Never lie to the reader: Megan Collins on writing a twisty thriller

In a special book club edition of The Curious Cat Bookshop Podcast, we recently hosted thriller author Megan Collins shortly after the release of her newest thriller, Cross My Heart, about a woman who becomes obsessed with the husband of the donor of her recent heart transplant. We had a lot of fun--but beware that there is a spoiler zone at the end of the podcast! 

Buy a copy of Cross My Heart here (limited number of signed copies available upon request)

About Cross My Heart:

She has his wife’s heart; the one she wants is his.

Rosie Lachlan wants nothing more than to find The One.

A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, she’s working at her parents’ bridal salon, anxious for a happy ending that can’t come soon enough. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect, ostensibly to learn more about Daphne. But Rosie has a secret: She’s convinced that now that she has his wife’s heart, she and Morgan are meant to be together.

As she and Morgan correspond, the pretense of avoiding personal details soon disappears, even if Rosie’s keeping some cards close to her chest. But as she digs deeper into Morgan’s previous marriage, she discovers disturbing rumors about the man she’s falling for. Could Morgan have had something to do with his late wife’s death? And can Rosie’s heart sustain another break—or is she next?

Transcript

0:00

And I really feel like you sort of find your voice by trying to mimic certain people and failing at that. And then like the way that you fail sort of becomes your voice. And it's just like, you have to trust that process that, you know, nobody can write the story you're going to write from this particular viewpoint that you're going to write it because you're the only one that has lived whatever experience you've had. And I also really like to say, I think it's really, really important. to identify like what is it about writing that brings you joy or peace or comfort or whatever it is. And to make sure that you always hold onto that because publishing can be such a brutal industry and such a brutal journey. There's so many highs and lows and it's really important to be able to come back to why you're doing this in the first place and like what it is that first made you love it because when like the outside things, the external things come into it, they can make it like something kind of unrecognizable at times. Welcome to the Curious Cat Bookshop podcast, the podcast of the independent bookstore of Winsted, Connecticut, bringing our local authors to the world and the world to our community in Northwest Connecticut. welcome, everybody, to the Curious Cat Bookshop. I'm Stacy Whitman. I'm the owner. And this is the Curious Cat Bookshop podcast, as well as our book club. As I talked, we talked about before the before we started the event. We've got about half and half of people who have read the book and who haven't. So we're going to go from non-spoiler zone to spoiler zone toward the end. And I think we'll have the signing in between so that anybody who is like, don't want any spoilers, can feel free to excuse themselves. And then we'll have a spoiler conversation at the end. And then just in general, we've got a lot of. stuff going on. So if you want to know what's going on here, you can subscribe to our email list if you are aren't already on it. Aren't already on it and or you can go to our website, which is curiouscatbookshop.com. And then there's an events tab where you can find out what's going on with that. I am going to introduce Megan. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me! And you're the author of Cross My Heart, which just came out, but also The Family Plot, Thicker Than Water, The Winter Sister, and I think we're missing one. Behind the Red Door. Behind the Red Door. And you have a BFA in creative writing from Boston University. But MFA, BFA. think I read Boston in the... That's fine. The bee went in there. Sorry about that. You've won a bunch of awards and we had, I have had such fun reading this. I am not done yet either. So like I'm okay with spoilers. That's just the nature of the job, but you're here local in Connecticut and we thank you for coming. Thank so much for having me. I've been wanting to stop by for so long, but we're like an hour away, so it just hasn't happened yet. So if I'm just like while I'm talking, looking around, I'm just trying to everything in. Well, I'm glad that you were able to make the trip. It's a rainy night outside and you are not the only one who has nighttime driving. I think you get to a certain age, capital C, capital A, and all of us just kind of lose our ability to see things at night. I've got the wrong notes up here, just a moment. To start out with every writer, I love to talk about their early writing journey. When did you know that you were a writer and what was your journey to become a published writer? I mean I knew since I was like six years old that this was what I wanted to do I wrote like a little short story about some naughty cats and I named it the bad cats and then and then later I had a story in like third grade about a naughty dog and it was some issues with dog so I was always just writing about like misbehaving animals I guess but I knew right away from then that this was what I wanted to do and So I was just like writing my whole life through high school and then college. I studied English with a concentration in creative writing and actually most, I did take fiction writing classes then, but my major focus was poetry. And then I got my MFA in creative writing and poetry in particular. And then as soon as I got out of my MFA program, I started writing novels. Cause I had kind of always known that I didn't want to just do one thing. I wanted to be able to do whatever was speaking to me at the time, but I really