writer. And you have to be really consistently producing and stuff like that. So it's definitely something that has evolved over time. But I don't know, maybe it's not that original of the story. I've just always, it's just for whatever reason, it's always reasonable. So. Yeah. Yeah, I do think like even just in my conversations with authors, it's like you definitely don't know all the little details as a reader, unless you are listening to authors.

So that it is like publishing just sounds like a whole, a whole thing. And I was just talking with John Fram about this, actually, just like the difference between, like, writing before you're published and then writing after you are. And now there's kind of more deadline and more pressure. Like, it all changes, basically. Yeah. And I think before you publish, you know, the, I also teach too. I teach at USC, which was another thing. I, for whatever reason, even before I went to college, always wanted to be a professor as well.

So I feel very fortunate that I've managed to have some version of like my two life goals. But, you know, I tell my students all the time you have to envision the reader. Like if you want people to read your book, you have to write for readers. But that takes on a really different sense once you've published and there literally are readers. And you can read with good reads. And so it, I think that's a big part of it is that before you publish, you might be reading the kind of book that you would or writing the kind of book you would want to read, but it's very different when there's actual people who will be reading it and sort of

accounting for what they need. Yeah. How has your writing process developed? Basically, I'm also kind of asking, like, are you a plotter? Are you a pancer? Like, how does that work for you? And I know it changes sometimes between books. Yeah, I know every it's, um, I do think, I think, like, I've heard from other writers. I remember when I was first getting started, the idea that, like, it's like reinventing the wheel with every book. And I'm not sure that's quite the case for me. I do think it gets easier because I know what parts are more challenging for me. And I know where I tend to get stuck. And also it's like, it is cyclical. It's like the first 50 pages of writing a new project. You're like, this is great. And then you get to page like 70 and you're like, is anyone want to read this? And then it's like back and forth between confidence and doubt. And so knowing those cycles is really helpful. But the actual process of writing every book, at least for me, is really different. And part of, and I always have a moment of like complete, maybe it's like childbirth, like complete amnesia where I'm like, how did I do this before?

Can I do this again? But I do think one of the big things I learned. So my first novel, the bookshop of yesterday's, came out in 2018. And it took me a really long time to write that book, mostly because I started, I always start with a premise. And for that one, it's basically a literary scavenger hunt set in a bookstore. And so I knew that. I knew that I wanted it to be about this young woman whose estranged uncle leaves her a bookshop. And when she goes to take care of the bookshop, she starts to find clues that he's left her in books around the store. So I had the idea, but at the crux of it was this estrangement between her mom and her uncle. And I had no idea what the estrangement was about for like three

drafts. So I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wasn't writing toward anything. So the biggest thing that I've learned is that when I sit down, I need to know kind of the premise and the inciting incident. And I need to know what happens. But I don't need to like at the end, but I don't need to know how we get there. So that's the biggest thing that I've learned that saves me a tremendous amount of time. So I'm sort of a half plot. I'm a half plotter. I'm not really an outliner. What I like to do instead that I find more useful is every time I write, I'll outline like two or three steps ahead of where I am for the next day. And then once I have a draft, I do what's called a reverse outline, which is I take the draft of the book and then I outline it. So I can like break down the

beats and kind of see where everything's happening and see where things need to move around and see where it drags and stuff like that. So I find it very useful to outline after I already have a draft. That makes sense. Yeah. Like you kind of like it makes me think of like in Stephen King's book on writing. He says like the first time is you like telling yourself the story and then like the second time is going back and removing everything that's not the story. So I feel like it's somewhat similar to that way. Like, okay, now that I have all of this out, how do I want to kind of put it together? Yeah, because I think it's, you know, for me, the few times I've tried to really outline things,

then when I sit down, I feel like I, it doesn't, it, it like strips the space for discovery. So I like things to be more open. So did you figure out, you might have an idea. of what you want to have happen and what but you to me it's like the first draft you figure out what the story is really about yeah yeah so with your characters because that was what i enjoyed in the water lies but when i was just like researching your other stuff i saw a lot of reviews that do talk about how the character development is so good and they feel really connected to the characters so do you do any character work before or is it kind of in that first draft that you like

