Wendy Corsi Staub on BLOOD RED, Perfect Settings, and Pivotal Moments

Fresh Fiction welcomes Wendy Corsi Staub to discuss BLOOD RED, the first book in the Mundy’s Landing trilogy!

Jen: Hi, Wendy! Rowan, the protagonist in BLOOD RED, and her son have ADHD. I really appreciate the light you bring to ADHD, and I love seeing Rowan and Mick’s relationship grow throughout the book. Can you tell us a little about how you researched ADHD?

Wendy: My research was the usual mix of nonfiction books, online resources, expert interviews, and firsthand experience. For me, crafting suspense is as much about character as it is plot. I didn’t want to make this an “issue” book, and it isn’t, per se, but the ADHD element enhances the characters’ depth and motivation. I wanted to explore why Rowan might have made the less than admirable choices she did in her youth, and why her son might be tempted to make similar choices now. People with ADHD can feel overwhelmed by even mundane aspects of a typically busy day--staying on task/deadline at school or a job, managing relationships, organizing a household, keeping a calendar, watching a clock. It’s tempting for someone confronted with all that pressure, and feeling consistently inadequate, to just give up on the daily struggle and basically check out. That’s what Rowan did in the past, and she hasn’t yet forgiven herself for what she sees as unforgivable actions. In childhood, her behavior hurt her parents; in adulthood, an old secret that comes back to haunt her might hurt her husband and children.

Jen: BLOOD RED is a story about family, from the history of the town to the relationship between sisters, husbands and wives, and parents and children. It seems family inspires both amazing and horrific actions. What do you find interesting about families and how they shape a person’s life?

Wendy: All good novels are driven by emotional conflict, and emotional conflict is inherent when you’re dealing with family. These complex relationships shape our formative years and are fraught with complications as people evolve. If you love someone—a spouse, a parent, a child, a sibling--you’re eventually, inevitably, going to be hurt by that person or hurt that person, even in small ways. Or maybe you no longer love someone you used to love or should love. Or you feel as though someone should love you more, do more, be more--or someone loves you too much, and you don’t feel deserving. Various familial bonds create tension that most of us can relate to on some level as life takes its natural course. Once these relationships—blood, or marital—are established, you’re stuck with each other until you grow up, or get divorced, or one of you dies—or you extract yourself and make peace with the fallout (or you never do). Even indifference has ramifications when it comes to family. In addition to family conflict, I frequently explore the premise that just about everyone has someone who matters so deeply that they would die for that person, or perhaps even kill to protect them.

Jen: BLOOD RED is the first book in the new Mundy’s Landing series, a town with a celebrated violent history. How did you build Mundy’s Landing and how do you keep track of all the history and residents?

Wendy: In terms of keeping track, I have a series bible of sorts, and (Mom brag alert!) my son Brody created a map for my own personal use, which Harper wound up printing in the books.

I consider setting a pivotal character in any plot. Sometimes, I use a real place as my backdrop—New York City, or Lily Dale, a spiritualist community, for example. Often, however, I create a setting, typically a small town similar to the one where I grew up. I’m fascinated by towns where people stay for generations, towns that have seen better days, towns where newcomers are greeted with a bit of wariness, and where the newcomers greet the locals with a bit of bigger-world smugness. Mundy’s Landing encompasses all of those elements…and another, far more important element: notoriety. I’ve always been fascinated by the lasting impact of violent crime—not just on people, but on place. When my husband and I moved to New England briefly as newlyweds, I found myself living just a few miles from Fall River, the faded industrial city where the notorious unsolved Lizzie Borden axe murders had taken place 100 years prior. Where there’s murder, you will always have “gawkers”—and thus, you’ll have people who capitalize on that curiosity, cultivating tourism courtesy of past tragedy—it happens in Fall River, in Salem, even right here in NYC at “ground zero.” In Mundy’s Landing, on the anniversary of notorious unsolved 1916 Serial Murders, the historical society has revitalized the local economy with tourism, offering an annual reward to anyone who can solve the cold case. The controversial event has snowballed into a carnival- esque yearly festival dubbed “Mundypalooza.” It draws an ever-transient population of amateur sleuths, the media, and of course, people who are fascinated by violent crime— or may even be budding violent criminals.

Jen: HELLO, IT’S ME premiered on the Hallmark channel in October! What was it like watching your story unfold on the screen?

Wendy: One of the greatest experiences of my life was visiting the location shoot, meeting the cast and crew, and watching them filming scenes that had originated in my own imagination. It was utterly surreal. The script was very different from the book itself, and technology has changed drastically in the decade since it was published. In the book, my widow, Annie, calls her late husband’s phone to hear his voice on the outgoing message, and one day he answers from beyond the grave, or so she believes—staticky, trying to convey a message. In the movie, that happens, too--but she also has video of him on her phone, and the producers used it in a powerful and eerie way that enhances my original concept.