did have this dream of like being a novelist as well. So I was writing poetry, I was writing novels, and I wrote a couple that, you know, I had a literary agent for, they were submitting it, didn't sell, and then while that was happening I was working on what became my debut, The Winter Sister, and I always tell this story that it got to be like... six months of we were on submission with it and I just said like I don't think it's gonna happen like I thought this was maybe third time's the charm but I just don't think it is and then two days later I got an email from my agent saying an editor from Simon & Schuster wants to talk to you and so it did it happened and I've been writing these books with that same publisher ever since and and yeah that's kind of my whole journey. Awesome. So tell us about your MFA because I hear a lot from people who were in MFA programs and I got an Master... A Master in Children's Literature that is not an MFA. It's an MA. Thank you. It's been one of those days where I'm like, why am I interviewing somebody because my words are not here tonight. But I hear from people who are in writing programs that generally genre is frowned upon. in their programs and so like you focused on poetry were you writing mystery at the same time or what no how was that journey was writing, at that point I was just writing poetry because it was a very intense program. It was only like a year and a couple months more. so, but I did, I felt that feeling of like I would, before class I would be reading novels and then my classmates would see me as they were streaming in and there were only nine people in our program. It was really small and they would always be like, it's so weird how you are always reading novels. And I'd be like, is it? Like we're writers, why is that weird? But there was this like, definitely this feeling of like, you know, I don't wanna say anything bad about my program. I had a really great time. It was so useful for me, but there is sometimes this attitude of like, there are certain tiers of writing. and if you're not doing that then you are like sort of slumming it and selling out, i.e. Yeah. And I mean, I didn't even actually set out to be a thriller author. just wrote those first two books that I wrote that never sold. They weren't thrillers. They had suspense in them, but more like family drama type suspense. I haven't read The Winter Sister. Is that a thriller? Yeah, but when I started writing that I was not thinking I'm writing a murder mystery. I'm writing a thriller It wasn't until my publisher started marketing it as one that I was like, Right. Okay. Yes. That's what this is and it had never occurred to me because I was just following the story that I wanted to tell but then Once I was in that lane and publishing likes you to stay in the lane that you start in I was like, okay, I'm going to have a lot of fun with this. Like, how can I lean in and be even darker and creepier and like, and just play into kind of what people expect with those kinds of books and do my own thing with it. And yeah, so that's, so I love being in the thriller space and I love that. I like, I always say that you can write about the biggest themes like love, guilt, forgiveness, jealousy, betrayal, all those things. and just have these crazy situations happening and it's just so much fun. So tell us about your writing process because I imagine that writing a mystery is not always the most linear process or is it for you? So my process is that I start with like the premise that is interesting to me. Which usually starts with like a what if type question. Like, hmmm, now I can't think of maybe none of these started with. Cross My Heart started with actually years ago like 2009, 2008 maybe, I came across this article about somebody whose husband had passed away and then his heart had been donated to somebody. And then those two people, the widow and the guy who got his heart, made a connection and like made this like beautiful friendship. And I was so fascinated by that and I kind of couldn't get that out of my head. And so I started writing what would have been just like a love story between those two types of people. And then I abandoned it after like three pages because I always did that back then. But once I was in the thriller space, that idea, that connection with the heart transplant was still in my head. And I would just think about it sometimes. And it's just such a unique connection that most people will never have with somebody. But it's also probably very emotionally complicated and fraught and it's very intimate at same time. So at a certain point, maybe a few books in, I thought of, well, here's how I could make it so that that was a thriller premise. So maybe the heart transplant recipient becomes romantically obsessed with her donor's husband and maybe there's questions that he might have killed his wife and that's how she has her heart in the first place. So once I had that idea, I was really, really excited about that. I guess everything about this one is a little different from my usual process, so it's not the best example, but. From there, I then thought of what would be a really cool thing I thought to happen in the middle of the book, and if people have read it, they know what I mean. But usually my process is actually that once I figure out the premise and the characters and all that, I have to figure out the ending so that I know where I'm going. Then I figure out what is that midpoint gonna be that's either some kind of twist or reveal or something that sends the characters in a new direction, something that ups the stakes. And then I go back and go, okay, so how do I get from the premise to that midpoint? Then how do I get from the midpoint to the ending? And then with Cross My Heart, it was a little more linear that I was like, okay, I have the premise, I know what the midpoint is, and