learn your care or get to know your characters um i so i in grad school one of my professors created this hundred question questionnaire for getting to know your characters and it has you know things you would expect like where are they from or what their parents do but then really random questions like do they have seasonal allergies do they like concrete or grass um do they you know um And then deeper questions, like what's their biggest fear, stuff like that? And so I, what I tend to do is I'll usually get like a spark of inspiration. Usually I start writing when I have the first line. So I'll probably write like 30 pages and then realize they don't know the characters as well as I want to.

And then I'll fill out this questionnaire. So I already have the idea of, you know, this is a single child who does X, like the basic outline. And then in doing this questionnaire, I really deep, I figure out their backstories. And I've actually never completed the entire 100 questions. I usually get enough after about 30 or I'll skip some. For the Water Lies was the first time, I remember what they're called correctly, anagrams, aneograms. Like the types of, is that what they're called?

The types of personalities. Like there's a personality. I did a personality test on my characters, which I'd never done. before. But it was kind of like I more than figuring out what their character types were, I used it to like, oh, if they're this kind of character, if I want them to be this character type, they would make this type of decision. So I sort of reverse engineered some of their qualities. But yeah, I find writing a little and then doing some backstory development is really helpful. And that's usually how I develop my characters. They tend to be, I've never, I don't really

write any characters that are like a straight borrow from people in my life. They're usually some sort of combination of different qualities of people. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like how our dreams apparently just of all kinds of people we've like technically seen before. Like you're just kind of pulling from what you've experienced with people probably. The thing I like, obviously, like sometimes you hear the discussion about like personality types can be I don't know restrictive or reductive and sure that's fine but like they're still useful in general I think whether you're writing or trying to understand yourself more and what I do what I have always enjoyed about the enneagram is it so much about what your what the core fear is and how that kind of dictates how people like

interact with the world and make decisions so that's like I I feel like that would be so helpful in in writing characters like you're kind of like how would they handle it yeah and it and i do yeah of course it can be reductive if if you know nobody fits neatly into one archetype right but i find it you know it's like one character is like okay she's the helper that has positives that has negatives it can go too far yes so we're taking qualities and like you know make them too far and stuff like that so um yeah i find it helpful you know hopefully hopefully hopefully on the page it's as obvious as it is in the development of it. Yeah, yeah. Well, with this one, this one was your first, like, thriller, correct? Like, the other ones are kind of like contemporary fiction. Was there,

was there something that made you want to write in the thriller genre? Or was it kind of, like, the story idea that came to you was thrilling? I, I always like a challenge. So with each of my books, I try to do something new and different that I haven't done before. But during the pandemic, I started, well, I started listening to a lot of audiobooks, more so inside with the pandemic. But when I, when I had my son, my first kid, I started listening to a lot of audio books. Because I just, between the, like, bleary-eyed sleeplessness and, you know, breastfeet, and wanting to be able to do something while I was doing that. I just started listening to a lot of audiobooks.

And now I don't have nearly as much time as I would like to read. So audio books really feel a lot of that time. And they've actually taught me, I am answering your question. I'm just going to get a little bit around. I had a similar experience with audiobooks minus children. So you're good. Like, you can keep going. But I will say audiobooks.

And I say this a lot when I give talks and stuff. They taught me a lot about storytelling because I listen to them a lot as I go to sleep, and then I'll rewind the next day, and I'll be like, oh, that part wasn't actually essential, like that I missed wasn't essential to the story. So it's taught me a lot about things that, like, as writers we might think need to be in the story. And it depends what kind of book you're writing. But I think with more genre, you don't want a lot of filler. And it also is really useful to be able to hear other people's voices in my head when I'm,

like the narrators rather than the, yeah. It creates this kind of objectivity. But so I started listening to a lot of thrillers early on in the pandemic. And I hadn't really been a thriller reader before that. And I just, I, I just really like them. And I loved the way that they magnify everyday fears. And I don't, I'm drawn more to ones. I mean, I think mine is, it's, I call it like a soft, I don't, I'm not drawn to like

