1--What is the title of your latest release?
HOW I’LL KILL YOU
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
For six years, Sissy (not her real name) has been running the cleanup to protect her serial killer sisters from getting caught each time they murder their boyfriends and skip town. Now, to test her loyalty, her sisters have demanded that Sissy also picks a lover to kill. But when she sets her sights on a charming young widower named Edison, she commits the greatest sin of all: falling in love and wanting to protect him from her sisters, and from herself.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
The story opens with Sissy trying to pick out her first mark as a serial killer. When I imagined her would-be mark entering the diner she’d been staking out, a picture emerged of a man standing against the desert backdrop. There’s something really clean and pretty about an empty desert. In a remote town where people leave their doors unlocked and everyone knows each other, and nothing ever happens, nobody would suspect that polite newcomer to be a serial killer.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
I don’t think that would be a very good idea. Writing her was like nurturing and caring for a pet shark. I was fascinated by her, and she was a joy to observe, but I wouldn’t be in a hurry to jump into that tank for a swim.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Loyal. Vulnerable. Deadly.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
Love makes you do strange things.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Both. I love to go over what I’ve written that day and dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s. But my favorite part is when others have read it and offer me a fresh perspective about what needs some adjusting. Some of my best ideas come from this feedback, and I never would have gotten there on my own.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Avocados.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
Honestly, wherever I’m sitting.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Too many to name.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The Great Gilly Hopkins. I read this as a kid, and it introduced me to the concept of the foster system, and all the ways it impacts the children involved. As an adult, I’ve seen friends open their home to foster children, and I’ve known friends who grew up in that system. All of this was a big factor in my writing of this book. The three sisters all grew up in foster care, mostly apart from one another, and I wanted to highlight how it shaped each of them in very different ways.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
So I’ve been very lucky to have found my agent back in 2008, and she’s been on this ride with me for about 15 years now. When I first found out I was going to be published back in 2010, I thought it was a mistake or maybe some sort of prank. And then throughout my time in children’s publishing, I thought it would only get easier now that I’d had some work published. But that was wrong. It took five years for me to come up with the idea for HOW I’LL KILL YOU. Five years of editorial rejections, or my agent telling me my next idea wasn’t viable. So by the time I got around to this book, I sort of held my breath and hit send. My agent called me and said that an editor at Penguin wanted to speak to me, and it was a GREAT call. I was stunned that she resonated so much with the work. A day or two later when we got the offer, I was over the moon. I called my friend, who had helped me through so many drafts over the years, and she screamed. I’m really reserved, and I don’t always show my emotions, but I felt like that scream represented how I felt.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
True Crime.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
A Korean film called A Tale of Two Sisters
15--What is your favorite season?
Fall
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I don’t like to make a big deal of it, honestly.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Crime Weekly by Stephanie Harlowe and Derek Lavasser
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Italian
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I love love love anything artsy and craftsy, particularly knitting and crocheting.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I don’t even know what to expect from myself!
Your next stay-up-all-night thriller, about identical triplets who have a nasty habit of killing their boyfriends, and what happens when the youngest commits their worst crime yet: falling in love with her mark.
Make him want you.
Make him love you.
Make him dead.
Sissy has an...interesting family. Always the careful one, always the cautious one, she has handled the cleanup while her serial killer sisters have carved a path of carnage across the U.S. Now, as they arrive in the Arizona heat, Sissy must step up and embrace the family pastime of making a man fall in love and then murdering him. Her first target? A young widower named Edison—and their mutual attraction is instant. While their relationship progresses, and most couples would be thinking about picking out china patterns and moving in together, Sissy’s family is reminding her to think about picking out burial sites and moving on.
Then something happens that Sissy never anticipated: She begins to feel protective of Edison, and before she can help it, she’s fallen in love. But the clock is ticking, and her sisters are growing restless. It becomes clear that the gravesite she chooses will hide a body no matter what happens; but if she betrays her family, will it be hers?
Thriller Serial Killer | Thriller Psychological [Berkley, On Sale: March 21, 2023, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593438305 / eISBN: 9780593438329]
Ren DeStefano lives in Connecticut, where she was born and raised. When she’s not writing thrillers, she’s listening to true crime podcasts and crocheting way too many blankets.
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