now I have to figure out what the ending is and then go back and kind of fill all that stuff in. goodness, what was the other that raised? Oh! this is a little bit of a tangent, but we've talked about this on social media at one point because when you said my thriller is coming out, I was like, you mean like Return to Me? and you hadn't seen it? Have you guys seen return to me? Yes. So David Duchovny. Why don't you love me... me. Now, every time I see this, I just think, Grace has Bob's dead wife's heart. Which is a completely different story. Like it is a romantic comedy, you know, love letter to Chicago kind of thing. But I love that your book is the same premise, but it's just so different even though it's the same premise. And let's talk about that because there are so many different books that you can You could boil it down to the same premise, but they are so different. Have you experienced that, in your writing where somebody's like, you mean like, and it's something completely different? Well, this was the first time actually that that happened because and like I said, I know I had like vaguely heard of that movie, but I'd never seen it, which I guess is good because I wouldn't have wanted to like have that in my mind as I was writing. But it's really interesting because I built this story to kind of be like that Rosie, the main character, she believes she's living a rom-com and she's super excited about that. And like she thinks this is her Meg Ryan moment. and that this is just gonna be the best thing ever. But she soon discovers she's in a thriller and like that there's bad things happening all around. And so it was really fun to play with that and like what does that look like where the character thinks she's in one story and doesn't yet realize what the story she's really in is. And so there are certain like rom-com conventions in it like with like a meet queue and like. There's this sort of supposed to be anonymous correspondence happening between Rosie and her donor's husband, except she through some different ways has figured out who he is. He does not know he's talking to her. So in that way, it's a little bit like you've got mail, but a much darker version. And that was really fun. I'd never done anything like that. My other books are all about very twisted, dysfunctional families. And this was the first one where I actually was like, okay, I've done this dysfunctional family thing a lot. Like, what if she just had really good parents and like... I love her parents. They're sweet. who just like stayed married their whole time. And like, how could that also mess her up? And I thought that was really fun to do. Because usually I'm like, I'm putting in these terrible parents in my books to give them like lots of good... childhood trauma that manifests in interesting ways later on. And I'm like, how could it also mess you up to have... make that's very early in the book with it he says he he was very happy that his wife who passed had endured so much it so and that was like I love the best friend saying, that is a red flag yep But she's like, no, no, he doesn't mean it like that, which is their whole relationship. Her best friend's always like, Ummmm, Rosie.... She's trying to pull her back. And Rosie's like, no, we're meant to be together. So now we're going to open it up for the book club part of it. So I'm just going to pass the mic for anybody who has a question to ask. So I just really loved the book and the twists and turns and I thought I was just curious like with Rosie, you know, I find sometimes it's hard to when reading books to have a character that has flaws but also make them relatable. And she reminded me of a lot of times that I like to forget, you where I would be like a little maybe too guy obsessed. So I was just curious for you, like, is there anything like you think through when you're doing character development and how do I approach the real flaws of a character, but in a way that's not so off putting to the audience that they actually are drawn more in. And there's also these qualities that you're still rooting for this while you're, while at the same time, there's so many, obviously questions that you kind of line where there's a lot of. Wait, what? What is going on with her? But I just was curious about the general character development for her. Yeah, thank you. That's a great question. Rosie definitely has been my favorite protagonist to write because of kind of walking that line with her. And in fact, I was really scared in the first draft to go as far with her as I think I needed to. And so when I turned it into my elder, I think I showed her like the first half. And she was like, she's not really coming off as obsessive or like she just seemed kind of normal. And I was like, well, I just have your voice in my head, like telling me that the protagonist needs to be relatable and people need to be rooting for them. And she's like, okay, well forget that. And I was like, but you always say that readers need to, and she's like, don't think of any potential readers, like just do what this story needs, which is for her to be a little bit unhinged. And. And then that was like so fun that I basically had her permission to just be weirder with it. But I also knew, like I wanted her to be someone you're kind of side-eyeing, but at the same time, she needs to be a character that people want to invest their time in and go on this journey with her. Because otherwise, what's the point of writing the book if they just like two chapters in? They're like, no. So what I did was, well, a couple of things. One, I knew that there had to be something like really positive about her and so I knew from the start that she was going to Be like a really good like she has a really good heart. No pun intended like she She just she cares about people so much. She's so empathetic She sees somebody