LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with groundbreaking author and poet Cynthia Pelayo, who in 2022 became the first Puerto Rican and first Latina to win a Bram Stoker Award after her Crime Scene took the prize in the Poetry Collection category. Her Into The Forest And All The Way Through was a 2020 nominee, also in the Poetry Collection category, while her Children of Chicago was a 2021 nominee in the Novel category. Pelayo earned a BA in Journalism from Columbia College Chicago, a MS from Roosevelt University, and a MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently pursuing a PhD in English. Her MFA writing thesis, Lotería, was republished in 2023, winning an International Latino Book Award Silver Medal in the Best Collection of Short Stories category. A co-publisher of Burial Day Books, which focuses on horror writing, she is the author of numerous other books, stories and poems, including novels such as The Shoemaker’s Magician (2023), Forgotten Sisters (2024), and Vanishing Daughters (2025). Her new novel, It Came from Neverland, a work of horror inspired by the classic Peter Pan, was published by Crooked Lane Books earlier this month. Pelayo sat down with Abigail this month to discuss her new book.

Tell us a little bit about It Came from Neverland. How did the idea for the story first come to you?

Like many people, I grew up watching the Disney version of Peter Pan, and then I remember watching Hook with Robin Williams and being captivated, seeing Peter Pan as an adult who had to remember who he was. There was an older Wendy in that film, and that always stayed with me because I really wanted to know what Wendy’s story looked like aged into young adulthood.

When I went back to J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy and the original play, I worked out that Wendy would be in her early twenties at the start of the First World War. And then I learned that many young men at that time lied about their age to enlist, some of them were barely more than boys. It all felt like a perfect juxtaposition, these boys going off to war and Wendy’s trauma round caring for the Lost Boys from Neverland.

A woman of that time period would certainly not be believed if she tried to tell the truth about what she experienced as a child in Neverland, and so that certainly played into her experience. Then I thought well, Wendy at this age would certainly be in a position that reflected her character, and schoolteacher fit perfectly. The story wrote itself, because I knew that Wendy would do all that she could to protect those children and I also knew Peter Pan would surely return to whisk more children away to Neverland. So this story is that tale, what does she do to stop Peter Pan.

What drew you to Peter Pan, and what made you feel it was horror?

Peter Pan without Wendy Darling is just a boy screaming into the dark. The story only works because Wendy agrees to go with him to Neverland, and she goes because she is sweet and kind and she believes him. Wendy’s only failure here was that she had a good heart, which is just so sad because her being nice is why she was taken advantage of. She trusted someone who was manipulating her. Peter told her she was special, but what he really meant was that she was useful. She was given the role of mother to the Lost Boys, not because she was truly loved or valued, but because someone needed to do the mending. This is not fantasy. This is a domestic horror story dressed in fairy dusty.

In Peter and Wendy we’re also essentially told that growing up is a curse, but I push back on that. Growing up is the adventure, becoming yourself, and gaining autonomy is the gift.

Peter’s entire pitch was stay here, never change, never leave me. Shrink. Lost yourself to praise me. That’s not love. That’s control.

The horror was always there. I just removed the glitter.

What is it about fairy tales that speaks to you?

Fairy tales were the very first stories I was told as a child. “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella,” more. I hold all of them dear, even though many of them have a thread of terror, but I suppose that’s why I’m the writer I am today.

What I’ve come to understand is that fairy tales are an early societal warning system, in a way. They prepared us for danger, and that’s why they still work. Little Red Riding Hood is everyone who has been told not to talk to strangers on their way home. Bluebeard is everyone who has been warned to be cautious with suitors. Snow White is every person who has fallen victim to the cruelty of jealousy. These stories survived centuries because beneath them there is some truth that can be applied to many of our experiences today. They encode the things that we should say out loud, but don’t because of all of those strange polite society rules, things like – don’t trust the stranger who flatters you, the beautiful thing is likely the trap, or even, the person who promises you forever can very well be the one who seeks to destroy you.