As for the night it aired--my family had a huge viewing party in my hometown, but I couldn’t attend as I live 8 hours away and had a pre-dawn flight out to launch a book tour the next morning. I had two new novels being released that month, and it was a pivotal time in my career. I opted to watch alone at home with my husband and younger son and three of our closest friends. But when that Sunday finally rolled around, I was seriously ill after a week of doctor appointments, battling an antibiotic- resistant infection that would later be diagnosed as MRSA with a one-two punch of a new Lyme infection (I’ve had Lyme disease before). At that point, I was in pain and the infection was spreading but I wasn’t aware that it was so serious, and was simply trying to avoid the E.R., knowing there would be no Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel in the hospital! I’d decided to ignore doctor’s orders not to travel, as well, because I knew my readers and booksellers were counting on me to show up. So that night, the night I’d been essentially waiting for all my life, felt a little anticlimactic and was laced with an undercurrent of pain and worry. It was, of course, a thrill to see my name on the opening credits and hear the Todd Rundgren song that had inspired the title, and I loved watching the movie unfold. And a few days later, my stubborn stupidity resulted in an emergency situation while I was on the road alone halfway across the country. I had to be flown home to the hospital, canceling appearances. I’m very lucky, in retrospect, and all I cared about for a long time was getting well. It’s been a long road to recovery, and only now, after two months, do I look back and realize, in terms of the movie, that I feel a bit cheated—I rarely even get a cold, let alone life-threateningly ill. Why then? I’ve been so busy with launching the two books and a book tour that lasted into mid-November, along with trying to finish an overdue novel, that I haven’t yet had time to watch the movie again, but I intend to very soon, and this time I can savor every moment!

Jen: We are so glad you're on the road to recover! What is the last book you read and what do you want to read next?

Wendy: I’m in the middle of Alex Marwood’s fantastic suspense novel THE KILLER NEXT DOOR. Up next: I have the privilege of having just received an ARC of Alison Gaylin’s upcoming thriller WHAT REMAINS OF ME.

Jen: Can you give us a peek on what you’re working on now? What’s next for Mundy’s Landing?

Wendy: BLUE MOON, the second book, will go on sale at the end of July. It’s about a copycat killer and unfolds exactly one hundred years after the original 1916 murders. The villain, who has solved the crimes and will reenact them, is a creepy character called Holmes—a nod to detective Sherlock Holmes and to H.H. Holmes, the historic serial killer who prowled the Chicago World’s Fair and inspired DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, one of my favorite books. Now I’m about to start writing the third book in the Mundy’s Landing trilogy, BONE WHITE, which involves forensics--an archaeological artifact (a skull!) and the mystery of whether the original Mundy family, as settlers who resorted to cannibalism to survive a rugged seventeenth century winter, also resorted to murder.

In addition to Mundy’s Landing, I’ve also just launched a new traditional mystery series called Lily Dale—the first book is called NINE LIVES, and was out in October. I’ve just finished writing the second Lily Dale book, SOMETHING BURIED, SOMETHING BLUE, and it’s scheduled for release in October 2016.

About Wendy Corsi Staub

New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub is the award-winning author of more than seventy-five published novels. Under her own name, Wendy achieved New York Times bestselling status with her single title psychological suspense novels. Those novels and the women's fiction she writes under the pseudonym Wendy Markham also frequently appeared on the USA Today, Barnes and Noble Top Ten, and Bookscan bestseller lists.

Wendy’s third trilogy of suspense novels for Harpercollins features standalone titles linked by a social networking theme. They include THE GOOD SISTER (Harper, October 2013), a Suspense Magazine Best Reads of 2013 title, THE PERFECT STRANGER (July 2014) and THE BLACK WIDOW (March 2015). Earlier in 2013, she concluded a bestselling, award- winning Harpercollins trilogy: in NIGHTWATCHER (September 2012), which won the 2013 Westchester Library Association Washington Irving Prize for Fiction, the New York Times bestselling SLEEPWALKER (October 2012), her second book to final for the prestigious Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award, and SHADOWKILLER (February 2013).

Currently under contract for a fourth thriller trilogy for Harper, set in the fictionalized Hudson Valley town Mundy's Landing. It will launch in 2015 with BLOOD RED. Also in 2015, she will launch a new cozy mystery series set in the spiritualist town Lily Dale, New York.

Wendy won the 2008 RT Award for Career Achievement in Suspense and the 2007 RWA-NYC Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement. A proud recipient of the RWA Rita award, she has also been honored five times with the Westchester Library Association's Washington Irving Prize for Fiction and was recognized as one of WLA's Millennial Authors in 2000.

Her books are available in mass market or hardcover print and most are also in digital and audio format. She has published in various genres including suspense, horror, historical and contemporary romance, television and movie tie-in, and biography. She 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 lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband of twenty-three years and their two children.

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About BLOOD RED

From New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub comes the first in a terrifying new series set in a small town with a sinister secret

The razor's gleaming blade slices effortlessly through skin and tendon, and he relishes the final anguished moments of his prey. There's only one thing he prizes more: their long, silken strands of red hair. But these women are merely stand-ins . . . a prelude to his ultimate victim.

Nestled in New York's Hudson Valley, Mundy's Landing is famous for its picturesque setting—and for a century-old string of gruesome unsolved murders. Rowan returned to her hometown years ago, fleeing a momentary mistake that could have destroyed her family. Life is good here. Peaceful. Until an anonymous gift brings Rowan's fears to life again.

The town's violent history was just the beginning. Soon everyone in Mundy's Landing will know that the past cannot be forgotten or forgiven—not until every sin has been paid for, in blood.