with Wendy Corsi Staub
We are delighted to welcome novelist Wendy Corsi Staub to Omnimystery News today.
Wendy's new suspense thriller is The Perfect Stranger (Harper; July 2014 mass market paperback, audiobook and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to chat with her about her books.
— ♦ —
Omnimystery News: Give us an overview of your books to date.
Photo provided courtesy of
Wendy Corsi Staub
Wendy Corsi Staub: Because I write domestic psychological suspense novels, my characters are ordinary people who unexpectedly cross paths with danger, often because they're simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. How many times is a stay-at-home mom going to have a run-in with a serial killer? You can pull that off once and make it believable — twice can be a stretch. Most of my plots don't lend themselves to repeat characters, with the notable exception of two recent trilogies I did for HarperCollins. In Live To Tell, Scared To Death, and Hell To Pay, two families are revisited by peril in a complex and organic way. The story arc that unfolds in Nightwatcher, Sleepwalker, and Shadowkiller opens on a pivotal moment: September 10, 2001 in New York City. The first book follows the heroine, hero, and an NYPD detective on the trail of an opportunistic predator wreaking havoc upon New Yorkers in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. In the second book, we meet the trio again a decade later when they learn that either the wrong killer was convicted — or they're being targeted by a cunning copycat. That book ends with a bombshell revelation that opens the door to the final installment, which is half prequel, throwing readers back to the year 2000, and half sequel, featuring the final showdown.
OMN: What are "domestic psychological suspense novels"?
WCS: I believe these days it is being called "suburban noir" in the wake of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. My books are very similar in scope and theme to that book.
OMN: Tell us something about The Perfect Stranger that isn't mentioned in the publisher's synopsis.
WCS: The heroine is a breast cancer survivor. Having lost my mom, my mother-in-law, and her sister to the disease, I celebrate the survivors in my life — my sister-in-law and several close friends. After her diagnosis, my sister-in-law turned to blogging and her journey inspired my heroine's.
OMN: On a personal level, how much of your own experience have you included in your books.
WCS: I was raised in a loving, close-knit family in a small town and now I'm a happily married suburban mom of two teenagers. Those are the worlds I know best, and they find their way into my fiction: I often write about characters whose lives are similar to my own in some way. Many of my books are set in the New York City suburbs, where I live now. My 2013 thriller The Good Sister was set in Buffalo, near where I grew up, and the heroine is also Roman Catholic and grew up in a large, extended Italian-American family as I did. But of course, setting and characterization are merely springboards for plots that generally involve extreme situations I've never experienced. That said, The Perfect Stranger is about a group of women who met online, share details of their lives, and belatedly suspect that one of them might be an imposter. That did happen to me in real life about a decade ago. It was unsettling but didn't put me in peril, as it does my heroine. In fact, like Landry, I traveled a great distance to meet my online friends in person and many remain close friends to this day.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
WCS: I'm what is known in author jargon as a "pantser" — meaning, I fly through a book by the seat of my pants, as opposed to writing from a detailed outline. I have a general idea of the storyline when I begin, and I know the ending, but as my initial characters come to life and new ones introduce themselves, they have my permission to take over. After all, it's their world. Sometimes, when I've ventured deeply into the writing process, I feel less like an omniscient creator and more like a fascinated observer.
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot point of your stories? Have you come across any particularly challenging topics?
WCS: I've traveled pretty extensively to make my settings come to life when I'm not writing about a place I know intimately. And I work hard to get every detail exactly right: I rely on a stable of professional experts that include cops and an FBI agent, I'm constantly googling, I spend hours in the library, and I have a pretty vast collection of research materials and nonfiction books.
My most challenging research involved revisiting September 11, 2001, as the backdrop for my book Nightwatcher. I live in the New York City area and went through that awful day and those that followed with a frontline vantage, so some of the research was based on firsthand observations. However, the book is about an opportunistic serial killer whose rampage is triggered by the attacks, which not only demanded psychiatric insight into the villain, but also insight into the logistics of the crimes and investigation, as well as the specific timeline of the day of the attacks and the week that followed. For example, what did the public know and precisely when did we know it? When did the phones go down? When was power restored to lower Manhattan? How far did the subway run? The plot had been triggered when I heard on our local news following the attacks that crime was almost at an unprecedented standstill in the city and it was a good thing, because the NYPD was clearly distracted and communications were disrupted. A decade later, when I set out to find out exactly how the crisis unfolded from within the NYPD and FBI — two of my main characters are an NYPD detective and an FBI profiler — I had to speak to the real deal to get their perspective.