When looking at all of these through a horror lens, they echo to the horror writer what is our job – and that is to tell the truth. Horror is the genre of truth, to highlight the danger, to be a witness to survival, more. So much of what fairy tales do speak to this.

Are there other classic works you’re interested in transforming?

Yes, and the one upcoming is a Frankenstein retelling titled Everina from Union Square & Co. I have more, but I can’t mention those quite yet.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process.

I generally write in the early morning. In the evenings that’s when I tend to answer email or work on lectures for any workshops I’m teaching or work on any of my own homework.

In terms of my actual writing sessions, I read before I write, generally I will read some poetry and then start writing. If you’re asking about the big questions regarding how do I create something, I think I’m a pretty methodical writer in that yes, I allow discovery to happen, but as of recent, there is a lot of researching, planning, and pre-writing that goes into my actual writing. Then there is editing, and that is an entirely different process. I tell writers to think of these processes as three separate demands, research and preparation requires one aspect of your brain, editing requires a different aspect of your brain and the actual writing, which is a completely different process. When you are writing you are creating, allow yourself to have fun and explore when you’re actually writing.

What comes next for you?

Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné Horror comes out September 29 from Simon & Schuster. It’s an anthology I edited that features Mariana Enríquez, Agustina Bazterrica, Mónica Ojeda, Isabel Cañas, Daniel José Older, Zoraida Córdova, and others, with a foreword by Brenda Lozano. Latiné horror isn’t a subgenre, it’s a tradition that I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to share with readers.

After that, Everina, which is my Frankenstein retelling.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

I read a lot of poetry and classics. My bookshelves reflect that, so we have Lorca, Vallejo, Pizarnik, Anne Sexton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Adrienne Rich, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Homer, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, more. Yes, there’s horror as well, Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, Mariana Enríquez, Carmen Maria Machado, Daphne du Maurier. And, of course fairy tales, so many fairy tales and non-fiction texts analyzing fairy tales.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I am reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I love world building, and here, we have a world that operates on its own logic, the architecture of the space, and the feelings it evokes. Clarke gives us infinite halls that become both prison and sanctuary, and it’s this tension that I’m drawn to as both a reader and writer.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with author and romance enthusiast Katie Holt, whose 2024 debut, Not In My Book, follows the stormy relationship between a romance novelist and a literary author who are forced to work together on a book. A New York City resident and Tennessee native, Holt earned her degree in English and Creative Writing at NYU, while working at famed Manhattan bookstore, The Strand. When not writing, she works at St. Martin’s Press as an assistant editor. Her second novel, The Last Page, about the romance between a bookseller who dreams of running the bookstore where she works and the owner’s oblivious grandson who has inherited everything, is due out from Alcove Press later in May. Holt sat down with Abigail this month to discuss her new book.

How did the idea for The Last Page first come to you? Were you inspired by your own time as a bookseller? (Full disclosure: I also worked at The Strand for a number of years). Were other bookstore romances, like the one in You’ve Got Mail, an influence?

A fellow Strand-er!! That’s so cool! We’ll definitely have to see if we crossed paths with any of the same booksellers.

I was definitely inspired by my time there. I think it’d be impossible not to be! The Strand has a rich history and while I worked there, lots of the booksellers told me stories about Ben McFall. They had nothing but wonderful things to say about them and it was obvious he left such a deep mark on The Strand. I thought a lot about what it meant to leave behind a legacy in a bookstore. To be surrounded by books and for him to really be the most talked. I never met him, of course, so Leo was really inspired by my late grandfather. He was the coolest person I’ve ever met in my entire life and was a huge reader and supporter of literature.

I’m sure you know that the group of booksellers at The Strand were opinionated and eclectic and I loved it. I’m still friends with so many booksellers there and adore them. The bookseller relationships and dynamics were inspired by them for sure.

