UK Cover Reveal + Books I Read This Year

Plus, the books that inspired LISTEN FOR THE LIE!

Hello! Happy December. It’s eggnog season, and I know eggnog can be divisive, but I encourage you to try these eggnog cookies. They are sort of like a sugar cookie with a little nutmeg twist. I love them!

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3 Months to LISTEN FOR THE LIE

As of yesterday, December 5th, we are three months out from Listen for the Lie! My publisher is giving away 50 print copies on Goodreads, so go enter! And don’t forget to pre-order!

“I like to drink my wine straight from the can.”

If you follow me on Instagram, you may remember that I did a wine advent calendar last year. 24 days of wine turned out to be a bit much for me, but I found a different one this year:

When I saw this, I immediately thought of the line Lucy, the main character in Listen for the Lie, says near the beginning of the book, while poking fun at her boyfriend’s wine snobbery: “I like to drink my wine straight from the can.” Like Lucy, I also enjoy cheap wine straight from the can!

I just started this baby yesterday (because I leave for Texas on the 19th, so it’s like a Texas countdown? I don’t know. I was unclear on when to start a 12 day advent calendar). Sorry, wine snobs. It’s all canned wine from here on out.

UK Cover

In case you missed it on social media, my UK publisher revealed their cover of Listen for the Lie:

I love this bright, fun cover with a bloody knife (and even a splash of pink!). It comes out March 14, 2024 in the UK, and you can pre-order now!

I also wanted to share the lovely blurbs that have come in for the UK edition:

A huge thank you to all the authors who took the time to read!

The Books That Inspired Listen for the Lie

Whenever people ask me where I get my ideas, or how I overcome writer’s block, I always tell them the same thing – I read. In fact, I sort of lied last newsletter when I said I don’t have any writing advice, because I do have one piece of advice that I give everyone – read. If you want to be writer, read widely. Read your peers – especially recently published books, and books in your chosen genre so you have a handle on the market.¹

Since I was struggling with writing this year due to brain fog, I took my own advice and read more books than usual, hoping for inspiration. That included a reread of The Big Three (I just made up that term for them right now, but I like it) –

1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

2. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

3. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

If you’re a thriller reader, you’ve probably read these (and if you haven’t, you should!). They’re three of the most popular books in the category for a reason, and they made a big impact on me and my writing.

It was Gone Girl that kicked off my interest in thrillers, back in 2014. I didn’t read much adult fiction at the time, or thrillers at all, and I loved it. I loved the voice, the plot, the twist that I didn’t see coming. The ending! Maybe I’m weird, but the ending made me laugh. Perfection.

Then, the next year, The Girl on the Train came out. I loved that one too. Three complex women telling me a story? Yes, please. (I reread this one on audio, and if you’ve never listened to it, I highly recommend it! The narrators are amazing.)

Those two books opened up the thriller world for me and got me thinking about writing my own. But in 2015, I’d just sold the Ruined trilogy, so I didn’t really have time to start working on an adult book. Plus, I found the adult thriller market confusing. There were mysteries and cozies and literary thrillers and crime fiction and police procedurals and domestic suspense and sometimes books that weren’t really thrillers at all but were labeled that way. I spent years sorting through it all, reading and exploring before I started to write. I’m the kind of writer who needs to have a strong handle on the market² before I start writing.

Then, in 2019, The Silent Patient jumpstarted my work on Listen for the Lie. I’d begun work on the first draft a couple months earlier, but things were moving along sluggishly. I still wasn’t committed to it, didn’t quite have the voice, and I definitely didn’t have much of a plot yet.

But reading The Silent Patient kicked my thriller brain into high gear. In fact, you can see the proof on my Instagram. On September 14, 2019, I posted this on Instagram, saying I’d read it the previous week:

And then on September 30, 2019, this:

This is the first draft daily word count journal for Listen for the Lie. I finally got over that first draft hump once I read The Silent Patient. I was stuck until I read that book, and then suddenly I was banging out words nearly every day. Reading! It works!

(Side note: In a funny twist, after some publishing shuffling, I ended up with the editor and entire publishing team of The Silent Patient. Needless to say, I was thrilled by this turn of events.)

2023 in Books

Besides the reread of The Big Three, I read so many great new (to me) books this year!

I started the year with Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, and what a great way to kick off 2023, because I adored that book. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano made me cry, but in the fun way, and The Guest by Emma Cline made me cringe, but also in the fun way. I really enjoyed Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson, and her modern take on a wealthy family. I picked up Luster by Raven Leilani after reading that she has a strong, distinct voice (I am always on the lookout for voicey adult fiction), and boy were they right about that. I reread sections of this book to get inspired to write some days.

You know why Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Grams is so popular? Because it’s great! It’s really great, and one of my favorite books I read this year. I also finally read Misery by Stephen King and freaked out about how good and how scary it was. I actually read three excellent books about writers this year that scared the crap out of me — Misery, The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, and Yellowface by R. F. Kuang.

This is the year I discovered Sally Hepworth! The Good Sister, The Soulmate, The Mother-in-Law. I love Sally’s take on domestic suspense. Other thrillers I really enjoyed: All The Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham, The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley, The It Girl by Ruth Ware, Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney, Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker (blood thirsty toddlers!!), Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty (late getting to this one and I was wrong to wait! So good!!), The Murder After the Night Before by Katy Brent (out in February), and The Push by Ashley Audrain (I’m traumatized).

I read four celebrity memoirs, which is very weird for me, but I guess I was in the mood. Spare by Prince Harry, I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, The Woman in Me by Britney Spears and Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry. All great, all disturbing.

I read more thrillers and fewer romance novels in 2023, but I still squeezed in a few! I adored Happy Place because Emily Henry can do no wrong. I loved We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian, and Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake. Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld was also a win for me.

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That’s all for 2023! Happy Holidays! I hope you eat LOTS of cookies.

1. I’m sorry, I know it sends some authors into a rage if you mention ~the market~. I don’t mean “write to trends.” I just mean that you need to understand the reader expectations of your genre, and to get a handle on what they’re enjoying (or not) right now. Because we’re all writing for publication in the hopes that people will read and enjoy our books, right?

2. SORRY