needs something or is hurting and she wants to help them and that is kind of a lot of times her saving grace and like with her own people in her life, like that's what brings them back to her and like, okay, we can deal with these like sort of weird things that you're doing. But the other thing was, I mean you mentioned the ways that you could kind of like reluctantly relate to her and I often say that she is, she like in a lot of ways represents like my own worst romantic impulses of my 20s just like turned up several notches. So I went back to like my old like Things that I look back at now and I'm like, well, why did you put up with that? Why did you do that? And I was like, and how can I take that and then just turn it up a little so that it's even like a little more. And so I think that the thing is that a lot of people have those kinds of behaviors in the past or regrets about ways they let people treat them that they shouldn't have. And I also think at the root of her, she just wants love and she just wants somebody to be there for her. And then of course, she has this huge trauma in her life of having this heart transplant. it was just about putting these pieces together that there was enough to be sympathetic about and enough to be like, what are you doing about? But sort of hopefully in a way where you're like, what are you doing and I need to see what you will do because I'm not, I don't know if I trust you. Like you're cringing a little, but not too much. Yeah, my favorite thing is when people say that they were torn at times between wanting to hug her and wanting to smack some sense into her. And I'm like, that is exactly how I want people to feel. I personally adore her. She was so fun to write. I have so much, I just feel like at one point or another, we're all that person who just, whether it's when you're a kid with friends or friends that you're trying to make and you feel left out and you're kind of like Pretending you like a certain band to be in with the cool kids or if it is in a romantic situation where you're kind of like Pretending you like another thing because they do as she kind of does that a lot I just think that we we've all had that sort of thing even if it wasn't a big problem or anything in our lives and so for me that's like I feel so protective of her because of that because at the beginning and throughout the story she hasn't realized yet that all she wants is to find someone to love her and she hasn't realized that the most important love maybe that she can have is for herself and this is about her hopefully getting there. I love that. I just want to make a note for anybody who is unfamiliar with our space. If you're hearing thumps from next door, it's because there's a golf simulator next door. they're not, nothing nefarious is happening next door. Any other, anybody else want to ask a question? What kind of research did you do for this book? So I had to do a lot of research about heart transplants and heart transplant recipients and what it is, what it's like before they get it, what it's like after they get it. I did a lot of just random internet research where I'd be like, I suddenly have a question and I just look it up. But my main source that I went back to a ton and had little sticky notes out of all the time was this book called Sick Girl by Amy Silverstein. It's a memoir and she wrote about how when she was in her 20s she had a situation that's kind of similar to, I mean kind of similar because I sort of based Rosie's off of it, where she was in her 20s and like she kind of very quickly got sick and doctors were sort of being like, don't know, I don't know and then like very urgently like you need to get to the hospital and then she got on the transplant list and all that. So that was really helpful in understanding you know what leads to this kind of thing especially if it's not something like with Rosie that she didn't know that she had any problem. But the thing that was most helpful to me in that book was actually like her journey after the transplant because like I won't speak for everybody but I kind of always I didn't really think about it much but I kind of thought like if you get a transplant and it goes okay and your body doesn't reject it, like you're good now and you can go live your life. Which is not really the case, I learned, that you're kind of always sick for the rest of your life and that's why the memoir is called Sick Girl because it's not that she was sick and then got the transplant and then she went on. It's that, yes, she went on to have like a very full life but there was never a day where she wasn't battling that, where her medicine wasn't making her feel sick, where she didn't feel like she suddenly needed to like lay down while on a walk with her family or something. And so it was really important to me to get that into the story and into Rosie's experience because it's also what is making her feel like this need for love and need for romantic partner is so urgent because she knows that her heart, her new heart will only last maybe 10 or 15 years, that also she could get sick from the medication that she's taking. And so I wanted to pepper in like sort of that experience of you know her there's a part about how like her face looks different now because of the medication that she's on like it's rounder and You know a part where she's like sort of nauseous from the medication but at the same time like I Couldn't be too realistic to it because she still needed to Move the story along and not just be in bed the whole time. So yeah, that was an invaluable resource for me, I just, learned so much in the process and one of my favorite things, well it wasn't my favorite at the time, but in retrospect it's my favorite, one of my favorite things that I learned was that, and this is in the book, when you have a heart transplant then you have what's called