Nora Ephron is one of my greatest inspirations, so totally! You’ve Got Mail also has such a fun crew that are all different from each other, but they come together to create some hilarious scenes. I’ve always loved Notting Hill, too, and how that small shop just seems to be bursting with books. The Last Page has plenty of room in their store, but in my mind, books are just spilling over every edge of every surface.

You’ve been a romance advocate in both your professional and academic life, arguing to your college professors that the genre was worthy of consideration. What makes romance so special to you, and why should readers pay attention to it?

Oh goodness, I could wax poetic for days. I always say my favorite part of the romance genre is the HEA (happily ever after). That readers are guaranteed a safety net and it allows writers to explore some really heavy topics! The Last Page discusses grief throughout—what it means to different people, how it can ebb and flow, and how it doesn’t always make sense. Henry is also someone who suffers from depression and feels really embarrassed about it. I loved that I could discuss these topics the way I wanted to and tell the reader, “Don’t worry. They’re safe and you are, too.”

A lot of the time in college, I was told that these character arcs or plots I wrote were devalued by interweaving a love story that ends happily. I had one professor who always said, “I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that all the characters you write end up together.” Well, they do! It always blew my mind. Why would love decrease the value of anything? Isn’t it beautiful that you can evolve and change and grow and fall in love with someone who’s watched all of that happen? Who loves you before, after, and throughout?

There’s also something really special about how the romance genre varies so much within the genre. To me, it demonstrates how everyone views love differently and how everyone loves differently. I just think it’s beautiful and something special and worthy of celebrating.

The Last Page features a bookseller from New York City and a bookstore owner from Tennessee—a profession and two places that have been important to you personally. Are there specific spots or incidents in Ella and Henry’s tale that were inspired by your own life story?

I’m definitely inspired by my life in the city, and it’s impossible for me to not write about the things happening around me. (However, I unfortunately didn’t fall in love with a hot, shy, nerdy former football player while working at The Strand). New York is such a romantic city and I work hard to make the city feel like a character in the book. A reader
tagged me in a NOT IN MY BOOK book tour they did across NYC when they were visiting and I burst into tears. Those pictures of them at Peculiar Pub and Washington Square Park were exactly why I include real restaurants and locations. Specifically in this book, Ella and Henry go to Kingston Hall, which is one of my favorite places. It’s buy one get one free beer on the weekends!! And there’s a great pool table and such interesting interior design. I’ve brought my laptop there plenty of times to get some writing done and thought it was such a cool place for them to stumble into.

Although I loved being a bookseller, I did have the quintessential yet frustrating “I saw a book with a black cover here three weeks ago. Can you help me find it?” which I include in The Last Page. Bill Clinton also did come in and sift through American History. There wasn’t a naked man that ran through the store—he had on a speedo in real life.

Something that was really inspired by my life was Leo. Like I said, he was based on my grandfather who I was really close to. He had been pretty sick for a few years and every time I saw him, I braced myself because it could’ve been the last. The thought of losing him haunted me and I think I wrote this in a place of nearly preemptive grief? I kind of think of it like a letter from my past self telling me that I’ll survive losing him, even if it hurts like hell sometimes. He never got to hold a copy of The Last Page, though, I know he would’ve been proud and read every single word (as he mortifyingly told me he did with Not In My Book).

Tell us a little bit about your writing process—how and where you like to write, and how you construct your stories. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I have to plot. I recently finished writing a book that I tried to pants and it was horrible. I hated every single second of it, deleted everything, and started over.

My process has evolved as my life has! For Not In My Book, I was home for the pandemic and wrote the first draft in my childhood bed and my parent’s kitchen table. I had to have my Beats on and a bag of BBQ chips and Kombucha by my side (in my head they counteracted each other??).