the super genre thriller. as much, but either ones that are like more literary, or I think mine kind of is on the cusp of some like women's fiction and it's a little bit softer. I have gotten to the point where I like kidnapped children. I can't really can't really do listen to or read those kinds of stories anymore. Yeah. Soft as a thriller writer. But yeah, and I just decided I sort of, it, no one who would read my last book, The Love Scribe, would think that it was setting me up to write a thriller. But while I was writing that book that I came up with the idea for the water lies and that I really realized I wanted to sort of pivot to a new type of. And so I set up a challenge for myself

in the Love Scribe to see if I could like tell a story that when you get toward the end of it, you realize that what's actually happening is totally different than what you think it is. So that book taught me a tremendous amount of plotting that was really, really useful in this new space. But yeah, I have so many. I'm very excited to be in the suspense thriller space now because I have lots of ideas that fit into that. I want to explore. That's exciting. That's kind of a cool transition into it too. And I agree. It's almost kind of like what you're saying like there is more character work in it which is what like I've been really enjoying in thrillers more as well um and so it is almost I wonder if it's like more suspense or whatever

sometimes like that's what they'll say but like it's also a thrilling read um but yeah kind of mentioning like thrillers the more I'm not quite sure what a thriller is exactly like there's obviously some then there's that suspense from the first page but I find that so many thrillers and maybe it is really more suspense than thrillers. But so many of them are like something suspenseful happens and then you get a lot of character development. And really at the core, they are books about characters often, which I really like. Yeah, I do too.

You mentioned like having the idea for this one was what kind of drew you to writing? It's definitely about motherhood. and so it's kind of interesting when you were saying that like when you were listening while you were like breastfeeding and stuff that's kind of like where it came to you. So is there something that drew you to like writing these mothers at very different points in their motherhood? Yeah. So the two characters, Tessa and Barb, Tessa is 35. She's pregnant with her second kid. She has an 18 month old toddler and Barb is 70 and her daughter has just died. So I when I first, first started working on this book, it really, Tessa came to me first. And her and her story, because the incident,

so the very first scene in the book is Tessa and her 18-month-old son are at a coffee shop. And her son sees Jasper, he, like, sees this woman in the coffee shop and seems to recognize her and starts calling out to her, calling Gigi. And Tessa's never seen this woman. woman before. The woman seems to have never seen Jasper before either. And it's this very awkward,

you know, I think relatable moment where he has a tantrum. She's trying to calm him down. Feels like everyone in the coffee shop, particularly because most of the people in the coffee shop do not have kids are judging her. And so it's a very everyday moment. And, you know, what it really grows out of is the fact that Jasper is able to, which is something I find really interesting about toddlers, is able to have more sophisticated thoughts that he can communicate. And so there's like, and that's what a lot of tantrums come from is this disconnect. So that and then, and then they go to their house, which is on the canals in Venice and L.A. and the next morning there's a body right outside their house in the canals and it's the woman that they saw at the coffee shop, who's

barred the other character's daughter. So, that moment was really what started the book for me. It was this idea. I was really interested in the ways that young children can't communicate their thoughts and how instead of that being frustrating, it could be terrifying. And so that moment really came to me first. And I knew because of where I was in my life, because where I was in my career, I knew I really wanted to write about motherhood. And it was, you know, other than like writing and teaching, it was my primary experience that was and still is happening. And I just felt like there was a lot about motherhood that I wanted to say that I hadn't read.

I think a lot of books that focus on motherhood and rightly so tend to be more either about like the reluctancies of motherhood or, you know, there's the whole like Rosemary's Baby genre of like, is the kid demonic. And those, while I enjoy reading those, those weren't really the stories I wanted to tell. And I was kind of struck by how. so much of it, or it's about postpartum and that there wasn't really a lot that had been written about kind of the everyday challenges of motherhood and how immensely stressful it can be, even if it's something that you do want. So that was, so that was kind of where she came from.