OMN: You mention trying to make your settings come to life. How true are you to the settings of your books?
WCS: In 2006, I set out on an ongoing 50-state book tour, often accompanied by my husband and sons. My goal was to sign in every state, and that mission is nearly accomplished — but a bonus was that I fell in love with so many places along the way that I've since written many of them into my books. I owe it to my readers in those areas to get the details exactly right, though I'll often fictionalize certain aspects of the settings.
For example, The Final Victim is set in Savannah, Georgia and a fictionalized coastal island there that is more or less an amalgamation of Cumberland, Tybee and the Golden Isles, all of which I adore, but none of which would singlehandedly suit my purposes. I made at least three research trips to the region to get the details right, because even my fictionalized island setting had to feel organic. In my thriller In the Blink of an Eye and my "Lily Dale" young adult series, I write extensively about Lily Dale, New York, a unique community populated almost entirely by spiritualist mediums and very close to my hometown. I'm naturally familiar with the area in terms of visual, weather, etc. — but I spent a tremendous amount of time getting a feel for the place. After I'd written the first book and "gotten it right," so to speak, I was given what I'd consider unprecedented access into the workings of the place and the personal and professional lives of some of the mediums themselves, and was even invited to participate in a beginning mediumship class. I'll admit that I was a bit of a skeptic when I began the project but in the end, came away with a tremendous amount of respect for the place and the people who live there — not to mention, an open-minded willingness to embrace their process.
OMN: If you could travel anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, to research the setting for a book, where would it be?
WCS: Italy and Sicily, hands down. I've never been, but two of my great-grandparents were born near Rome, and the other six in Sicily. My new year's resolution this year was to delve into genealogical research and what I've uncovered so far has been fascinating. Is it inspiration for a novel down the road? Maybe, once I'm able to delve deeper, visit the real places I've been reading about and meet my family members there who are descended from the same ancestors.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests?
WCS: Travel is my passion, but I also love to entertain at home. Nothing makes me happier than to have a large group of family and friends gathered around my dining room table. That's how I grew up, and that's how I wanted my kids to grow up. I love to cook and bake, I love to go all out for the holidays — I host Thanksgiving dinner for anywhere between 30 and 40 loved ones every year and I relish every minute of it.
OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a thriller writer and thus I am also …".
WCS: I am also … a control freak, not to mention a big chicken. When I write this stuff, I'm in charge. I know who is lurking under the bed or behind the curtains, so they can't jump out and scare me, and I get to decide what happens next.
OMN: Have you always written under your real name?
WCS: Wendy Corsi Staub is my real name, but I do have a pseudonym, Wendy Markham, that I've used to write almost two dozen romance and chick lit novels. I had already broken out as a bestselling suspense novelist when I was asked to try my hand at chick lit, and I didn't want to muddy the waters. The decision to use a pseudonym was all about branding. My readers know when they pick up a Wendy Corsi Staub novel that they're going to find a suspenseful, twist-filled page turner, and that when they pick up a Wendy Markham novel they're about to tag along on a fun and sometimes funny journey toward happily ever after.
OMN: How did The Perfect Stranger come to be titled?
WCS: This is the second in a trio of books that are connected by a social networking theme, the premise that you never really know who might be masked behind a familiar screen name online. I love that the art designs for the first two are evocative of that, with strikingly murky palates. My editor loved my title for the first one — The Good Sister — so much that we knew we were sticking with it from the start, which isn't always the case. I wanted the other two titles to have the same rhythm, i.e., The (Blank Blank). The Perfect Stranger felt … well, perfect. But my original working title for the third one, which is about online dating and was originally to be called The Blind Date, sounded more like a romance novel. I retitled it just a month or so ago — now it's The Black Widow, which is creepier and fits the plot.