Nowadays, though, I love to write in cafes or bars in the city. I’ve always thought it was very Cool Girl when I saw people writing or reading at bars. Recently, I’ve been grabbing my notebook and physically writing out scenes or chapters. I also love to listen to music while I write (mostly Taylor Swift) and think about how the characters fit that song or if they ever have. Because Rosie definitely listened to “Welcome to New York” for a month straight when she moved to New York and Ella definitely had “Honey” on a constant loop.

What advice would you give to up-and-coming authors, particularly up-and-coming romance authors?

When I was in high school, I took a writing course with Rachel Carter and it completely transformed the way I wrote and my perspective on it. She told me to write as much as I read and read a lot. The only way to know the mechanics of the genre or even a book is to completely entrench yourself in it. Read lots and lots of books and write every day. Even if it’s just a sentence! Writing is a muscle and if you don’t exercise it, it’ll weaken.

I also think it’s important to give yourself grace. No one is publishing their very first draft. It’s okay for your writing to be terrible and make sense to no one else but you. Sometimes it’s all in the revisions! But don’t be too hard on yourself.

What’s next for you? Do you have any books currently in the works?

I have a couple of things in the works!! I’m working on two books right now that are very different from each other. I don’t want to reveal too much just yet, but these really feel like the stories I’ve been waiting to tell for sometime, so I’m super excited about them!

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

All kinds of romance! I really don’t shy away from any of the subgenres. I’ve been into speculative and dark recently, but I’m hoping historical makes a resurgence, especially now that Lisa Kleypas is back!

It’s really rare I read outside of romance, but that’s my small goal for this year. I’ve always been a physical reader, but I’m dabbling in some book club fiction and nonfiction through my audiobooks.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I just finished Tessa Bailey’s new time travel romance, Broken Rival, and I feel like I’m having a parasocial relationship with them. Like…it’s that serious. A Little Buzzed by Alys Murray was so intensely sexy that my Apple Watch asked if I was working out because my heartbeat was so high. That is a MUST read! I also read The Heartbreak Hotel by Ellen O’Clover recently and was stunned by it and the musings on love and life after a breakup. The characters are so well drawn and she strikes the exact right balance of emotionally intense and absolute yearning. Secret Nights and Northern Lights by Megan Oliver is also what second chance romance dreams are made of. I cannot wait to read more from her.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with best-selling author Shelley Noble, whose many novels run the gamut from historical fiction to mystery to contemporary women’s fiction. A former professional dancer, Noble toured with Twyla Tharp Dance and American Ballroom Theater, and has worked as a choreographer for film and theater productions. She earned her BFA and MFA at the University of Utah, and taught at California State University in Fresno. A former president of Sisters-in-Crime, Noble is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and Liberty States Fiction Writers, and currently lives in New Jersey. Her newest novel, The Sisters of Book Row, was published by William Morrow in March 2026 and tells the story of three sisters and bookstore proprietors who confront the Comstock laws in 1915 Manhattan. Noble sat down with Abigail this month to discuss the book.

How did the story idea for The Sisters of Book Row first come to you? Were you drawn to the thought of writing about bookstores and booksellers, or perhaps about the Comstock laws?

I’ve had Comstock in the back of my mind for a while, a perfect villain, a vicious zealot, one who I particularly despise. So when my editor suggested I write a book about books, guess who came to mind. And because I write about Manhattan, I knew the perfect place in which to set the story, Book Row, once the mecca of rare and used book buyers from around the world. And like a magnet, this germ of an idea began collecting bits and pieces. An article about the current Cohen sisters of the Argosy Book Store inspired me to create the Applebaum sisters, and Sisters was born.

Tell us about the Comstock laws. What were they, and what effect did they have on the world of books and booksellers, as well as the wider American society of that time?