a denervated heart and that means that you don't feel adrenaline rushes in real time, so that if somebody were to like jump out at you and you know normally you'd be like, you wouldn't have that. it would be like maybe 10 minutes later, maybe an hour later when you're totally calm, your heart would just start racing. And so that presented this huge writing challenge for me. Right. But also my, and I've known this for a while, my writing crutch gesture in my thrillers is like to always describe what the protagonist's heart is doing, like, and her heart sped up, her heart hammered, her heart knocked. And then I always have to go back and do a search for heart and get rid of 30 instances. But since I knew this going into it, I was like, actually I had written something where her heart did something. And then I was like, it wouldn't do that. And so I had to, and that was early on, and then I was like, my God, I don't have my crotch. So I had to find new ways to still express that she was kind of panicked or feeling anxious, which was great because now I feel a little cured of it. I mean, we'll see. I'll probably go right back to it. But yeah. And that all came from just like the research and things I didn't know. Which of your books is your favorite and which one has proven to be the most popular? That's such a good question. It's such a hard question. Well, most popular, the Family Plot. I was really lucky that when the paperback came out, it was one of Barnes and Noble's monthly picks, which was just like a huge way for it to get attention. And so That's definitely the one I think the most people have read. It's really hard to pick a favorite. like, which one almost killed me the most? That would be Thicker Than Water. I mean, Winter's Sister I'll always have a very special place in my heart for because it was the first one. But I do think it's a tie. Well, no, and then there's Behind the Red Door, which isn't here. I really love Behind the Red Door because there's a character in that that was one of my favorites that I've ever written because he is just so like what? It's the, it's not a spoiler, it's the father character so if you were to read that. But he was, I just love, like when people ask me like who's your favorite character in this book or this book, I'm always giving the answer that's like the worst person in the book because like they're just so fun to write. because you get to have them say the things that you would never say, do the things you would never do, never want to do, but it's just fun to play in that space. So that one was really fun. But I don't know, I think, and it might be the newness factor, but I think it might be across my heart, just because one, this book felt very magical in the creation of it, which I didn't realize at the time, in that I didn't have any huge issues writing it. We were just talking, my friend Maureen and I were just talking before that usually like I make my poor husband like we go on these walks with our dogs and I'm like, okay, so here's my problem today. And I like narrate what's happening and then I'm like, okay, so now like how do I, okay, so give me ideas. And he'll give me ideas and I'll be like, no, that doesn't work. Like, and I get so frustrated, poor, like he's just being so helpful. Then finally he'll say something and I'll be like, okay, yeah, maybe. And I just didn't need to do that for this one, which I'm sure he's like, thank God. So something about the story just like came together in a way where I was able to plot it and feel pretty confident about the plotting and just thought I was having so much fun with the voice and playing with the kind of mixed media element with it because there's emails and messages and text messages and all that. And I just really, I feel like this book has been in me for so long. Like I mentioned. that I tried to write a love story-ish version of it a long time ago. And I really know that it was meant to not happen like that. It was meant to be written now at this point in my life when I could look back at certain experiences that I've had, use those experiences, things that I've witnessed about the world. And yeah, so for all those reasons, I think it's this one. But again, it could be just newness bias. When can I do spoiler questions? Before we get there, was going to ask you, so like this one you started, I think you said 2009 or something like that. Do a lot of your books take a long time to percolate or does it vary? It definitely, I mean this was the longest by far. Yeah, I guess maybe now that I'm thinking about it, they really don't usually do that. Like with the other ones, I would just get the idea and then start kind of working on it. Whereas this one was one that was a completely different genre to start and then just kind of kept coming back and coming back. And which is another reason I feel so special, I feel like to me, that it has been something that like was in me for so long. Anybody else have any non-spoiler questions? Well, I'll have one last question and then, okay. We'll end with my last question, because I want you guys to be able to ask as much as possible. The writer in this likes quiet. What environment do you prefer for writing and where? I have a home office which is just like a basically guest room that I've put my desk in and that has too many pictures of Taylor Swift although can there be too many I don't think so. So I work in there. pretty much exclusively, like I wish I could go to a cafe. Like that seems so wonderful and cozy and comforting, but I actually can't have the noise and all that. I can't listen to music when I write because it just like, a lot of what I'm doing when I'm writing is like finding the right rhythm of the sentences and the right cadence. And I think that comes from my poetry background. And so, you know, if there's some other rhythm and cadence in my head, can't, I