But as I started to write the first chapter, I realized that it was going to be too narrow if I just wrote from her perspective. And then all of a sudden I was like, well, what about this woman who died, who may have drowned, who may have been murdered, be sort of, you know, that's the running question in the book. And I just started to wonder, as I was thinking about her life, I started to wonder about who her mother was. And this coincided with, you know, Barba 70, my mom, my mother-in-law, their friends are all in their 70s. And when I was pregnant, I realized that a lot of how they were feeling as older women in society. was really similar to how I was feeling as a pregnant woman in society, just sort of how exposed you are and how many assumptions and not in a necessarily, you know, malicious way, but how many assumptions there are about women at these points in their lives. So it just made a lot of sense to put them in conversation. And I liked the arc of it between the beginning and the end of motherhood.

And yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was, as you're saying that, I'm like, there really are, you're kind of, you're like physically a little more fragile. Not fragile, but there's, there's like more accommodations that you need both when you're pregnant and when you're older. I hadn't totally thought of the physical part. But now that you say that, I see like, see where that was. Yeah, and also the assumptions. Like, I felt pretty strong and fit. And like, I think two days before my daughter was due, I was, like, still on the spin bike, which I'm sure some people would think, like, that's not safe, but it was fine. But, yeah, there's just a lot of assumptions about what you're capable of. And, I mean, in some ways, it's different, right? One of the things I think a lot of older women talk about is feeling sort of invisible.

and in pregnancy you're so visible. So there's contrast too, but again, I think they create a nice conversation. Totally. It was, yeah, and it is cool that we get both of their perspectives,

which is, it's always fun in general when you're getting multiple perspectives, but you get different information at different times, which kind of adds to the suspense of it all as well. Yeah. And you kind of mentioned. Oh, sorry. I'm saying I tried really hard in this book to sort of pick up where one left off and to make the time.

I didn't want to kind of go back and revisit the same moments, but rather have them kind of once they meet each other and connect to sort of jump off each other. And also even in the chapters before they know each other, I tried to keep it so it was not like moving too far back in time, but like always moving forward. which was actually pretty challenging. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Like you're not just telling it with one voice or even like one completely straight line essentially, like you're saying. You mentioned it takes place in Venice Beach, like on the canals, especially too.

And it's definitely something where the setting feels like a character. I mean, even the title, The Water Lies, like the Water is a big part of it. So did you, was that like a part of the inspiration when you saw it? Like did you see it happening there or how did you decide to place it there? Yeah. I at first, so when I came up with this idea, I envisioned it. I was living on, I live in Pasadena now, but I was living on the east side of L.A. in Silver Lake. And I, because it was like, originally I was like thinking that they, the, that Regina, the woman who dies and Tessa and her son interact at like the grocery store right by me. And so I envisioned it initially in that it was a body in the lake in Echo Park, in Echo Lake. But and then I was like, oh, maybe I'll set it in Philadelphia where I'm from and it'll be like a body in the fountain in Writtenhouse Square. And so I went through a lot of ideas, but they all felt like too disconnected from the character.

I was like, the only way this really makes sense is if the body's like literally right outside her house. So then I was trying to think of different kinds of lives where people live right on the water. And from there, it just sort of, you know, I've always been intrigued by the Venice canals. They're sort of paradoxical in a lot of ways. it's a really big tourist attraction, and yet I feel like it's a well-kept secret. Like a lot of people don't, I mean, I think if you look up lists of like things to do in Los Angeles, it comes up. But it's not something that people, like I'd never heard of them before I moved here.

And what's interesting is it's really only a few square blocks. So you can walk like right past them and not even see them. So you kind of have to know that you're looking for them. When you get there, there's constantly, people. It's a big tourist attraction. But then, you know, and it's also, it's incredibly expensive to live there. And yet at the same time, you're sort of always on display. So there's, there's a lot. Once I thought of it, I was like, oh, this is the perfect place for this. And I also found really interesting. There's been a few, there's been a bunch of movies along the canals.