Anthony Comstock moved to New York in the early 1870s and was appointed special agent to The Society for the Suppression of Vice and the U.S. Post Office to prevent pornography from being sent through the mail. He was given the power to search, seize, arrest and fine, the monies of which he received half. His activities quickly spread to all facets of life, and as his power grew, his ideas of what was “obscene, lewd, or lascivious,” changed, sometimes from week to week. Later in his career, his extreme and outlandish views made him a laughing stock, ridiculed by the newspapers, and dismissed by the courts. The Post Office fired him, but he refused to leave. The NYSPV replaced him, but again he ignored them and continued on his crusade. The Comstock Act, enacted in 1873, included a ban on contraception and was written by Comstock himself. It was never repealed, but Roe v. Wade relegated it to being a zombie law. Unfortunately states had adopted the original law for their own use. And today we see it being used to prevent birth control information, or any reproductive health measures from all women. A zealot, who is said to have destroyed 15 tons of books and four million pictures and other materials, who hated women and died ridiculed and despised, and yet he has managed to rear his ugly head again today.

Your story is set on Book Row, a district in lower Manhattan that contained over three dozen bookstores at its height. Did you have to do any research about the history of the area, and what were some interesting things you learned? If you could visit any bookstore from that period, which would it be? (Disclosure: I worked for the Strand bookstore—the sole survivor of Book Row—for many years).

I used to hang out at the Strand all the time. Many years ago. It was a solace and an adventure away from the chaos of the city and my profession as a young dancer. I hope my Sisters of Book Row can come to life for readers of today. I did loads of research, I always do. It’s one of my favorite parts of writing historical fiction. There’s a lovely book titled Book Row by Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador. It didn’t have as much information on my particular period 1915 as I hoped, but it was fascinating to read about the continuation of this community, especially post 1930.

Once I get an overview of my time and place and characters, I like to depend mainly on primary sources, newspapers, anecdotes, letters. That way I know what they know, feel what they feel, and try to leave my historical outsider’s knowledge at the door. I mostly learned the neighborhood in bits and pieces since the area has built up so much since then.

Some oddities and coincidences: The Argosy, owned by Louis Cohen, the father of the Cohen sisters who added their inspiration to this story had his own run in with “Comstockery” in the 1930s. When the city began digging the new subway, customers couldn’t get around construction, and many stores had to move uptown, then moved back in when it was completed. After I developed and had lived with my three Applebaum sisters and the Arcadia for weeks and several chapters, I learned that there was actually a Mr. Applebaum who had a bookshop in the Row, named Arcadia. Did I read about it and forgot while it became ingrained in my subconscious? Or was it really a coincidence? I was too attached to my own Applebaums to change their names, so I mentioned the existence of two families in my Author Notes.

Sometimes a story is like a jigsaw puzzle, learning a phrase, a sentence about the inhabitants. The two booksellers, who were constantly arguing, gave me an image that led to the daily morning conversations around the newsstand. They might have argued and complained, but they were neighbors and they were ready to take up a collection to bail one of their own out of jail when Comstock was on the prowl.

The book world has been rocked in recent years by an upsurge of attempts at censorship and book suppression. I chronicle some of that in the Freedom of Expression column of our monthly State of the Thing newsletter. What can your story tell us about our situation today, in this respect?

For our modern selves, I wish The Sisters of Book Row and their withstanding the attacks of what they loved most was so outside of our experience, so unbelievable, that readers might say. “Oh, that would never happen here.” But unfortunately we see it happening throughout our country by those who, like Comstock, denounce books they’ve never even read and bully those who only want to share knowledge. Their attacks sometimes seem so diffuse and widespread that we might think it will never affect us. It will, but I have to believe that we’re more experienced, more aware of the rotten core of the book banning movement, and that if we keep up a constant resistance, we will prevail.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Do you have a particular routine—a schedule you keep, or a place you like to write? You write in a number of different genres, does your story-building process differ, depending on the genre?