can't really access that sort of. So yeah, it's in the quiet of my office, surrounded by Taylor Swift things, because I'm very inspired by her as a writer, and I just love her. My she's awesome. Yes, exactly. With my dogs trotting in to tell me like, what are you doing, pet me instead? And yeah, that's usually. I don't know how many of you in the book club are also thinking about writing, but I always love to ask our authors, what advice would you give to somebody who is a little bit earlier on the journey of writing? How do they find their voice or how do they figure out their path in writing? So the thing that I always say, I think it's going to sound really obvious, but it's still so important. Like reading widely is very important. So not just reading in the genre that you think you might want to write, but also reading in all of the genres basically because they can all teach you something. And I always use the example of, you know, I'm writing thrillers obviously, but in all of my books there's relationships, whether they're romantic or familial or between friends and so like reading romance really helps with that because romance is all about relationships and like the banter between people and the conflicts there. So that really helps with that. And yeah, so I think that's super important. And I really feel like you sort of find your voice by trying to mimic certain people and failing at that. And then like the way that you fail sort of becomes your voice. And it's just like... you have to trust that process that, you know, nobody can write the story you're going to write from this particular viewpoint that you're going to write it because you're the only one that has lived whatever experience you've had. And yeah, so read widely. And I also really like to say that if people are thinking about, like, starting to write and they are wanting, like, to be on a path towards publication, I think it's really, really important. at the beginning to identify like what is it about writing that brings you joy or peace or comfort or whatever it is and to make sure that you always hold on to that because publishing can be such a brutal industry and such a brutal journey journey there's so many highs and lows and it's really important to be able to come back to why you're doing this in the first place and and like what it is that first made you love it because when like the outside things, the external things come into it, they can make it like something kind of unrecognizable at times. And so it's really important to just like, as they say, remember your why in certain things. Although I always, in certain contexts, that's sort of a toxic phrase. It's like a corporate thing, but yeah. of thing. Any last non-spoiler questions before we go ahead with the signing portion of things? Okay, we're going to pause then and feel free to take a look at the books. I'm going to move this stuff and pause the recording and we will come back for spoilers after the signing. also have stickers if you guys got a book and they go with the book. One of them says, I had them designed specifically for the book. This one says, heart of gold but a little unhinged, which is Rosie. And then I have one that says, I look in people's windows, which is also Rosie and a Taylor Swift reference. It's also you right Yeah, I do look at people's Look, if I'm walking at night and their window, their lights are on and the blinds are up, like that's my business. You have made it my business. Beware after this point, there are spoilers. The floor is yours, spoiler people. Okay, we're ready now. So I was curious, like as you're going through the different storylines, like I know at one point I was like, is she having a fugue moment? Like is this really her? Like and I'm going and I read a lot of like we read some like fantasy and sci-fi so I'm like, is the heart taking over? Like is she being possessed? So I think, like, did you, like, when you were talking about defining the ending, was it already solid for you, or did you actually falter back and forth in the middle section of, maybe I will lean in this way, no, this way, until you finally settled on where it was going? I feel like this is going to be a disappointing answer after all that really greatly worded question. But yeah, no, I always knew, I mean, I knew. I knew who did it, I knew that, and then I just kind of had to figure out the mechanics of it and how she would find that out. But it's so funny because I've been able to do a few book club type things where we get to talk spoilers, which is always super fun because normally I'm like, and now I can't say any more about that. And like the theories that people tell me that they had, like my favorite one is when they're like, I think Daphne was never, like they thought Daphne might have never been dead and then they had the moment where they're like, but. then she wouldn't have her heart. And the whole story wouldn't happen. Yeah, and people were like, I thought like nobody was real. I thought she didn't really exist. There were moments where people thought maybe the whole story was like Morgan writing this book and like Rosie was a character that Morgan had, which like those things were kind of intentional. Well, they were definitely intentional to to play with that. And also, like the way that the book is structured, I wanted the first half of the book to be like The reader wondering who is more a danger to whom? Is Rosie more of a danger to Morgan or is Morgan more of a danger to Rosie? And at the beginning it maybe seems like Rosie might be, then as we're learning more we're like, Rosie, don't get near this guy and it might be Morgan. Then the middle happens and you're like, okay, none of that is what I thought. And then there's a moment where Rosie's like, I've never even seen that man in person. And the reader maybe is like, Are you not well? And