I think one of the most recent visible ones was I love. you man um do you remember that movie it's like is it paul right anyway oh yeah like the romance one right yeah they're along the canals um and uh i think it's i love you man no i'm having doubts that i said the wrong movie but um there really weren't any novels uh there really weren't any novels set along the canals which surprised me and that's one of the things i like in stories is when I feel like something should already exist and it doesn't because that tells me I'm sort of landing on something that that's kind of sweet thought that it's a it's a good idea but it's one no one's had before so it just felt like the kind of perfect place and then it wasn't or

you know it wasn't initially part of the story but as I said it there and I learned more about talking to people who have lived on the canals the sort of rear window quality of living there where it's not just like that there's tourists I can see inside your house all the time because everyone leaves their shades open there. So you really do get access to people's lives. But that there's this relationship with the people who live across the canal from you. Because like you can always see into their house and they can always see into your house. So the kind of voyeuristic quality of the book came from the setting that I chose.

But then it worked really well with the ways in which Tessa being pregnant feels really exposed. and Barb feels really invisible. So it definitely was, you know, I do think you, when you land on a good idea, it just kind of feels right in a book. Yeah. Yeah. You're just like, this is it. This fits the vibes.

It does really add to the suspense very much like, like you're mentioning with like the rear, I almost said rear view window, rear window. Right? I don't know. My brain is making me doubt myself. But it does really work well for assistance. Yeah. Yeah. And I think also since the facade of people's lives versus the reality of them is always a good thing to explore.

Yeah. And then that's also it's what Barb is trying to figure out. Like she's like, I know my daughter. I don't think this is what happened. So it is kind of like this whole like what is reality versus like what we want it to be versus what we're finding out as they investigate. But the other thing with Barb is she's obviously dealing with a lot of grief as well. Like her daughter just died. And so that's like some of the big emotional beats for her character. And so kind of like grief and loss and memories like all of that are. all mixed together. Did you know you wanted to write about like kind of like those emotional parts?

Or was that like as you kind of started writing, you realized that would work well? I knew that for both characters, I wanted there to, for them to have really strong conviction, but for there to be some doubt around whether or not they're right. And so I knew that I wanted something kind of separate from Regina in Barb's life where she, she had done something that made you, when you learn it, kind of doubt her perspective. But I also knew that for the kind, like, you know, a lot of what this book is is magnified versions of sort of everyday fears. So I think like with Tessa, it's really that those fears you have both about like the

disconnects you have with young kids turning that kind of terrifying, that are frustrating. and fundamentally for both of them, the ways in which you want to protect your kids and you can't. And I think for me as a mom, I mean, I say to my son all the time, I'm like, please don't ever go through a phase where you hate me. Like there's this like impending fear of like at some point,

you can't guarantee that you're going to have the kind of relationship with them that you want. And to me, that feels terrifying. I'm hopeful that I'm striking a balance. such that my kids will, you know, always want me in their life, but you never know how their life goes. And so I think that for, for Barb, again, I wanted to like write these, these magnified versions of these fears. And, of course, there's, you know, my first book was about an estrangement too. There's lots of people who are estranged from, so it's not just a magnified fear. But I thought it,

you know, I thought it worked well in terms of, of thinking about some of my, like, fun, which I think are common fundamental fears about parenthood. So that was part of it. And then also, because I wanted her to be searching for Regina throughout this book, it made sense to me that they would have some distance, that it would be harder to have those kind of discoveries that they were really in their everyday life. And also, I liked this idea of like the unfulfilled promise of they were getting closer. They were repairing their relationship when it was cut off. I hadn't really planned on, I think this has happened to me a few times when, because I think all of my books have had a death in them. And none of them I was necessarily planning on writing about grief. But then you have this, which is probably obvious moment where it's like, wait, I can't write about a woman who just lost her daughter and not explore the grief that comes with it.