I do have a routine though it has changed over the years and books. When I wrote two books a year, I had a tighter schedule. Now that I’m writing one historical I can linger in the research, jump down a rabbit hole or two. And I find that writing of the past, I’ve changed from being an early morning writer, to a late night writer. There’s something about the dark and the quiet that I find conducive to delving into the past. Of course the nearer I get to deadline, the more daytime writing I have to do. I have a home office where I write all my books. Each genre requires a different energy and attitude. The contemporaries don’t require as much deep dive research, so I can begin writing sooner than with the historicals. No matter the genre, I depend on a storyboard to keep everything on track. Not a computer screen board but a big gridded Lucite board on the wall with color coded post-its for characters and plot points that can be moved around as the story develops.

What comes next for you? Are there any new books you’re currently working on?

I’m currently working on a story that takes place in 1870 Long Branch, New Jersey, where President Grant has his summer capital and a young woman aspiring to become a lawyer confronts the changes and the scandals that threaten the quiet seaside town she calls home.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

Lots of history books, mainly early 20th century New York, late 19th American theatre books when the Rialto was Union Square. Dickens, Austen, Mary Stewart. A rotation of women’s historical fiction. Eastern religion. Mystery and science fiction. I’m a pretty eclectic reader.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

This fall I decided to go on a rereading spree. I started with Fahrenheit 451 followed by 1984 right before the holidays. Yes, they are still as scary as when I read them in school. After that, I immediately pulled out my favorite chapters of The Pickwick Papers. Now I’m re-rereading The Hobbit, and reading A Founding Mother** about Abigail Adams, by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. I highly recommend all of these.

**Stay tuned for our interview with Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie this coming July, in honor of America’s 250th birthday!

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with internationally best-selling author Lisa Unger, whose many works of thrilling suspense have been translated into thirty-three languages worldwide. Educated at the New School in New York City, she worked for a number of years in publishing, before making her authorial debut in 2002 with Angel Fire, the first of her four-book Lydia Strong series, all published under her maiden name, Lisa Miscione. In 2006 she made her debut as Lisa Unger, with Beautiful Lies, the first of her Ridley Jones series. In 2019 Unger was nominated for two Edgar Awards, for her novel Under My Skin and her short story The Sleep Tight Motel. She has won or been nominated for numerous other awards, including the Hammett Prize, Audie Award, Macavity Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her short fiction can be found in anthologies like The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021 and The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024, and her non-fiction has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and on NPR. She is the current co-President of the International Thriller Writers organization. Her latest book, Served Him Right, is due out from Park Row Books this month. Unger sat down with Abigail this month to discuss the book.

In Served Him Right the protagonist Ana is the main suspect in her ex-boyfriend’s murder. How did the idea for the story first come to you? Was it the character of Ana herself, the idea of a revenge killing, or something else?

Most of my novels tend to spring from a collision of ideas.

In this case, I had an ongoing obsession with plants and our complicated, troubled relationship to the natural world. I’d been doing a deep dive into this, reading books like Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake, Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature’s Toxins – From Spices to Vices by Noah Whiteman, and The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger. These are all deeply moving, fascinating books that will change the way you think about the planet and our relationship to nature.

During this time, I stumbled across a news story about a woman who held a brunch for her family, and several days later two of her guests were dead. And it wasn’t the first such incident in her life. So, it got me to thinking about how the traditional role of women in our culture is to nurture and nourish. And what a woman with a deep knowledge of plants that can harm and heal might do with it, how her role in society might allow her to hide her dark intention in plain sight. And that’s when I started hearing the voice of Ana Blacksmith. She’s wild and unpredictable, she has a dark side. She has a sacred knowledge of plants and their properties, handed down to her from her herbalist aunt. And she has a very bad temper.

As your title makes plain, your murder victim is someone who “had it coming.” Does this change how you tell the story? Does it simply make the “whodunnit” element more complex, from a procedural standpoint, or does it also complicate the emotional and ethical elements of the tale?