then the kind of challenge and the thing I wanted to play with was what is the reader going to think about her in terms of her reliability as a narrator? We already knew in the first half that she's not the most reliable narrator of her own life, but now is she getting credibility back now that we know that the situation wasn't what we thought it was? Or that's when then there's the reveal about Brad and the wedding dress and the engagement that never actually happened. And so I wanted it to be like, she's getting more credibility and then it's like, no. So I just wanted to keep playing with that pretty much as long as I could. And so it's not that I was considering these other big, huge twists or anything. It was just that I wanted to like, keep the reader sort of as off kilter as I could and just like what are the little ways that what are the little things I can do to do that. But seriously the the the theories that people have I'm always like that would have been a really good story. Well, it definitely worked because she read it before I did and when I first started it, I texted her and I said, this woman's crazy. then halfway through I'm like, I'm so confused. I don't know what's happening. And I had just finished reading a book of dissociative identity disorder. So that's where my line was going. I'm like. Does she have multiple personalities? What is happening? So I loved that part because I love being caught off guard and trying to guess and I figured it out towards the end but it took a while to get there. Yeah, my favorite kinds of, my favorite. No, I just want to say that I actually did think that it was fake. Not fake. I thought that whatever part, maybe one third of the way through, quarter of way through that when we were reading his emails, I'm like, wait a minute, he's like... this is fiction. This is in his mind. then when it came out, I was definitely caught off guard by that. And I really liked that. Thank you. Yeah, my favorite kinds of twists are the ones where you kind of are like, wait, that's just not true. And then you have to go back. And then as you're going back, you're like, and you're seeing things you didn't see before. And actually, that was a reason I didn't write this book for a while. Like, I thought of this idea several years ago, and I thought of that twist. But I was like, I don't know if... Like, I can do that. Like, maybe some other writer should do that. And I was really intimidated by it. And then it just kind of came out of necessity that I had pitched something to my publisher and they were like, no, we don't want that. What else you got? I was like, I don't know. And then I'm like, I guess maybe it's time to develop this idea that's kind of been on the back burner. And so I kind of had to. And then it was so much fun to do. so, but I think, you know, I've said that it like needed all the time that it needed to kind of cook in the back of my head, but one thing that was really important to me as I was plotting it out and imagining how would I make this twist work is that I never wanted Rosie to lie to the reader because I feel like I have read that kind of twist where you go back and you're like, but you said this and that means that that is not true and like, and I get really frustrated. So I, you know, she is always speaking from a very honest place. It's just, you know, with the way it's structured and things and like that's sort of the, like, I kept thinking of it as... Yeah. And the reader's perception because of the way they're being fed the story. Like, I kept thinking of it as like sleight of hand writing. And so I'd have to, you know, if she said something to the reader and it sounded like it was talking about an in-person experience we'd seen between Morgan and Rosie, then it had to... also be true of an experience she'd had with him on the messages or like, and so if you know, the Taylor Swift, she's a fan of Taylor Swift, I'm a fan of Taylor Swift, so like there's obviously that reason. But another thing was like, I was like okay well, well she would be a fan of Taylor Swift because she's had a lot of heartache and Taylor's really there for you when you've had your heartache. But also I needed an artist that was like believably like beloved by that. demographic enough that like Edith loves Taylor and she loves Taylor so that when he's talking to Rosie about Taylor and then in the next chapter real Rosie says something about Taylor and thinking about Morgan you think back to okay she's thinking about that because of this but it's like yeah so it was a lot of that and see when I talk about it and this was what would happen when I talked to my editor about it before when we were still kind of like planning things out I'd be like okay so then real Rosie but then like fake Rosie and it just was a was a mess. And so I kind of was like, this is such a hard book to like, because when I'm putting together a proposal, I have to put together like a very short, like a five page synopsis. It's a whole book, like all the, all the everything. And I was like, I feel like I just need to write it to show you what it is. Like, I don't know how to do this. I did, but yeah, it's so it gets very like, so yeah. Do you think that Rosie's broken heart was the catalyst for her heart issue? Like, she had a broken heart? I mean, I think that, I think, you know, from a scientific perspective, I don't think so. I think it was that she, it's mentioned very briefly that she had like something that she was born with that just was never detected. But I did want it to coincide with that huge heartbreak because I wanted there to be those moments where Like she says that she would, her parents would see how she was feeling and her mom would say like, you're making yourself sick by being in bed and crying about all this. And she's like, right, no, I am sick because he said I was crazy and