Welcome Lauren, we’re excited to have you on Reader’s Entertainment. First, tell our readers a bit about yourself. Where you’re from, where you live? Is writing your full-time job?

I was born in Philadelphia and grew up in a town about 40 minutes away, but shortly after I got married, we moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and (with the exception of a couple years where we went back to PA) my family and I have been here ever since. Writing is my full-time job now, although it’s not just writing books. I also write freelance pop culture articles. 

How long have you been writing?

I’m one of those rare writers who did not always dream of being a writer. I was always a voracious reader, but I didn’t get the urge to try my hand at writing a book of my own until around 2012, when my youngest was in preschool. That first book wasn’t good enough to snag me an agent or a publishing deal, but it was enough to get me to fall in love with storytelling, and I’ve been writing ever since. 

 What does your typical writing day look like?

Well right now it’s summer so there is no typical, but during the school year, I wake up in time to see my kids off to school (although my oldest starts college this year, so I guess I’ll just be seeing the one off now!), then I’ll take the dogs for a walk, water my outdoor plants, and then hop onto my treadmill, which I keep under my desk in my office. I’ve found that walking while I’m working makes it SO much easier for me to focus. I try to get in a solid two hours of working on the treadmill before lunch, although I don’t tend to be super creative in the mornings, so this tends to be the time where I catch up on emails, financial stuff, updating my website, that sort of thing. Maybe some writing, especially if I have an article due. After lunch is when I tend to switch gears to creative writing, which I will poke at on and off until around dinner time. Some days, I will head to a coffee shop or cafe to meet up with friends in the mornings and we will work together through lunch or a bit after. But this is all just a very broad generalization; I do change things up a lot, because my brain tends to get pretty fidgety if I try to follow the exact same routine every day. 

Tell us about your latest release, YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE. Where the idea came from? Perhaps some fun moments, or not so fun moments?

My newest release is You Shouldn’t Be Here, about two strangers in an eastern Pennsylvanian town, one who thinks her house is haunted, and the other who is seeking answers about the mysterious disappearance of her cousin. As they each dig into their respective mysteries, they find themselves walking down the same path, putting them both in the crosshairs of the most powerful and dangerous man in town, who will stop at nothing to make sure his secrets stay buried. 

The idea came from my love of haunted house stories, and my morbid fascination with powerful narcissists and high-control groups. I wanted to do a ghost story that was more mystery than horror, more about solving puzzles than freaking people out. And I wanted to tell a story where the question wasn’t so much about identifying the bad guy—that much is obvious from the very beginning—but more about how to hold him accountable. What do you do when you know someone is a villain, but they’ve got all the power and you have none? That’s very interesting to me. 

Could you share one detail from your current release with readers that they might not find in the book?

I have a whole saga about Angie’s mom in my head that didn’t make it into the book. There’s a tiny nod to it in one of the emails at the beginning of a chapter, but there was a lot more detail about what happened to her that I had to cut. Basically, Angie’s mom had a well-paying corporate job in East Henderson, but decided to quit her job, leave her family, and move to L.A. to become an actress. But that’s a lot easier said than done. She got a few commercial credits and small roles in a couple low-budget indie films, but has yet to catch the big break she’d thought was inevitable. But she’s too proud to admit it. All that made it into the final book is that she’s an actress, but in the original version, Bas had some very choice words to say about her life choices. 

Who has been the most difficult character for you to write? Why?

For whatever reason, it’s always the character that is the most like me who winds up being the hardest to write. So in the case of this book, it was Madelyn. I think when I have a lot of things in common with a character, it can be hard to push them, but if I don’t push them, then the story isn’t interesting. So I had to keep going back and amping up Madelyn’s scenes, because I always tried to play it too safe the first time.

If you could be one of your characters for a day which character would it be?

Either Potato or Syzygy. Potato because she’s just the happiest little dog. Everything is always going her way. She has no idea that the rest of the characters in this book are Going Through It. Potato just lives her best life the whole time. I think that would be a nice way to exist.

And then Syzygy is just so cool. They are so confident and smart and just unabashedly themselves. I’ve always been more of a Madelyn—I’m such an anxious overthinker—and I think it would be neat to have one day where I’m just the exact opposite of that in the best way.  

If you could spend the day with your character, what would you do? What would that day look like?

Well it depends on which character! If it’s Madelyn, we’d probably spend a good chunk of time playing with Potato. And maybe talking through a lot of her issues, because honestly she really needs to chill in like nine different ways. 

If it’s Angie, we are probably watching horror movies. I wish my answer was more interesting than that, but we both love watching and discussing horror, so I don’t know why I’d mess with a good thing. 

What’s your take on research and how do you do it?