So it sort of grew organically. And, you know, it's tricky in a thriller of finding that balance where you want to make sure that. that's on the page because it feels true to what the character's experiencing, but you also don't want it to slow down the story so much that it doesn't keep going forward. So there was definitely some trial and error in terms of how do I capture Barb's emotional state while keeping her moving forward. Right. It's reminding me of a couple of things. When I interviewed Catherine Faulkner for the other mothers. I think it's the other mothers. I was asking her like what yeah I know what what drew her or what draws her to writing about thrillers that are so involved in motherhood and she was like basically said quite frankly because motherhood is terrifying in general and I was like that that is a fair answer and so I think it's it's fascinating that you're kind of pointing out like you can also make something very suspenseful.

just with the everyday fears that you have. And we all have like an inner world that not everyone is knowing about where we could be totally freaking out about something. And we don't always talk about it though. And then there's the fact that she's also, Tessa is also pregnant as this is happening. And I saw a couple people talking to about how they were like, at first, I was like, why is she making these decisions?

And then I was like, oh, yeah, she's pregnant. I remember being pregnant and like everything like was heightened or different like hormonally as well. So was that like a choice to make her like in the midst of being pregnant as well, not just like with her one kid? Yeah. I knew. Yeah. I, I, um, very, I started writing this book while I was working on the previous one. And I felt like there were times where I was having with with the book, but in life, having responses. And I mean, the thing that's interesting about being pregnant, and maybe this is true about older age, I don't know yet,

but it's hard sometimes to tell what is your perception of the way people are treating you versus the reality of it. And so I often felt like people were treating me like I was being hormonal just by having emotional responses. Tessa even says at one point in the book that it's impossible to have big emotional responses when you're pregnant and be taken seriously. And I think there's this assumption, even of course you're hormonal. Like I definitely cried a lot more. Like I was never a cryer and then I got pregnant. Right. Right. A lot. You know, things, you know, you literally have more hormones.

So of course that's true. But I just, I felt like there were some things like, which is a lot of where the book came from too, particularly when I was promoting my last book, the love scribe. Like I had instincts about things that some other people in my team disagreed with. And I don't know if they were treating me like I was being hormonal. But that was the response I felt like it was like, oh, I can't trust the feelings I'm having now. I have to trust other people more than myself. And so that became a really big, like theme in the book as, you know, and I didn't start

writing this book until well after my daughter was born. But I was conceiving of it. I wrote this book fairly quickly. And I think it's because I was sitting with it and thinking about it for about two years. But I was really interested. That was a big part of what I wanted to explore was, you know, how people are, they're not responding directly to you, but their perception of you when you're pregnant. Yeah. And yeah.

And that's the hard part about like being a woman in general. Sometimes my sister-in-law and I talk about this is like, sometimes I need to remind myself, especially in my luteal phase, I need to be like, you don't have to trust the feelings that are like, this is the end of the world, this matters so much, this is terrible. So sometimes I even have to tell myself, like, just get through this week. Like, you don't have to believe that it really exaggerated, like, doom. I just get more anxious is kind of what it is. But at the same time, if someone just told me every time I was in my luteal phase, like, oh, you're just being hormonal about everything. I'd be like, no, I'm not. So it is. It's, it's,

it's just confusing being a woman, as we all know. Yeah. And sometimes people don't even have to tell you, you just feel it. And that was something I was interested in, too, particularly with Tessa, is like, is she, you know, how much of this, like, even in the first scene when she feels like, really judged how much are people judging her versus how much does she have people are judging her and yeah there's just a lot of mind games to being a woman i know i just that just made me think of i just saw a thread earlier today that um oh what was i think oh that it's like sometimes you are guessing that someone is judging you and all you've done is taking your own judgment and like put it in their minds and i was like that is actually really really

important to remember because sometimes you do sometimes it's so easy to be like oh he responded differently so he's thinking this about me when really you're thinking that about yourself or you're just worried that you're coming off that way yeah it's so hard yeah i know i have that a lot too i'm the kind of person who like worries like oh did i did i did i did something offensive like like what is this person thinking about right but husband is always like nobody's thinking about you as much as you are thinking about yourself. They're all thinking about themselves too. Right. Yeah, they try to remember that. It's so hard to remember sometimes. Without spoiling it, did you, it sounds like you probably did because you said you kind of need