that's a sickness. And like, so that it would all kind of warp together in her mind. And so like the trauma of the heart transplant for her like can't really be separated from the trauma of. that relationship ending and it not being what she thought it was. So it is like emotionally it's all tied together, but I think medically speaking it probably isn't. Well, yeah, because I came in and she's like, I haven't finished yet. was like, my gosh, I want to save so much more. So now I'm waiting for spoilers. So I did want to just comment on some of the things that I just thought that was brilliant in that meet cue that you just, the way you wrote it, you just assume it's real Rosie. And then when I realized it wasn't, I was like, wait a minute. like to, you know, just how you even described it now and the thought that you put into of these little connectors so that the story could have gone either way. But you're, but you also sit there go, what is the likelihood that all this would happen? And even her, her like, I think she was receiving it felt like Rosie was questioning herself at one point, like what, what is going on? So I just wanted to just come at it. I that was so great. And then just ask you like, were there other twists? or turns or other ideas that you were thinking of that didn't make it into the book? Well, first of all, thank you for all that really nice stuff that you said. Were there other twists and turns? I don't think so. I think it's all in there. I mean, I didn't want, because I knew that the midpoint twist was such a, I think when we talk about thrillers, we oftentimes call things twists that aren't twists, like that are actually just reveals. Like a true twist is something that makes you see that the story you thought you were in is not the story you're actually in. You're in a different story. And so I think the real like, like a like Gone Girl is like the big like major example of that. Like we thought it was one thing, then the midpoint hits and we're like, okay. And I think so in that respect that those like huge twists should actually be pretty rare because you don't want to keep turning the story on its head for the reader. Although you want there to then after that still be lot of surprises and things and big reveals. But yeah, I mean, other than like now in retrospect, people telling me these like theories that they had and I'm like, that could have been a really fun thing to do. I don't know if it would have made sense, but yeah, but no, think it's all in there as I imagined it. So when we were discussing the end of the book, she was like, she's going to go on now and kind of stalk the policeman. And I was like, well, I kind of thought maybe he reciprocated her feelings and maybe it would all work out. Did you intend to do that, make us wonder? Well, it's funny. We were just talking about that before. Because so when I first sent the proposal to my editor and had the whole thing down into five pages. It ended with her getting to the point she gets to right before that last section where she's like, I'm going to invest in me and I'm going to focus on myself. I was like, what a nice place for her to end up. Then my editor was like, cool, cool, cool. What if you made it darker? I was like, say less. Yes, I will do that. So she had had this idea to. in the end, there's some, she was like, it could be a couple sentences, it could be one paragraph, but just something that makes it seem like she's gonna fall back on those habits. And so, I didn't wanna just have it be this random person that she suddenly starts. I wanted it to be somebody who had organically kinda come into her life and that she's starting to see these threads with the way she did, like she was friends with his sister as a kid, so that gets her going. And so my intention, is that it's more sounds like what you were saying that that she's going to have this new fixation and like it's probably not the greatest and one reason I loved doing that was because I think we have to learn our lessons so many times like we're always we get to that point that like strong place where we're like yeah I'm just going to focus on myself and then something happens and we slide right back and you kind of have to go through these cycles of doing that a few times before it sticks so I liked that that spoke to that but I've had a lot of people where it's been split like that. Some are like, yeah, Rosie. And then some are like, Rosie, yes, this is good. And so I didn't intend it to be the Rosie thing. if that's, I always say that the reader brings their experience to the story and their desires to the story and makes it a new story. So if that's what you want, that's the ending. It was a happy ending. They're going to have a great relationship. I love that. We're almost out of time, so we'll go ahead and end there. Thank you so much for coming, you guys. I think this was just such a great conversation and I'm glad we were able to have a little bit of spoiler time. Am I forgetting anything? I don't remember. Where can people, since this is the podcast part, where can people find you online? Tell us your website and your social media. I am @megancollinswriter on Instagram, TikTok threads, like Bluesky I guess, but I don't really use it. And my website is megancollins.com, which has like my events and like any news on and yeah. And anyone who is listening to this after the fact, can order the book from us at curiouscatbookshop.com and we'll link to it below wherever you're listening to this. And we might have signed copies for a limited time. We've got a few left here. So ask us about it if you're ordering it. We may or may not, depending on when you order it and when you're listening to this. Thank you everybody for coming. Thank you so much for having me. That was so fun. Thank you guys. were such good questions. I really love the chance to talk. Spoiler.