Exclusive: A Look at My Current Work in Progress
I’m traveling this week, researching the new book I’m working on, a standalone currently called A VERY BAD THING. It’s about a hugely famous person who passes away unexpectedly, and the chaos that ensues when a young reporter doing an investigative piece gets ahold of her hard drive and discovers her past might not be exactly what it seems. It’s set in New York, Nashville, and Denver.
One of the issues I’ve been having is that my books always have a powerful setting, which is spread across several areas that I know, but I’m not as familiar with post-pandemic. You see, as I’ve gotten back on the road these past few weeks, I realize we truly are living in a completely new world. It’s not just that the streets are less crowded, which they are. The way people interact is different. Formerly exclusive restaurants have room for last-minute reservations, but several of our long-time favorites are gone. Kindness has been abundant, especially in the service industry, where the gratitude of being “back” has everyone going above and beyond. Of course, never underestimate how making eye contact and giving a genuine smile opens doors. But I’ve been in New York twice in three weeks, and both times it felt…different.
That sense of cultural expansiveness needs to find its way into our fiction.