to know the ending. Did you know who the villain was going to be? Actually, I didn't. I, when I know, I mean, I knew, so, you know, there's this without giving anything away, there's kind of the central question of like did jasper actually know regina and if so how and so that's what i needed to figure out before i started writing and the actual like mechanics of that changed over drafts um but when i wrote my first finished draft the um i don't think it's too much of a spoiler to admit that like there was a killer in the book um there is a question of is it but like i was realizing that as you said it's likely it's not just an accident right at some point you feel so i don't think that's too much the spoiler if you read thrillers um yeah but uh

what's i was i said say um so i had written in it it was the same person all along but like who they were changed because i'd realize that you know um i had my um my first editor in the book like she she read a draft and she's like, I actually think you already have the person that you have at the end earlier in the book. And so I realized that I sort of had written it already into the book. And I'm actually using that as a guiding force on the book I'm working on now in that I let the discovery happen along the way. Like I heard that I really liked Hannah French and like similar series and all those books. And I remember reading somewhere that she doesn't know who the killer is until she reveals it on the page, which, I mean, she must go back and do work after that. But I do think it

helps with, like if you don't know who the killer is, then the reader can't really know either. So I think it helps with red herrings and misleads and stuff like that if you don't know, if you're not plotting from the beginning who it is. Yeah, that makes sense. I've definitely heard authors say that where they're like some of the fun of writing is that. like they don't know who it is either and so like they discover it as the writing and then they feel like you're saying like it improves the experience for the reader as well because of that it stresses me out to think about writing and not knowing but i know a lot of people can do it so that is pretty cool um bruce is thinking about barking at me uh so he's completely taken me

out of it. Hold on, buddy. Can you just let me finish it? Yeah. No, you're about to bark, aren't you? Come here. Come here. Come here. He's okay. I'm going to just grab his bone really quickly so he doesn't start barking. I swear he can tell like, oh, it's been like 45 minutes. I should go see if she's done. Yeah, it's good intuition too. Yeah, right. Um, I was going to say, oh, well, I obviously, you can tell it, I really enjoyed it. My thing is definitely more character-driven thrillers right now. So if anyone is wanting something like that, this is absolutely it. But I do also always ask at the end if you've read anything recently that you've loved

or if there are books that you always recommend. I like the always book you recommend question because it's not. that one usually get well uh you mentioned uh katherine falkner i think her books are i haven't read her new book yet i think it it just came out recently um but i think her books are fantastic really really like them um i um what's another book um that i always recommend i um wait or do you have a favorite audiobook because like sometimes the production of the audio like makes it stand out huge difference um i well i just listened to the last one at the wedding i finished it last night um that was really good i like the audiobook i don't read a lot of books by mail offers um

but i really liked that one uh i really like i don't either huh i i don't either it's like all women if i have a diversity problem that's because i don't have lots of men on um i love luce Jule. I love all her books and I almost exclusively listened to them on audiobooks. I really liked her most recent one that just came out. Don't let him in. I'm terrible. Don't let him in. I have, I'm,

I blame the sleeplessness of parenthood a lot, but I have a terrible memory for things. But yeah, Lisa Jules his new book was great. I really like, I've gotten really into lately like, although the last time of the wedding only had one protagonist, but like multi, voiced

audiobooks, I think are a lot of fun. They're really dynamic. Yeah. So, yeah. I would say check out the Jewish people. I mean, she's a pretty big one. But Catherine Faulkner, yeah, I like the,

I've been in a big, like, British phase these days. There's so many good thrillers that come out. Yeah. UK. Yes. Yeah. I just got approved. for Alice Feeney's new one on NetGalley and I'm so excited.

So I feel you on that one. Sometimes I need breaks from her books because they're like too, too intense. Yeah. They're great as well. Yeah. Totally. Well, thank you so much for coming. And as of the time that this is airing, you can go get the book.

So basically everybody go do that. And yeah, I'm excited to see me right now. Next.