OMN: What kind of feedback have you received from your readers?
WCS: I am always struck by gratitude when readers take the time to let me know they've read one of my books. I've gotten my share of fan mail (both e- and snail) over the years, but these days I do most of my interaction with readers on Facebook. I welcome them to my author and personal pages and many of them have become true personal friends over the years.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
WCS: I was, like most authors, a voracious reader. I read my way through our local library. An early standout is the Little House series, plus every related biographical and historical accompaniment (I've since visited many of the house sites and remain such a Laura Ingalls Wilder buff that I attended Laurapalooza in Mankato a few years back). I also loved children's classics like Little Women and Tom Sawyer, and that biographies of famous Americans series, and edgy new YA authors like Norma Klein and Judy Blume along with "vintage" series books by Lenora Mattingly Weber and Rosamund du Jardin. Of course I inhaled every mystery I could get my hands on — not just series like Trixie Beldon and Nancy Drew but suspenseful standalones like Phyllis A. Whitney's and Lois Duncan's books. Lois was one of my favorites. Now we're Facebook Friends and I'm still starstruck.
OMN: What do you read now for pleasure?
WCS: I never allow myself to read a novel when I'm writing one, at the risk it will seep into my own work, which means I reserve them for vacation. At the moment, Harlen Coben's latest tops my To Be Read list. I do love nonfiction and read a lot of it as research and for pleasure. Right now I'm simultaneously reading Judith Mackrell's Flappers, a biography of six 1920s women, and Sarah Churchwell's Careless People, about F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Gatsby genesis.
OMN: What kind of films do you enjoy watching?
WCS: I love suspenseful thrillers, particularly when they have gothic settings or supernatural twists. Early favorites were Psycho and Halloween, Fatal Attraction, and Seven but my list also includes relatively unsung films with a good twist and a troubled protagonist, like Johnny Depp in Secret Window or Robert DeNiro in Hide and Seek. I haven't written paranormal in awhile but when I did, I was inspired by everything from The Changeling (the '80s ghost story with George C. Scott) to White Noise and The Others.
OMN: Suppose your latest thriller were to be adapted for television or film. Who so you see playing the key roles?
WCS: The Perfect Stranger's heroine, Landry Wells, is a southern woman who embodies a delicate grace and a reserve of strength — I can see either Ashley Judd or Reese Witherspoon playing her, as they've both expertly embodied similar characterizations in the past.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
WCS: Top 5 cities readers can find me signing copies of The Perfect Stranger this summer: New York City, San Antonio, Houston, Tulsa, and Saratoga Springs … with many more to come, so keep an eye on my website tour page.
OMN: What's next for you?
WCS: I've finished writing Cold-Hearted, an e-novella prequel to The Perfect Stranger, which was published as an Amazon Kindle exclusive in May. The third book in the trilogy, The Black Widow, will be published by HarperCollins in February 2015. I'm back under contract with Harper to write three more psychological suspense novels and I'm in the midst of writing the first. All three are set in the fictionalized Hudson Valley town Mundy's Landing, which is, like Fall River, Massachusetts, notorious as the setting of an unsolved century-old crime. Now blood will be shed again in Mundy's Landing, and not just one, but two age-old crimes will play a role.
— ♦ —
Wendy grew up in a large, close-knit family in rural southwestern New York State and decided she wanted to become an author while in third grade. She worked in two independent bookstores during college, then moved alone to New York City at 21 to pursue her dream. After stints as a book editor for a Manhattan publishing house and an account coordinator for a major advertising agency, she sold her first novel, the supernatural young adult thriller Summer Lightning. Early in her writing career, she published in various genres including suspense, horror, historical and contemporary romance, television and movie tie-in, and biography. She also co-authored a mystery series with the late New York City mayor Ed Koch and has ghost-written for a number of bestselling authors and celebrities.
Wendy now lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband of twenty years and their two children.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at WendyCorsiStaub.com or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
— ♦ —
The Perfect Stranger
Wendy Corsi Staub
A Suspense Thriller