My take on research is that it’s great, but also I rarely actually WANT to do it. Most of my research for this book actually took place before I started writing it; I tend to get hyper fixations, and had been deeply interested in high-control groups, cults, and narcissistic leaders for a couple years before the idea for You Shouldn’t Be Here came to me. So when I actually started writing about Doug Raymond, most of that research was already done. He was born from my existing special interests. 

But with all the specific stuff that comes up as I write the book, I research as I go. I realized I was going to have a subplot about a corporate construction site, and wound up down a rabbit hole of zoning laws and timelines. I decided someone needed to die, and then suddenly I was researching the process of decomposition. I never know what knowledge I’ll need before I start writing, so I’ve gotten pretty good at Googling as I go. 

Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write?

In a lot of ways, every author I read influences my writing. With amazing writers, I’m always analyzing how they achieved whatever worked for me in their books. And with less amazing writers, I am constantly trying to work out what it is about their writing that isn’t working for me, and thinking of what I could do differently that might be more successful. So I think it’s safe to say that every author I’ve read has been an influence in one way or another. But if we’re going to nod to specific authors, I have to give credit to Michael Crichton and Stephen King, who wrote the vast majority of the books I read as a teenager. I credit them for my love of multi-POV narration, and also my tendency to skew kind of dark in my writing.

I also need to give credit to Robin Hobb, who informed quite a bit of my approach to worldbuilding and pacing. It’s funny, since she tends to write series and I prefer standalones, so you wouldn’t think that a lot of the structure would translate, but when I think about the emotions I’m trying to evoke with my writing, it always comes back to her.  

Do you have a secret talent readers would be surprised by?

Like Madelyn, I majored in Music Education, but while her specialty was just voice, mine was piano, trumpet, and voice! I’m very rusty now, but still have a LOT of opinions on brass performance technique, which most people probably would not expect. 

Your favorite go-to drink or food when the world goes crazy!

Chips and queso blanco, for sure. I can eat my weight in that, or really any chips and dips. For a drink, I love Dr. Pepper Zero if I’m not doing alcohol. If I’m imbibing, then I’m probably going with either white wine (my taste skews sweeter, so I love a Riesling, Moscato, or Savignon Blanc) or a spiced rum (Kraken is my favorite) and either Dr. Pepper Zero or Coke Zero.  

What is your writing kryptonite?

I’m not sure what this means! Do you mean my weakness, which will make it impossible to write, kind of like how kryptonite made it impossible for Superman to do superhero things? In that case, probably social media. I lose so much time to TikTok and Threads. I would have written so many more books if they didn’t exist. 

What is the one question you never get ask at interviews, but wish you did? Ask and answer it.

This is hard, because I’ve been asked so many great questions in interviews! But I think I’ll go with: what is your main piece of advice for anyone who hopes to get their work published someday? And I’m picking that question because it took me a really long time to get published. Eight years after signing with my agent, who is an absolute rockstar. So I had to learn to be very, very patient, and how to enjoy writing even when I was the only one who would see that story, and how to keep finding the motivation to move forward without contracts or outside readers. So my advice is twofold. One, is never stop reading. Read constantly, read diversely, and always read like a writer. In other words, always try to learn something from what you’re reading. And then secondly, practice celebrating other people’s success. It took me a very long time to sell a book. And the only way I managed to keep from spiraling out of control was by learning how to be genuinely happy for my friends who achieved their goals before I did. If I’d constantly been comparing my progress to theirs, or treating it like a competition, I never would have lasted in this business. Publishing can be ruthless. I think the only way to stay in it for a significant period of time is to learn to be genuinely happy for other writers’ successes, and to understand that every journey is different. There will always be other writers who have something that I want, but jealousy does nothing to get me closer to having it. This whole process is easier and happier when we can celebrate one another’s accomplishments. 

WOW, what a great piece of advice! Thank you for joining us today, and for spending a dog with Potato! 

Reader’s here is a quick look at YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE……

Two strangers search for the truth behind bizarre occurrences no one else dares to discuss—only to discover that they’re connected by secrets that could destroy them both. A thrilling and twisty novel by the acclaimed author of the Mindy’s Book Studio pick I’ll Stop the World.

When sixteen-year-old Angie Stewart starts hearing a mysterious voice in her house, she’s thrilled at the possibility of a ghost. Finally, something interesting is happening in her boring hometown of East Henderson, Pennsylvania. But why is she the only one who can hear it? And what does it want from her?

Meanwhile, first-year teacher Madelyn Zhao just got the keys to her new home, which is located close to her job, within walking distance of a dog park—and, most importantly, in the town where her cousin went missing several years ago. No one in East Henderson wants to talk about what happened, but Madelyn is determined to find answers.

As the two strangers search for clues, their investigations begin to point toward the same dark place. But by the time they realize that the truth could be deadly, it’s too late to turn back. And someone out there will stop at nothing to make sure their secrets stay buried.