It’s complicated, isn’t it? What is the difference between justice and revenge? And to what are we entitled when we have been wronged and conventional justice is not served? Who, if anyone, has the right to be judge, jury, and executioner? Though some would have us believe otherwise, most moral questions are tricky and layered—in life and in fiction. And I love a searing exploration into questions like this, where there are no easy answers. These questions, and their possible answers, offer a complexity and emotional truth to character, plot, and action. I like to get under the skin of my stories and characters, exploring what drives us to act, and how those actions might get us into deep trouble.

The relationship between sisters is an important theme in the book. Can you elaborate on that?

Ana and Vera share a deep bond formed not just by blood but also by trauma. Their relationship is—#complicated. There’s an abiding love and devotion. But there’s also anger and resentment; Vera is not crazy about Ana’s choices, and rightly so. Ana thinks Vera is controlling and rigid. Of course, that’s true, too. Vera tends to think of Ana as one of her children—if only she’d stop acting like one! It is this relationship, the ferocity with which they protect each other no matter what and the strength of their connection, that is the heart of the story. As Vera preaches to her daughter Coraline: Family. Imperfect but indelible.

The book also includes themes of herbalism, witchcraft and folk medicine. Was this an interest of yours before you began the story? Did you have to do any research on the subject, and if so, what were some of the most interesting things you learned?

A great deal of research goes into every novel, even if what I learn never winds up on the page. It was no different for Served Him Right, though a lot of my knowledge came before I started writing, which is often the case. In my reading, I learned so many interesting things about plants, how they harm, how they heal. Here are some of my favorite bits of knowledge: Most modern medicine derives from the plant knowledge of indigenous cultures. Some plants walk the razor’s edge of healing and harming; the only difference in some cases between medicine and poison is the dose. The deadliest plant on earth is tobacco, killing more than 500,000 people a year. I could go on!

Tell us about your writing process. Do you have a specific routine you follow, places and times you like to write? Do you know the conclusion to your stories from the beginning, or do they come to you as you go along?

I am an early morning writer. My golden creative hours are from 5 AM to noon. This is when I’m closest to my dream brain, and those morning hours are a space in the world before the business of being an author ramps up. So, I try to honor this as much as possible. Creativity comes first.

I write without an outline. I have no idea who is going to show up day-to-day or what they are going to do. I definitely have no idea how the book will end! I write for the same reason that I read; I want to find out what is going to happen to the people living in my head.

What’s next for you? Do you have more books in the offing? Will there be a sequel to Served Him Right?

Hmm. Never say never. I’m definitely still thinking about Ana and Timothy and what might be next for them. But the 2027 book is complete, and I’m already at work on my 2028 novel. I’m not ready to talk about those yet. But I will say this: They are both psychological suspense. And bad things will certainly happen. Stay tuned!

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

That’s a great question. If I turn around and look at my wall of shelves, I see: my own novels in various formats and international editions; books on craft like On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, and Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott; there are classics like a falling-apart copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë that I’ve had since childhood; The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker—both of which are overworn and much loved; a huge American Heritage Dictionary that belonged to my father who was engineer but loved words and the nuance of their meaning (whenever I look at it, I hear him say: Look it up!); some of my favorite non-fiction titles like Stiff by Mary Roach and Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzalez; a first edition copy of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the book that gave me permission to be who I am as writer. I could go on and on! It’s a huge wall of books.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I am always reading multiple books at a time. I just finished The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life by Dr. Lisa Miller. I think the title says it all—truly mind-blowing. I just had the pleasure of interviewing Adele Parks on stage. I highly recommend her new novel Our Beautiful Mess to anyone who wants a character-driven thrill ride. Gripping but also emotional and deep. Antihero by my ITW co-president and bestie Gregg Hurwitz is a tour de force. Gregg writes amazing action and cool tech, but he’s also just a beautiful writer, and his characters leap off the page. Other recent faves: The Night of the Storm by Nishita Parekh; City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita; I Came Back for You by Kate White—all stellar in totally different ways.