Author Interviews

What happens when you've done everything right, but you still can't get by? That's one of the questions Barbara Kingsolver probes in her new novel, Unsheltered. She talked to Goodreads about weaving together the present and past to tell the story of two families living through different moments of American cultural crisis.

"I had been thinking about the link between luck and empathy," says Dublin Murder Squad series author Tana French about her new standalone mystery, The Witch Elm. In this twisted tale, she looks at what happens when things take a turn for a man who had "gotten all the right coin flips in life."

The year is 1940, and Juliet Armstrong is on the trail of Nazi collaborators. Juliet isn't some MI5 femme fatale; the protagonist of Transcription, a new novel by Kate Atkinson, is just an 18-year-old girl who writes up surveilled sessions between fascist sympathizers. But though she's a minor cog in the war effort among the secret agents, she's soon pulled into bigger things.

Just as her bestselling All Souls trilogy is being adapted for television, Deborah Harkness returns to the world of vampires and witches with Time's Convert. Goodreads talked to the history professor about researching her fantasies, writing a "sequely-prequely thing," and why she's never read Dracula.

Patrick deWitt is known for his quirks in prose, characters, and plotlines. French Exit, his fourth and latest, is a darkly comedic look at how Upper East Side widow Frances Price starts her life over, even as she heads out the door.

After focusing on marriage thrillers with The Couple Next Door and A Stranger in the House, Canadian author Shari Lapena is expanding her list of suspects in the puzzle mystery An Unwanted Guest. She spoke with Goodreads about finding the confidence to write thrillers and her advice for would-be novelists.

A fascination with islands and Shakespeare's The Tempest were among the inspirations for Beatriz Williams' ninth historical novel, The Summer Wives, a story of love, class, and murder set on an elite resort island in the summers of 1951 and 1969.

Two years after enchanting readers with her Beauty and the Beast retelling, Uprooted, Naomi Novik is putting her twist on Rumplestiltskin in Spinning Silver. The former computer programmer talked to Goodreads about fan fiction, procrastination, and being recognized on eBay.

Susan Wiggs is the bestselling author of more than 50 books, including Just Breathe, 11 books in the beloved Lakeshore Chronicles series, and two books in the Bella Vista Chronicles series. She's back this month with Between You and Me.

In Ruth Ware's previous mysteries—The Woman in Cabin 10, In a Dark, Dark Wood, and The Lying Game—women find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. For her new book, The Death of Mrs. Westaway, she says, "I wanted to write about someone who…deliberately walks into a situation and sets out to commit a crime."

"So much of my process is to take a social model, take somebody's fantasy about how the world should be, fulfill it, and then run it so that its flaws start to show, and then keep running it so that it starts to fall apart," says Chuck Palahniuk, who talked to Goodreads about his extreme research for Adjustment Day.

Christopher Moore writes absurdist fiction and satirical comic fantasy, but the labels really don't do him justice. Moore's latest novel, Noir, follows the adventures of Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin, a part-time bartender and good-hearted grifter bouncing around San Francisco circa 1947.

Author Meg Wolitzer's new novel, The Female Persuasion, seems perfectly timed for 2018, with themes including sexual harassment, student activism, and female mentors. "The truth is, these are things I have been thinking about and have been in the world and in the air for a very long time," she says.

Ariel Lawhon's historical fiction novels dig into the mysteries behind real-life times, events, and places that may be familiar to us but whose full stories we can never really know. In her latest novel, I Was Anastasia, Lawhon reinvents the youngest daughter of Russia's doomed Romanov dynasty.

Still Alice author Lisa Genova is back this month with Every Note Played, a novel about an arrogant concert pianist who is diagnosed with ALS. Genova tells Goodreads about her very personal research and the responsibility she feels being a "neuroscientist-novelist."

In Matt Haig's new novel, How to Stop Time, Tom Hazard doesn't like the idea of eternal life. You can't blame him. He's more than 400 years old.

This month, Kristin Hannah is following up on her bestselling WWII novel The Nightingale with The Great Alone, an off-the-grid family saga set in 1974 Alaska. She talked to Goodreads about the pressure of striking literary gold and her love for the 49th state.

Chloe Benjamin's sweeping second novel begins in 1969 as a psychic tells four young siblings the date of their deaths—prophecies that will inform their next fifty years. Benjamin talked to Goodreads about fate, free will, and magic.

Author Josiah Bancroft had an idea for a quirky fantasy novel set in the 19th century. Instead of trying to find a publisher, he self-published Senlin Ascends and worked hard to grow a dedicated fanbase around the novel. Now his novel has been picked up by a major publisher as part of a multi-book deal. Bancroft talks about his slow-burn success.

Actress and author Lauren Graham's Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between) took home his year's Goodreads Choice Award for Humor. Graham tells us about her writing process, her book club, and the best life advice she can offer.

Voters awarded two Goodreads Choice Awards to author Angie Thomas' young adult novel, The Hate U Give. This searing account of a teenage girl whose friend is killed by a police officer won both the Young Adult Fiction and Debut Author categories. Thomas talks to Goodreads about her whirlwind year.

Andy Weir's first novel, The Martian, was a stellar success and was adapted into a hit movie starring Matt Damon. How does he follow that up? With a thriller set on the moon in Artemis.

The author of White Oleander takes readers inside the St. Petersburg bourgeoisie in The Revolution of Marina M. Fitch tells us about her love of Russian history and recommends some great Russian novels.

In her 40-year writing career, Hoffman has written in nearly every genre. Now she's headed back to some of her most beloved characters in The Rules of Magic, a prequel to her tale of modern witches, Practical Magic.

The author of the experimental and Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad writes a "normal" WWII novel about a female Navy diver, a handsome gangster, and a missing father in Manhattan Beach.

Two years after her hit debut, Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng's sophomore effort, Little Fires Everywhere is set to become another success. Ng talked to us about race relations in the 1990s, the power of the subconscious mind, and her fear of writing about her hometown.

The author of Salvage the Bones talks about going back home to Mississippi to write, exploring both history and the supernatural, and the journey at the heart of Sing, Unburied, Sing.

Fresh off the series finale of HBO's adaptation of The Leftovers, Perrotta is back with a look at sex and midlife second-guessing. "I'm very interested in sex and the way that ideas about sex and what's permissible keep changing. So the fun of the book is to take a middle-aged person and plunge them into what is a youthful world of dating and sex," he says.

The author of The Emperor's Children explores the friendship between two girls threatened by impending adulthood in her new book, The Burning Girl. "For everybody—but for girls, certainly—there's a lot of growing up that involves…the word that comes to mind is damage," says Messud.

After her bestselling debut, Behind Closed Doors, the mystery writer is back with her second novel. She confesses that until recently she'd kept her literary success a secret—even from her closest friends.