I’ve said this before, but my absolute favorite banger of a subgenre in crime fiction are psychological thrillers, although it’s not a genre I’ve written. I wish I had a better reason for not writing what I love reading but, truthfully, I was always intimidated. In my first four thrillers (loosely classified in the hardboiled category), my protagonists were almost all women, and the women who write psychological thrillers often do a masterful job with their female characters. There’s a sweetly painful, occasionally playful honesty to these protagonists, something that speaks to their emotional core in a way I didn’t think I could capture, and something I rarely find male writers capable of doing with their male characters. The stories are driven by relationships and emotions, much in the same way of the canonical books that first introduced me to literature.

And so that is what I meant, when I wrote to Jennifer Anne Gordon, midway through reading her upcoming novel Perfect Wives, Perfect Lies, and told her that this was the kind of book that made me love being a reader and excited to be a writer. I can’t recall such an honest portrayal of female friendship, or a rawer examination of grief. It’s the kind of story that makes you wonder about the writer and what they underwent to tell this story. Jennifer Anne Gordon achieved something remarkable here, and lovely.

She also wrote something risky. Partially because it feels so personal, and there’s always a risk with letting your blood spill on the page…truly, you may bleed out. But also because Becca, her protagonist, is such a complex character, and her story (which has a profound internal narration) seems to have been told without commercial regard. And yet, Perfect Wives, Perfect Lies is absolutely a commercial thriller. I had to know how Becca’s story ends.

I wanted to do what I could to get the word out about this book before its publication date (September 8), and encourage everyone in the world to preorder it. A short synopsis of the book follows, along with a brief interview.

Synopsis

In the wake of losing her son, Becca also lost her marriage and her moorings. Now, work and time spent with her best friend, Lynn, are what gets her through the day. But it’s a private group of moms on social media that gets her through the long nights.

Run by Karen, the holy grail of perfect wives, Mommy Wine Time is a place where women share stories, perfectly airbrushed photos, and advice disguised as humble brags. And it’s where Becca pretends to be Lucy, with the help of a stock photo account. Lucy’s an ideal wife and mother living a dahlia-filled life in Seattle, enjoying all the things that Becca is certain she’ll never have again.

But the line between Becca’s truths and Lucy’s lies starts to blur when a series of bad deeds, daring games, and too many bottles of cheap chardonnay reveals something darker. Soon, what began as mere petty crimes escalates and, still, the more Becca pretends, the more alive she feels…

How did this story start? Did you come up with Becca first, or Mommy Wine Time, or was it something else? What is this novel’s origin story?

It was a combination of a few things…first, it was late in the pandemic. Lockdown was “over” and had been for a while, but the world hadn’t really started back up again. I was not able to do my normal day job (professional ballroom dance instructor) and instead made the natural career leap to working for a political advocacy firm (this is a nice way of saying lobbyist). The firm was on the correct side of things politically. Our main client was the National Association of Social Workers.

So needless to say, I was spending a lot of time online in those days, we all were. We were meeting new people and in tons of groups on Facebook, etc., everything from neighborhood groups, to writers groups, to dog groups, to medical groups…and man. These little pockets of strangers on the internet can get toxic. FAST.

One day I jokingly said that I wished I could be like an online Batman and get these terrible people to commit crimes that I could then get them arrested for…I think THIS was the first part of where the idea came from, but very quickly I understood I wanted my hero to be a social worker. I wanted her to be someone who always wanted to help, to be a hero, but because of things in her life, it never happened.

So, once I figured out who Becca was, I knew in her heart that she would never really want to hurt people, but then again I know hurt people end up hurting people. 

Without giving away any spoilers, was the ending of the novel the original one you had planned? Whenever someone has (such excellent use of) twists, I always wonder how their ending came about.

As a pantser…I didn’t know the twists until they twisted…but I had an inkling of one of the major twists early on, maybe a third of the way through and I didn’t know if I would be able to pull it off. So I sort of started writing with that in mind. Once it actually happened, I knew I would need to do a little work here and there…mostly mentally…I knew I had to start thinking of certain characters and aspects of the book differently.

As for the end…. The original end was MUCH darker, really truly bleak. My agent, the amazing Paula Munier, basically said, “Do you want people to hate you?”

I didn’t want that.

Then I went to far in the other direction and created a very neat and tidy ending…obviously, neither of those are the current ending. The current ending is a secret third thing!

This story is so raw and honest at times, which is one of the things I love about it. Was it hard to immerse yourself so fully in Becca, and still navigate the balance of writing a book that succeeds creatively and commercially?

I think the thing that helped me the most with the really raw and DARK emotional core of this book, was that I have been part of a grief writing community for almost 7 years now. We focus on memoir and grief writing and I have found ways for myself to express my own grief and trauma, and also explored things I have personally done in my own past because I was hurting, and that helped me get to the core of Becca. Who she was BEFORE the awful trauma, and who she becomes slowly over the 11 years after. It was very important for me to create a story that was not only about “long grief” but one that was also part satire, part comedy, part best friend queer panic love story, and part perimenopausal horror. 

All the thanks to Jennifer Anne Gordon for the interview, and for writing such a wonderful book. Also, today is her birthday, so you should really do her a solid and preorder a copy.

EA  

I mentioned, a few newsletters ago, that I was asked to write an essay about a hobby I had, and how it informed my writing. That was hard because I don’t really have any hobbies, so I wrote about my time reviewing for The Washington Post, how it informed my novels, and reviewing in general. I was really proud of this essay when it was published and posted it all over social media (twice, even) and I don’t think anyone read it, wtf. I should have paired it with a picture of my dog or your cat or something. Anyway, here it is.

For those in the DMV, I’ll be chatting with David Heska Wanbli Weiden about his new novel, Wisdom Corner, which follows his award-winning, widely praised debut, Winter Counts! We’ll be at Solid State Books on Friday, September 18, from 7-8 pm. Tickets are available HERE.

It's giveaway time! The winner of a copy of Jennifer Anne Gordon’s Perfect Wives, Perfect Lies, is:

[email protected]

Congrats, and I'll send you an email soon!

Just a reminder that the Bouchercon DC 2027 anthology, Power Corrupts, is open for story submissions until October 1, 2026! Make sure to read the rules and submit your work for consideration. And remember, I’m the managing editor and have a low moral compass and I’m very susceptible to bribes.

However, don’t use AI to write your stories, because even I have boundaries.