1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE USUAL SILENCE
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A psychologist encounters a young patient who holds the secret to her past.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
My first five novels all take place in the fictional Adirondack town of Wedeskyull, and when I launched a new series, I knew Wedeskyull would be the setting for it too. It has a remoteness, a majesty and a drama embedded in the wilderness, that accentuates suspense.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Although Arles Shepherd has some traits that make her…difficult, as Meg Ryan called herself in When Harry Met Sally —for instance, Arles will tell it like it is even when others might tend toward politeness—she comes by these traits honestly. She has suffered trauma, and doesn’t feel like pulling any more punches, especially with men. But she inspires a wry laugh in me when she goes off, and I would totally hang out with her and cheer her on.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Bold. Brave. Bruised.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
That there’s a spectrum of abuse and it’s rare to find someone—especially a woman or girl—who hasn’t experienced some sort of violation at some point. And also that survivors are some of the strongest warriors on this planet.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Done. Totally and completely done. The reason comes down to this. When I am writing a first draft, I am in my happy place. Oh, is it a joy for me. Christmas morning, meeting my husband, hanging out with our kids, going on vacay, a good talk with a friend, all rolled into one giant, sprinkle-frosted cupcake. I go out to the shed where I write with wings attached to my feet, hardly able to wait to see what happens in the story that day.
Then my first batch of trusty readers, and later my editor, get back to me with needed changes, sticky or confusing parts, things they’d like to see unfold differently, and it’s like I plummet to earth from being up in the air. Revising is as sodden for me as writing the first draft is glowing. I put it off as long as I can.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
It’d be for breakfast, a chocolate-almond croissant or kouign amann, this incredible pastry.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
The shed I write in has heat, a necessity seven or eight months out of the year where I live, but is otherwise pretty spare. I walk across a meadow to reach it, and inside is a desk, chair, filing cabinet, plus a loft I can just sit upright in at the center. I organize papers and plot points up there. But there’s no wall and I’m always afraid of drifting off to sleep and falling!
10--Who is an author you admire?
So many of my peers. Too many to name, and I’d be afraid of leaving someone out. So I’ll say Stephen King. His imagination is transcendent, and for me the best writing comes down to imagination and originality. Also he escapes the ordinary conventions of genre, busts out of them like the Hulk does his clothes.
Back in the day, people wanted to classify SK as a horror writer, and then dismiss him for it. The laugh’s on them because some of the greatest “literary” fiction of all time belongs to the horror genre—think Dostoevsky or Poe. I’d put Stephen King right alongside them.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
BOOKS changed my life. No one book, but the fact that they existed, provided shelter and respite and even safety. I hid in books as a child. They formed walls around the difficult parts of my life. I remember in 6th grade, all my friends turned on me. This is a fairly ubiquitous experience for middle school girls, and it can be vicious and brutal. In class, I could muddle through, pretend that no one was talking to me because the teacher was there. But at lunch a spotlight illuminated the fact that I had no place even to sit. So I fled to the library. I wasn’t allowed to be there during lunch period, but the librarian pretended not to see me huddled in the stacks, reading. I will forever love that woman. And the books I lost myself in as well.
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.
I had a very long road to publication. I wrote seven novels over the course of ten years before my eighth finally sold and became my debut. That book had been roundly rejected by publishers before being offered a deal from an imprint that had turned the same book down six months before. When an agent goes out on submission with a manuscript, they have to choose one editor at each imprint or house they believe the book is right for. If that editor passes, the book is dead in the water there, cannot be submitted again. But here’s how my book made it into a different editor’s hands, one who was high enough up on the food chain that she could make me an offer.
Throughout my long years of trying to get published, I’d been reaching out to authors whose work I admired. Letting them know how much their books meant to me, and supporting them in ways that I could. One such author was good enough to read my unsold novel, to find it gripping, and pass it on to her high-ranking editor, who loved it too.
The day that I got the call from my agent saying I had finally gotten a book deal after over a decade of trying, I was Swiffing my house.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
As I hope is true of my own work, I tend to like books that blend genres. Especially suspense, horror, and psychological thriller, all with an emphasis on wordsmithing, on beautiful writing, and a degree of cultural meaning or resonance. Luckily, I think the bounds (and binds) of genre are breaking down these days and more and more writers are creating books like that.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Can I Letterbox it and give four?
- Shawshank Redemption based on the Stephen King novella
- Witness with Harrison Ford
- Fargo the OG Coen Brothers one
- Flight Plan a lesser known gem with Jodie Foster
15--What is your favorite season?
Ha, it’d be funny if I asked to give four here too, huh? But it’s autumn.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
If I can be with my husband and kids, someplace novel and new where I don’t have to make the bed, and if there’s nature and great food, I am all good celebrating the passage of another year.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
The Any Given Runway podcast has a very cool array of guests. And I also just binged Eric on Netflix.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I love almost every kind, but dim sum is worth driving for.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Read, bike, hike, kayak, spend time with my family doing those things and heckling bad TV
20--What can readers expect from you next?
The second Arles Shepherd thriller, THE FAIREST, is due out September 2025!
In it Arles takes care of something that’s needed doing for over thirty years. I couldn’t believe how it came about.
And I wrote it.
Arles Shepherd #1
A psychologist haunted by childhood trauma must unearth all that is buried in her past in this twisting, lyrical novel of suspense by Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author Jenny Milchman.
Psychologist Arles Shepherd treats troubled children, struggling with each case to recover from her own traumatic past, much of which she’s lost to the shadows of memory. Having just set up a new kind of treatment center in the remote Adirondack wilderness, Arles longs to heal one patient in particular: a ten-year-old boy who has never spoken a word—or so his mother, Louise, believes.
Hundreds of miles away, Cass Monroe is living a parent’s worst nightmare. His twelve-year-old daughter has vanished on her way home from school. With no clues, no witnesses, and no trail, the police are at a dead end. Fighting a heart that was already ailing, and struggling to keep both his marriage and himself alive, Cass turns to a pair of true-crime podcasters for help.
Arles, Louise, and Cass will soon find their lives entangled in ways none of them could have anticipated. And when the collision occurs, a quarter-century-old secret will be forced out of hiding. Because nothing screams louder than silence.
Thriller [Thomas & Mercer, On Sale: October 1, 2024, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781662518423 / ]
Jenny Milchman is the Mary Higgins Clark award winning and USA Today bestselling author of five novels. Her work has been praised by the New York Times, CrimeReads, New York Journal of Books, San Francisco Journal of Books and more; earned spots on Best Of lists including PureWow, POPSUGAR, the Strand, Suspense, and Big Thrill magazines; and received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist and Shelf Awareness. Four of her novels have been Indie Next Picks. Jenny's short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies as well as Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and a recent piece on book touring appeared in the Agatha award winning collection Promophobia. Jenny's new novel, The Usual Silence, already topping Amazon charts, is the first in a series featuring Arles Shepherd, a psychologist who has the power to save the most troubled and vulnerable children, but must battle demons of her own to do it. Jenny is a member of the Rogue Women Writers and lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.
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